Often they had
not seen each other for months at a time. Indeed, now that he thought
of it, Hank was generally away; and he could not remember that they had
ever exchanged letters. Yet even so there had been a bond between them
which had never broken. And now Hank had dropped out.
Kirk began to think about death. As with most men of his temperament,
it was a subject on which his mind had seldom dwelt, never for any
length of time. His parents had died when he was too young to
understand; and circumstances had shielded him from the shadow of the
great mystery. Birth he understood; it had forced itself into the
scheme of his life; but death till now had been a stranger to him.
The realization of it affected him oddly. In a sense, he found it
stimulating; not stimulating as birth had been, but more subtly. He
could recall vividly the thrill that had come to him with the birth of
his son. For days he had walked as one in a trance. The world had
seemed unreal, like an opium-smoker's dream. There had been magic
everywhere.
But death had exactly the opposite effect. It made everything curiously
real--himself most of all. He had the sensation, as he thought of Hank,
of knowing himself for the first time. Somehow he felt strengthened,
braced for the fight, as a soldier might who sees his comrade fall at
his side.
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