A Book of Burlesques Part 3

FIRST PALLBEARER

Yes; that's what _I_ say. I am with you there.

SECOND PALLBEARER

Yes; you're right, both of you. It don't do no good to lay sick for months, with doctors' bills eatin' you up, and then have to go anyhow.

THIRD PALLBEARER

No; when a thing has to be done, the best thing to do is to get it done and over with.

FOURTH PALLBEARER

That's just what I said to my wife when I heerd.

FIFTH PALLBEARER

But n.o.body hardly thought that _he_ woulda been the next.

SIXTH PALLBEARER

No; but that's one of them things you can't tell.

FIRST PALLBEARER

You never know _who'll_ be the next.

SECOND PALLBEARER

It's lucky you don't.

THIRD PALLBEARER

I guess you're right.

FOURTH PALLBEARER

That's what my grandfather used to say: you never know what is coming.

FIFTH PALLBEARER

Yes; that's the way it goes.

SIXTH PALLBEARER

First one, and then somebody else.

FIRST PALLBEARER

Who it'll be you can't say.

SECOND PALLBEARER

_I_ always say the same: we're here to-day----

THIRD PALLBEARER

(_Cutting in jealousy and humorously._) And to-morrow we ain't here.

(_A subdued and sinister snicker. It is followed by sudden silence.

There is a shuffling of feet in the front room, and whispers. Necks are craned. The pallbearers straighten their backs, hitch their coat collars and pull on their black gloves. The clergyman has arrived. From above comes the sound of weeping._)

_II.--FROM THE PROGRAMME OF A CONCERT_

_II.--From The Programme of a Concert_

_"Ruhm und Ewigkeit" (Fame and Eternity), a symphonic poem in B flat minor, Opus 48, by Johann Sigismund Timotheus Albert Wolfgang Kraus (1872-)._

Kraus, like his eminent compatriot, Dr. Richard Strauss, has gone to Friedrich Nietzsche, the laureate of the modern German tone-art, for his inspiration in this gigantic work. His text is to be found in Nietzsche's _Ecce h.o.m.o_, which was not published until after the poet's death, but the composition really belongs to _Also sprach Zarathustra_, as a glance will show:

I

_Wie lange sitzest du schon auf deinem Missgeschick?

Gieb Acht! Du brutest mir noch ein Ei, ein Basilisken-Ei, aus deinem langen Jammer aus._

II

_Was schleicht Zarathustra entlang dem Berge?--_