I did not move, for I did not want to die, and intended to use every means in my power to defer the end.

Death, which after the haemorrhage had appeared as the beautiful winged boy who is so easily mistaken for the god of love--Death, who had incited me to write saucy, defiant verses about him, now confronted me as a hollow-eyed, hideous skeleton.
In the guise of the most appalling figure among the apocalyptic riders of Cornelius, who had used me when a child for the model of a laughing angel, he seemed to be stretching his hand toward me from his emaciated steed.

The poppy leaf was not to flutter toward the sky, but to wither in the dust.
Once, several weeks after our return home, I saw the eyes of my mother, who rarely wept, reddened with tears after a conversation with Dr.
Romberg.

When I asked my friend and physician if he would advise me to make my will, he said that it could do no harm.
Soon after Hans Geppert, who meanwhile had become a notary, arrived with two witnesses, odd-looking fellows who belonged to the working class, and I made my will in due form.

The certainty that when I was no more what I possessed would be divided as I wished was a ray of light in this gloomy time.
No one knows the solemnity of Death save the person whom his cold hand has touched, and I felt it for weeks upon my heart.
What days and nights these were! Yet in the presence of the open grave from which I shrank something took place which deeply moved my whole nature, gave it a new direction, led me to self-examination, and thence to a knowledge of my own character which revealed many surprising and unpleasing things.