But what is death?
And the answer was: I do not know.
These brief reflections were enough for me to come to myself, and with a bitter laugh at my cowardice I removed the fatal noose from my neck.
Just as I had been ready to sob for grief a minute before, so now I laughed--I laughed like a madman, realising that another trap, placed before me by derisive fate, had so brilliantly been evaded by me.

Oh, how many traps there are in the life of man! Like a cunning fisherman, fate catches him now with the alluring bait of some truth, now with the hairy little worm of dark falsehood, now with the phantom of life, now with the phantom of death.
My dear young man, my fascinating fool, my charming silly fellow--who told you that our prison ends here, that from one prison you did not fall into another prison, from which it will hardly be possible for you to run away?
You were too hasty, my friend, you forgot to ask me something else--I would have told it to you.

I would have told you that omnipotent law reigns over that which you call non-existence and death just as it reigns over that which you call life and existence.

Only the fools, dying, believe that they have made an end of themselves--they have ended but one form of themselves, in order to assume another form immediately.
Thus I reflected, laughing at the foolish suicide, the ridiculous destroyer of the fetters of eternity.

And this is what I said addressing myself to my two silent roommates hanging motionlessly on the white wall of my cell: "I believe and confess that our prison is immortal.