What do we see?  A man sits near the dying woman.  He lifts up his hands and stares; it is the medicine-man, and he has done his utmost; he is powerless, his art useless.  What he did was done in the conviction that spiritual influences, however grossly conceived and coarsely applied, could compel the soul to master the body’s ailment, could prop up the sinking machinery and strengthen the motive power without regard to its decaying tools.  To-day, provided the body is helped along with physical means, the soul would remain against its will, or against the will of what stands in closer relation to it originally than the form which it has animated here beneath.  If mind and body were one, either method could be successful.  Neither is, when death steps in to proclaim their separation.

By the side of the shaman a young man leans against the wall.  He is well-built and lithe.  His head is bent so low in grief that the dark hair streams over his face, concealing his features.  The youth is mourning, mourning deeply.  Over what?  Over the body or its sufferings?  No, he mourns because of an impending separation.  From what?  From the form of her whom he will miss?  No, for that form will not leave this earth in substance.  He mourns for something that goes beyond his grasp, and remains beyond it so long as he himself moves upon this earth.

Mitsha also is here.  She has properly no right to be for she does not belong to the same clan as Say; but she has remained, and nobody has objected to her presence.  She has not craved permission, it has come by tacit consent.  Mitsha has felt that Say was approaching the point when the soul breaks loose and flits to another realm, and she wishes to remain with her to the last.  If that soul should drop like a shrivelled fruit, to decay and perish forever, nobody would bend to gaze fondly at it.  But if it flutter upward, we follow it with our eyes as long as we can, unconsciously thinking, “How happy you are, free now; and how much I wish to be with you.”  The very grief caused by the separation, the longing, the clinging to him or to her whom we know to be leaving us, are signs that there is something beyond, something which we are loath to lose but sure to find again elsewhere, Mitsha has known Okoya’s mother but little, but the fearful distress of the past two months has brought them together at last.  Now the girl weeps, but not loudly, at the thought of separation.  If death be annihilation, tears are of no avail.  But if death be a promise of life in another condition, then, child, well may you shed tears, for your grief is a token of hope.

Shyuote stands at the foot of the beam, gaping.  His mother lies so still, she breathes so loudly.  How well she must be sleeping!  Why did they call him down at all?  It would have been much nicer upstairs where there are Koshare to be seen.  He knows well enough that sanaya is sick, but as long as she has such good rest she ought to feel well.  A child is not afraid of a dying mother, and when she has breathed her last is convinced that she must be happy.  To be well is compatible in the minds of children only with life.  Death therefore appears to them as a step into a better and more beautiful existence.  Children and fools tell the truth.  The gleam of light which from dying Say is cast on her unruly son is but the rosy hue of a hopeful twilight.