“You have diagnosed my case, and you think it’s very wrong of me to drink absinthe.”

“You’ve evidently got cirrhosis of the liver,” said Philip.

“Evidently.”

He looked at Philip in the way which had formerly had the power of making him feel incredibly narrow.  It seemed to point out that what he was thinking was distressingly obvious; and when you have agreed with the obvious what more is there to say?  Philip changed the topic.

“When are you going back to Paris?”

“I’m not going back to Paris.  I’m going to die.”

The very naturalness with which he said this startled Philip.  He thought of half a dozen things to say, but they seemed futile.  He knew that Cronshaw was a dying man.

“Are you going to settle in London then?” he asked lamely.

“What is London to me?  I am a fish out of water.  I walk through the crowded streets, men jostle me, and I seem to walk in a dead city.  I felt that I couldn’t die in Paris.  I wanted to die among my own people.  I don’t know what hidden instinct drew me back at the last.”

Philip knew of the woman Cronshaw had lived with and the two draggle-tailed children, but Cronshaw had never mentioned them to him, and he did not like to speak of them.  He wondered what had happened to them.

“I don’t know why you talk of dying,” he said.

“I had pneumonia a couple of winters ago, and they told me then it was a miracle that I came through.  It appears I’m extremely liable to it, and another bout will kill me.”

“Oh, what nonsense!  You’re not so bad as all that.  You’ve only got to take precautions.  Why don’t you give up drinking?”

“Because I don’t choose.  It doesn’t matter what a man does if he’s ready to take the consequences.  Well, I’m ready to take the consequences.  You talk glibly of giving up drinking, but it’s the only thing I’ve got left now.  What do you think life would be to me without it?  Can you understand the happiness I get out of my absinthe?  I yearn for it; and when I drink it I savour every drop, and afterwards I feel my soul swimming in ineffable happiness.  It disgusts you.  You are a puritan and in your heart you despise sensual pleasures.  Sensual pleasures are the most violent and the most exquisite.  I am a man blessed with vivid senses, and I have indulged them with all my soul.  I have to pay the penalty now, and I am ready to pay.”

Philip looked at him for a while steadily.

“Aren’t you afraid?”

For a moment Cronshaw did not answer.  He seemed to consider his reply.

“Sometimes, when I’m alone.”  He looked at Philip.  “You think that’s a condemnation?  You’re wrong.  I’m not afraid of my fear.  It’s folly, the Christian argument that you should live always in view of your death.  The only way to live is to forget that you’re going to die.  Death is unimportant.  The fear of it should never influence a single action of the wise man.  I know that I shall die struggling for breath, and I know that I shall be horribly afraid.  I know that I shall not be able to keep myself from regretting bitterly the life that has brought me to such a pass; but I disown that regret.  I now, weak, old, diseased, poor, dying, hold still my soul in my hands, and I regret nothing.”