A Book of Burlesques | Page 2

to-day and gone to-morrow.
(A pause. Feet are shuffled. Somewhere a door bangs.)
FOURTH PALLBEARER
(Brightly.) He looks elegant. I hear he never suffered none.
FIFTH PALLBEARER
No; he went too quick. One minute he was alive and the next minute he was dead.
SIXTH PALLBEARER
Think of it: dead so quick!
FIRST PALLBEARER
Gone!
SECOND PALLBEARER
Passed away!
THIRD PALLBEARER
Well, we all have to go some time.
FOURTH PALLBEARER
Yes; a man never knows but what his turn'll come next.
FIFTH PALLBEARER
You can't tell nothing by looks. Them sickly fellows generally lives to be old.
SIXTH PALLBEARER
Yes; the doctors say it's the big stout person that goes off the soonest. They say typhord never kills none but the healthy.
FIRST PALLBEARER
So I have heered it said. My wife's youngest brother weighed 240 pounds. He was as strong as a mule. He could lift a sugar-barrel, and then some. Once I seen him drink damn near a whole keg of beer. Yet it finished him in less'n three weeks--and he had it mild.
SECOND PALLBEARER
It seems that there's a lot of it this fall.
THIRD PALLBEARER
Yes; I hear of people taken with it every day. Some say it's the water. My brother Sam's oldest is down with it.
FOURTH PALLBEARER
I had it myself once. I was out of my head for four weeks.
FIFTH PALLBEARER
That's a good sign.
SIXTH PALLBEARER
Yes; you don't die as long as you're out of your head.
FIRST PALLBEARER
It seems to me that there is a lot of sickness around this year.
SECOND PALLBEARER
I been to five funerals in six weeks.
THIRD PALLBEARER
I beat you. I been to six in five weeks, not counting this one.
FOURTH PALLBEARER
A body don't hardly know what to think of it scarcely.
FIFTH PALLBEARER
That's what I always say: you can't tell who'll be next.
SIXTH PALLBEARER
Ain't it true! Just think of him.
FIRST PALLBEARER
Yes; nobody woulda picked him out.
SECOND PALLBEARER
Nor my brother John, neither.
THIRD PALLBEARER
Well, what must be must be.
FOURTH PALLBEARER
Yes; it don't do no good to kick. When a man's time comes he's got to go.
FIFTH PALLBEARER
We're lucky if it ain't us.
SIXTH PALLBEARER
So I always say. We ought to be thankful.
FIRST PALLBEARER
That's the way I always feel about it.
SECOND PALLBEARER
It wouldn't do him no good, no matter what we done.
THIRD PALLBEARER
We're here to-day and gone to-morrow.
FOURTH PALLBEARER
But it's hard all the same.
FIFTH PALLBEARER
It's hard on her.
SIXTH PALLBEARER
Yes, it is. Why should he go?
FIRST PALLBEARER
It's a question nobody ain't ever answered.
SECOND PALLBEARER
Nor never won't.
THIRD PALLBEARER
You're right there. I talked to a preacher about it once, and even he couldn't give no answer to it.
FOURTH PALLBEARER
The more you think about it the less you can make it out.
FIFTH PALLBEARER
When I seen him last Wednesday he had no more ideer of it than what you had.
SIXTH PALLBEARER
Well, if I had my choice, that's the way I would always want to die.
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 nobody 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 Homo, 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 brütest mir noch ein Ei, ein Basilisken-Ei, aus deinem langen Jammer aus.
II
Was schleicht Zarathustra entlang dem Berge?--
III
Misstrauisch, geschwürig, düster, ein langer Lauerer,-- aber pl?tzlich, ein Blitz, hell, furchtbar, ein Schlag gen Himmel aus dem Abgrund: --dem Berge selber schüttelt sich das Eingeweide....
IV
Wo Hass und