And the peasant looked at the poet and he said, “ls not this a strange story?”
And the poet answered him not, but he walked away saying in his soul, “To be sure, nine lives have we, nine lives to be sure. And we shall die nine times, nine times shall we die. Perhaps it were better to have but one life, caught in a trap—the life of a peasant with a bit of cheese for the last meal. And yet, are we not kin unto the lions of the desert and the jungle?”
And old man of the sea once said to me, “It was thirty years ago that a sailor was away with my daughter. And I cursed them both in my heart, for of all the world I loved but my daughter.
“Not long after that, the sailor youth went down with his ship to the bottom of the sea, and with him my lovely daughter was lost unto me.
“Now therefore behold in me the murderer of a youth and a maid. It was my curse that destroyed them. And now on my way to the grave I seek God’s forgiveness.”