“Ho! Ho! You worm of my folly,” laughed the hollow skull. “I am alive still, though I am dead; and you are dead, though you’re alive. For life is beyond your mirrors and your waters. It’s at the bottom of your pond; it’s in the body of your sun; it’s in the dust of your star-spaces; it’s in the eyes of weasels and the noses of rats and the pricks of nettles and the tongues of vipers and the spawn of frogs and the slime of snails. Life’s in me still, you worm of my folly, and girls’ flesh is sweet forever and ever; and honey is sticky and tears are salt and yellowhammers’ eggs have mischievous crooked scrawls!”

Wolf saw himself rising erect upon his tail as he heard these words.

“You lie to yourself, Truepenny! You lie with the old, hot, shuffling, fever-smitten lie. It’s the foam-bubbles of your life-mania that you think so real. They’re no more real than the dreams of the plantains that grow over your grave!”