We fell to talking about the Bible. And says she: 'What did Cain to
Abel?'
'He knocked him over,' I replied, liking sometimes to use such idioms,
with the double object of teaching and perplexing her.
'Over what?' says she.
'Over his heels,' said I.
'I do not complehend!'
'He killed him, then.'
'That I know. But how did Abel feel when he was killed? What is it to be
_killed_?'
'Well,' said I, 'you have seen bones all around you, and the bones of
your mother, and you can feel the bones in your fingers. Your fingers
will become mere bone after you are dead, as die you must. Those bones
which you see around you, are, of course, the bones of the men of whom
we often speak: and the same thing happened to them which happens to a
fish or a butterfly when you catch them, and they lie all still.'
'And the men and the butterfly feel the same after they are dead?'
'Precisely the same. They lie in a deep drowse, and dream a
nonsense-dream.'
'That is not dleadful. I thought that it was much more dleadful.
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