Ashes by John Galsworthy

To the Inexorable, what need of incense-burning, when from the ashes / of human life is ever rising a measured stream of smoke?

I, Paul Marylski, outcast and rolling stone, am sitting in my old arm-chair on this accursed English day of yours, the year of little grace 189. Forty years have I rolled, and have gathered no moss. Body and soul am I like unto the battered old friend I sit in. In sooth, I think as I crouch here over my fire, that I am but as the dead, man without hope, without desire, without a future, without a present -- can he live? Yes; for he is sitting here to-night like an old dog, with the same folds in the cheeks, and the same yearning in the eyes. A thousand curses on the Congo and its deathly fever! -- but for that might I still be man with future before me, but who can stand against this devil's gnawing that never ceases? -- not I, for one. I have some friends, a sweet country family, such as you have in England; they interest themselves in me, in _me_. I am grateful. The ‘mother' tells me -- ‘Cheer up; this life is but a stage; it will soon pass -- then, think of the future, the glorious after-life. ' She believes in this firmly -- why not? Temperament, dear lady, all temperament! I can no more believe it than I can still this clawing at my vitals. Why do I live? _Pardieu_, I know not, having had my day -- and what a day! Do they not say, ‘Every dog must have his day'? _Tiens_, this dog has had his, and it is that, and that alone, which keeps him alive. Even now, as I sit watching the dying embers, what pictures can I not see through the smoke that wreathes from my cigarette.