Page:The Makropoulos Secret (1925).pdf/16

 Bearing testimony. Elena-Emilia gives also verdict. Youth in Kristina; age in Sendorf; perception, understanding, sympathy and release in the others—affirm it. In the candle, the formula burns to ashes. From the window those ashes are scattered to the winds. Humanity as well as Elena Makropoulos is released from the eternities, rebound in the mortalities. It has its will; it is content, though the ironies try to laugh upon the woman’s lips. “And what deterred you,” the others have asked her, “from finding your own means of escape?” She answers: “I was afraid of death.” In Sæcula Sæculorum.

Author:Henry Taylor Parker.

May 7, 1924