The gentleman over there orders another pint,

well, that’s nice, then I don’t need to worry

if I have another myself in due course.

Trouble is, one straightaway thinks one is addicted,

I even read in an American magazine

that every cigarette you smoke takes thirty-six minutes off your life,

I don’t believe that, presumably it’s the chewing gum industry

that’s behind that, or Coca-Cola.

A normal life and a normal death—

I don’t know what they’re good for. Even a normal life

ends in an unhealthy death. Altogether death

doesn’t have a lot to do with health and sickness,

it merely uses them for its own purposes.

What do you mean: death doesn’t have a lot to do with sickness?

I mean this: a lot of people get sick without dying,

so what we have before us is something different,

the introduction of a variable,

a source of uncertainty,

not an open and shut case,

not the grim reaper mounted on a bag of bones,

but something that observes, sees round corners, exercises restraint,

and musically plays a different tune.