He could only sleep now with the help of injected morphine, and he waited with impatience for the hour when a new supply should give him some relief, and a factitious drowsiness should make him forget his suffering.
In proportion as digestion became more difficult his appetite became more capricious. He wanted to have dishes made which reminded him of the cooking of his village; then, when they were brought to him, he turned away disgusted, without tasting them. “No,” said he, pushing aside the plate, “that’s not it; to have it good it must be made down there, prepared by the Damvillers people, with home-grown vegetables.” And while he was speaking one saw by his moist eyes a sudden and painful calling up of the impressions of former days; he saw all at once the old home, the gardens and orchards of Damvillers at the fall of evening, the peaceful village interiors at the time when the fires were lighted for the evening meal.
As the season advanced his strength decreased. In September his brother was obliged to take him on his back to carry him to the carriage, and he drove about slowly for an hour in the avenues of the Bois. He could not read, and was easily wearied by conversation. His nerves were become very irritable, and the slightest odours were disagreeable to his sense of smell. His courage seemed to forsake him; at the same time he was always wanting to know what others thought of his illness. His blue eyes with their penetrating look anxiously searched the eyes of his friends, and of his mother, who never left his side. The heroic little woman did her best to dissimulate, and was always smiling and affecting a cheerfulness and a confidence which were painful to see; then, when she could escape for a moment, she hastened into the neighbouring room and melted into tears.
For months this cruel agony was thus prolonged. Bastien was only a shadow of himself. On the 9th of December, during great part of the night, he talked of Damvillers with his mother and his brother. Then at about four in the morning he said to them, with a kiss, “Come, it is time for children to sleep.” All three slept. Two hours later Mme. B. was awakened by Jules, who asked for something to drink; she rose, and brought him a cup of tea, and was alarmed on finding that the invalid groped for the cup to guide it to his lips; he could no longer see; but he still spoke and even joked about the difficulty he had in moving his limbs.
Shortly afterwards he dozed, and sliding gently from sleep into death, he expired at six in the evening, December 10, 1884.
I saw him next day lying on his mortuary bed, in the midst of a thick covering of flowers. His poor emaciated face, with its sightless and deeply sunk orbits, made him look like one of those Spanish figures of Christ, fiercely cut in wood by Montanez.
On the 12th of December a long train of friends and admirers accompanied his remains to the Eastern Railway Station, whence it was conveyed to the Meuse. The next day, Sunday, the whole population of Damvillers waited at the entrance of the town for the funeral carriage, which brought back Bastien-Lepage to his native place.
The sad procession advanced slowly on that road from Verdun where the painter had loved to walk at twilight, talking with his friends. A pale mist blotted out those hills and woods whose familiar outlines he had so often reproduced. The cortège stopped before the little church where he had intended painting his Burial of a Young Girl. The morning was showery; the wreaths and festoons of flowers, placed the night before on his coffin, were revived and refreshed by the moisture; when they were heaped up upon the grave they seemed to come to life again, and to send out with their renewed perfume a last adieu from Paris to the painter of the peasants of the Meuse.
VI.
On the 17th of the following March, at the Hôtel de Chimay, now connected with the École des Beaux Arts, the exhibition of the works of him whom we have surnamed the “Primitif” was opened. All the works of Bastien, with the exception of the Jeanne d’Arc, were collected there.