November 3.—“Mendelssohn better in the morning. In the afternoon another apoplectic stroke, depriving him of all consciousness. In the evening Charlotte and I, Madame Frege, David, and Schleinitz remained in the house till eleven o’clock.”
“Thursday, November 4.—Before the day dawned my Felix had been to inquire, but could only bring us the most disheartening news.”
The end was approaching. Moscheles’s own words best describe the incidents of this, Mendelssohn’s last day. In the anteroom of the death-chamber he wrote:[56]—
“Nature! demandest thou thy rights? Angels above, in heavenly spheres, do ye claim your brother whom ye regard as your own, as one too high for intercourse with us ordinary mortals? We still possess him, we still cling to him; we hope, by God’s grace, to keep still longer amongst us one who has ever shone upon us, a pattern of all that is noble and beautiful, the glory of our century! To thee, O Creator, it is known why Thou hast lodged those treasures of heart and soul in so frail a tenement, that now threatens to dissolve! Can our prayers win from Thee the life of our brother? What a glorious work hast Thou accomplished in him! Thou hast shown us how high he may soar heavenwards, how near he may approach Thee! Oh, suffer him to enjoy his earthly reward,—the blessings of a husband and father, the ties of friendship, the homage of the world!”
“Noon.—The doctors Hammer, Clarus, and Walther watch in turn by his bedside. Schleinitz writes out a bulletin that gives no hope. Dr. Frege and his wife and I are waiting anxiously near the sick-room. The doctors say that if no fresh attack on the nerves or lungs supervenes, the apparent calm may lead to a happy turn....
“Midnight.—From two o’clock in the afternoon, at the hour when another paralytic stroke was dreaded, he gradually began to sink; he lay perfectly quiet, breathing heavily. In the evening we were all by turns assembled around his bed, contemplating the peaceful, seraphic expression on his countenance. The memory of that scene sank deeply into our hearts. Cécile bore up with fortitude under the crushing weight of her sorrow; she never wavered, never betrayed her struggle by a word. The children had been sent to bed at nine o’clock. Paul Mendelssohn stood transfixed with grief at the bedside of his dying brother. Madame Dirichlet and the Schuncks were expected in vain,—Dr. Härtel had travelled to Berlin to fetch them and Dr. Schönlein, but they could not arrive in time to witness the closing scene.
“From nine o’clock in the evening we expected every moment would be the last; a light seemed to hover over his features, but the struggle for life became feebler and fainter. Cécile, in floods of tears, kneeled at his pillow; Paul Mendelssohn, David, Schleinitz, and I, in deep and silent prayer, surrounded his death-bed. As his breathing gradually became slower and slower, my mind involuntarily recurred to Beethoven’s Funeral March, in the ‘Eroica Symphony,’—to that passage where he seems to depict the hero, as he lies breathing his last, the sands of life gradually running out:
musical notation
“The suppressed sobs of the bystanders and my own hot tears recalled me to the dread reality.... At twenty-four minutes past nine he expired with a deep sigh. The doctor persuaded the widowed Cécile to leave the room. I knelt down at the bedside, my prayers followed heavenwards the soul of the departed, and I pressed one last kiss on that noble forehead before it grew cold in the damp dew of death.”