Whereon each one of us may write
His word or two, and then comes night.
Lowell.
“Let me recall the last happy day of my life. It was Sunday, October 19, 1890. I went out to Communion and Mass at eight o’clock, came back, and kissed my husband at his writing. He was engaged on the last page of The Scented Garden, which had occupied him seriously only six actual months, not thirty years, as the press said. He said to me, ‘To-morrow I shall have finished this, and I promise you that I will never write another book on this subject. I will take to our biography.’ And I said, ‘What a happiness that will be!’ He took his usual walk of nearly two hours in the morning, breakfasting well.
“That afternoon we sat together writing an immense number of letters, which, when we had finished, I put on the hall table to be posted on Monday morning. Each letter breathed of life and hope and happiness; for we were making our preparations for a delightful voyage to Greece and Constantinople, which was to last from November 15 to March 15. We were to return to Trieste from March 15 till July 1. He would be a free man on March 19, and those three months and a half we were to pack up, make our preparations, wind up all our affairs, send our heavy baggage to England, and, bidding adieu to Trieste, we were to pass July and August in Switzerland, arrive in England in September, 1891, look for a little flat and a little cottage, unpack, and settle ourselves to live in England.
“The only difference remarkable on this particular Sunday, October 19, was, that whereas my husband was dreadfully punctual, and with military precision as the clock struck we had to be in our places at the table at half-past seven, he seemed to dawdle about the room putting things away. He said to me, ‘You had better go in to table’; and I answered, ‘No, darling, I will wait for you’; and we went in together. He dined well, but sparingly; he laughed, talked, and joked. We discussed our future plans and preparations, and he desired me on the morrow to write to Sir Edmund Monson, and several other letters, to forward the preparations. We talked of our future life in London, and so on. About half-past nine he got up and went to his bedroom, accompanied by the doctor and myself, and we assisted him at his toilet. I then said the night prayers to him, and whilst I was saying them a dog began that dreadful howl which the superstitious say denotes a death. It disturbed me so dreadfully that I got up from the prayers, went out of the room, and called the porter to go out and see what was the matter with the dog. I then returned, and finished the prayers, after which he asked me for a novel. I gave him Robert Buchanan’s Martyrdom of Madeleine. I kissed him and got into bed, and he was reading in bed.
“At twelve o’clock, midnight, he began to grow uneasy. I asked him what ailed him, and he said, ‘I have a gouty pain in my foot. When did I have my last attack?’ I referred to our journals, and found it was three months previously that he had had a real gout, and I said, ‘You know that the doctor considers it a safety-valve that you should have a healthy gout in your feet every three months for your head and your general health. Your last attack was three months ago at Zurich, and your next will be due next January.’ He was then quite content; and though he moaned and was restless, he tried to sleep, and I sat by him magnetizing the foot locally, as I had the habit of doing, to soothe the pain, and it gave him so much relief that he dozed a little, and said, ‘I dreamt I saw our little flat in London, and it had quite a nice large room in it.’ Between whiles he laughed and talked and spoke of our future plans, and even joked.
“At four o’clock he got more uneasy, and I said I should go for the doctor. He said, ‘Oh no, don’t disturb him; he cannot do anything.’ And I answered, ‘What is the use of keeping a doctor if he is not to be called when you are suffering?’ The doctor was there in a few moments, felt his heart and pulse, found him in perfect order—that the gout was healthy. He gave him some medicine, and went back to bed. About half-past four he complained that there was no air. I flew back for the doctor, who came and found him in danger. I went at once, called up all the servants, sent in five directions for a priest, according to the directions I had received, hoping to get one; and the doctor, and I and Lisa[40] under the doctor’s orders, tried every remedy and restorative, but in vain.
“What harasses my memory, what I cannot bear to think of, what wakes me with horror every morning from four till seven, when I get up, is that for a minute or two he kept on crying, ‘Oh, Puss, chloroform—ether—or I am a dead man!’ My God! I would have given him the blood out of my veins, if it would have saved him; but I had to answer, ‘My darling, the doctor says it will kill you; he is doing all he knows.’ I was holding him in my arms, when he got heavier and heavier, and more insensible, and we laid him on the bed. The doctor said he was quite insensible, and assured me he did not suffer. I trust not; I believe it was a clot of blood to the heart.
“My one endeavour was to be useful to the doctor, and not impede his actions by my own feelings. The doctor applied the electric battery to the heart, and kept it there till seven o’clock; and I knelt down at his left side, holding his hand and pulse, and prayed my heart out to God to keep his soul there (though he might be dead in appearance) till the priest arrived. I should say that he was insensible in thirty minutes from the time he said there was no air.