“No,” he said, “it must have stopped. Four o’clock struck some time ago.” And he smiled. “Is it not strange that it should have stopped before I? Go and see what time it is.”
I ran out to see the clock from the window of another room; it was twenty minutes to five. I met some one in the passage and asked him to go quickly to fetch one of the Institute doctors. Then I begged Elie not to have such ideas, and tried to cheer him.
“But, my child, why do you want to calm me? I am quite calm; I am only stating facts,” he said, adding tender words.
At that moment Salimbeni came in. Elie said to him: “Salimbeni, you are a friend; tell me, is it the end?” And as he protested, he added, “You remember your promise? You will do my post-mortem? and look at the intestines carefully, for I think there is something there now.” MM. Roux and Martin then arrived. The feeling of weight in the intestines of which he complained was mentioned. He did not know that he had ascitis in the peritoneum.
As I was attending to him I felt him move suddenly, and said, “I beg you, do not make such sudden movements; you know it is not good for you.” He did not answer. I raised my head; his was thrown back on the pillows, his face had assumed a blue tinge, the white of the eyes alone could be seen under the half-closed lids.
Not a word, not a sound.
All was over.[36]
Then an abyss of oblivion....
I saw him again, stretched on his deathbed. He was white, cold, and dumb. His face bore a calm and very serious expression. He looked like a martyr who had at last entered into rest. Death had marked his face with no dread seal. The lids had closed of their own accord, and he seemed to be sleeping after great lassitude; one might have thought that, with his usual kindness, he wished to spare us all too painful an impression....
All through the night and the next morning his face preserved the same expression.