"How good it is to think, at the end of life, that I have never been alone even in my greatest loneliness!… Souls that I have met on the way, brothers, who for a moment have held out their hands to me, mysterious spirits sprung from my mind, living and dead—all living.—O all that I have loved, all that I have created! Ye surround me with your warm embrace, ye watch over me. I hear the music of your voices. Blessed be destiny, that has given you to me! I am rich, I am rich…. My heart is full!…"
He looked out through the window…. It was one of those beautiful sunless days, which, as old Balzac said, are like a beautiful blind woman…. Christophe was passionately absorbed in gazing at the branch of a tree that grew in front of the window. The branch was swelling, the moist buds were bursting, the little white flowers were expanding; and in the flowers, in the leaves, in the whole tree coming to new life, there was such an ecstasy of surrender to the new-born force of spring, that Christophe was no longer conscious of his weariness, his depression, his wretched, dying body, and lived again in the branch of the tree. He was steeped in the gentle radiance of its life. It was like a kiss. His heart, big with love, turned to the beautiful tree, smiling there upon his last moments. He thought that at that moment there were creatures loving each other, that to others this hour, that was so full of agony for him, was an hour of ecstasy, that it is ever thus, and that the puissant joy of living never runs dry. And in a choking voice that would not obey his thoughts—(possibly no sound at all came from his lips, but he knew it not)—he chanted a hymn to life.
An invisible orchestra answered him. Christophe said within himself:
"How can they know? We did not rehearse it. If only they can go on to the end without a mistake!"
He tried to sit up so as to see the whole orchestra, and beat time with his arms outstretched. But the orchestra made no mistake; they were sure of themselves. What marvelous music! How wonderfully they improvised the responses! Christophe was amused.
"Wait a bit, old fellow! I'll catch you out."
And with a tug at the tiller he drove the ship capriciously to left and right through dangerous channels.
"How will you get out of that?… And this? Caught!… And what about this?"
But they always extricated themselves: they countered all his audacities with even bolder ventures.
"What will they do now?… The rascals!…"