“Erasmus! O Erasmus! my friend, this is the last time I shall have the happiness of pronouncing your name. An entire life, O my friend! is passed; it has glided by in a moment. Behold one about to end like a day that is closed. I have loved you as long as I have had breath; as long as I have felt my heart throb in my bosom the name of Erasmus has reigned there. Alas! I have so many things to say to you. Though the words die on my lips, your heart alone will be able to comprehend mine. May it enter; may it hear in my soul all that More has wished to say to Erasmus!
“When you receive this page, I shall be no more; it is still attached to the writ which contains my sentence of death. Erasmus, I am going to leave Margaret. I abandon my children! Our friend Pierre Gilles is here. I saw him for a moment—the moment when they were pronouncing sentence on me. Without doubt, to-morrow morning, I
shall see him at the foot of the scaffold. I shall be kept at a distance from him; I shall not be able to say a single word to him. My eyes will be directed toward him, my hand will be stretched out; but my heart will not be permitted to speak to him! O Erasmus! how I suffer. And Margaret—O my friend! if you had seen her, how pale she was, what anguish was painted on all her features. I could wish that she loved me less: she would not suffer so much in seeing me die. Erasmus, not one minute! Time is short; the hour approaches. Oh! when I could write those long letters so peaceably, when science alone and the good of humanity occupied us both; when I saw those letters despatched so quietly to go in search of you, and said to myself: ‘In so many days I shall receive his reply!’… No more replies, Erasmus! If ever you come to England, you will ask in what corner they have thrown my ashes. Oh! what would become of me if I were not a Christian? What happiness to feel our faith rising up from the depths of wretchedness, to hear all our groans and lamentions, and to answer them! I die a Christian! I die for this faith so pure and beautiful! for that faith which is the happiness and glory of the human race. At this thought I feel myself reanimated; new strength inspires my heart; hope inundates my soul. I shall see you all again. Yes, one day—one day after a long absence—I shall clasp you once more to my bosom in the presence of God himself. I shall see again my daughter! We will find ourselves invested with our same bodies. ‘I shall see my God,’ said Job; ‘for I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that I shall rise again at the last day; I will go out of this world into that which I am about to enter, and then I shall see my God. It will be I who shall see him, and not another.’
“Erasmus, to live for ever, to love for ever! Farewell.
“Your brother, your friend,
“Thomas More.”
The charcoal began to crumble in his hands. He was scarcely able to trace the last words. He pressed his lips on them and returned the book to Pope.
Meanwhile, Margaret, tired of
knocking, and losing all hope of reaching her father, was seated upon the stone step before the door of the prison, and, being wrapped in her veil, she remained motionless and mute, like a statue of stone whose head, bowed upon its garments, is the personification of sorrow and silence.
Thus she sat absorbed in thought, and the burning tears had bathed her hands and ran down on her knees, when the footstep of a man who was approaching from the quay aroused her from her reverie. Alarmed, she arose abruptly, and, placing her hand upon a long and sharp dagger she had attached to her side, she stood awaiting the intruder; but she recognized Roper.