“He sits there all day,” she continued, “and reads his ‘Souvenirs of Forty Years,’ the ‘Souvenirs’ which he has dedicated to his children. And at times he is quite his old self again, but 93 drowsiness is always coming upon him. Mon Dieu! that he may be spared to us a little longer!”
Helene just then passed through the room. “There is a paper in papa’s room,” she whispered, “which I must take away. There is the word Panama upon it.”
Our conversation was with bated breath, and the ill-fated word was scouted like an unclean thing.
And whilst we were talking, the sunny, curly-headed Paul ran into the room and cried out: “Oh, do come and see papa! Bou-Bou has jumped onto his shoulder and is picking his violets.”
We moved towards the door, and this was the last that I saw, or may ever see, of Ferdinand de Lesseps. Against the red background of the twofold screen he sat sunken, asleep, in his arm-chair, with the two volumes that tell the story of his heroism in his lap, and on his shoulders perched a grinning Barbary ape, pulling at and munching the violets which Helene had picked for him, and which hid in his buttonhole his jeopardized rosette of the Legion of Honor. Around him stood his children, and it was sad to see, and sadder still to think, that, his family excepted, what holds this great heart and splendid gentleman in dearest affection is not the millionaire grown rich on his achievements, but a witless, speechless thing, that perhaps has feeling what a great and generous heart is here.
McCLURE’S MAGAZINE
Is Published Monthly with Illustrations.