Victor’s life continued in danger some days longer. Then—oh! what happiness!—when I had made the sacrifice and bowed submissively to the divine will, the physician all at once revived my hopes. To comprehend the joy with which my heart overflowed at hearing that perhaps my husband might be restored to life, you must, like me, pass through long hours of bitterness in which you repeat, with your eyes fastened on your loved one: “A few hours, and I shall behold him no more!”
A week after, Victor was convalescent.
CHAPTER VII.
A PROVIDENTIAL EVENT.
Victor and I then entered upon a singular life of which I think there are but few instances. I felt from the first that his convalescence was deceptive, and the physician secretly told him so. We both felt that God allowed us to pass a few more months together, but no longer. The disease was checked, but it still hung about my dear one. It assumed a new form, and changed into a slow malady that was surely accomplishing its work. As frequently happens in such complaints, Victor was but partially cured of inflammation of the lungs, and now became consumptive.
A great poet says that no language, however perfect, can express all the thoughts, all the emotions, that spring up in the soul.[35] This is true. I have often felt it, and now realize it more than ever. Ten months elapsed between Victor’s amelioration and his death—months memorable for great suffering, but which have left me many delightful, though melancholy, remembrances. I wish I could impart these recollections to you. I hardly dare attempt it, so conscious am I of my inability to do them justice.
How, indeed, could I depict the love, stronger than ever, that bound me to my husband, spared in so unhoped-for a manner, though but for a brief period—so brief that I could almost count the hours? How make you understand how elevated, superhuman, consoling, and yet sorrowful, were our conversations? How many times Victor said to me: “Agnes, how merciful the good God is! See, he could have recalled me to himself at once, but still leaves me with you a few months longer. Oh! how heartily I desire to profit by this time in order to prepare for death, though I fear it not! I do not wish to spend one of these last hours in vain. I wish to do all the good in my power, and love you better and better as the blessed do in heaven. Oh! how sweet it will be to enter upon that perfect love above, which we have imagined, and had a foretaste of, here below—what do I say?—a thousand times sweeter, more perfect. Its enjoyment will be without any alloy of fear or sadness, for in loving, we shall have a right to say: ‘It is for ever!’”
But of all the thoughts that occupied Victor’s mind at that period, that which was most constantly in his heart he expressed in these simple but significant words: to do all the good possible! Penetrated with this desire, he resumed his duties at the Journal office as soon as he was able. His talents had developed under the influence of suffering. Every one remarked it. But controversy fatigued him, and he was not able to go out every day. He was, therefore, provided with an assistant—a young man of ability, to whom he could transfer most of the labor. He took pleasure in training him for the work, saying to himself: “He will be my successor. I shall still live in him, and have some part in the good he will do.”
A part of the day, therefore, remained unoccupied. He employed these hours in writing a small work—a simple, touching book, which was published a short time before his death, and is still doing, to my knowledge, much good among the people.
Training his successor and publishing a useful book were two good acts he took pleasure in, but, so great was his ardor for benefiting others, that they did not suffice. He earnestly longed for some new opportunity of testifying to God how desirous he was of making a holy use of the last moments of his life. “And yet,” he added, “I acknowledge this work is perhaps presumptuous. It is asking a special grace from God of which I am not worthy.” But God granted him this longed-for opportunity of devoting himself to his glory, and he embraced it with a heroism that won universal admiration.