"What folly! you are like the children, you are frightened at shadows."
"Yes, I am frightened at shadows; just now, as I was undressing, I saw a spectre glide along at the foot of the bed. I was ready to sink to the earth with terror, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I could muster strength enough to reach the child's cradle."
"Child yourself," said Crebillon, playfully; "you merely saw the shadow of the bed-curtains."
"No, no," cried the young wife, seizing the poet's hand—"it was Death! I recognized him; for it is not the first time that he has shown himself to me. Ah! mon ami, with what grief and terror shall I prepare to lie down in the cold earth! If you love me as I love you, do not leave me for an instant; help me to die, for if you are by my side at that hour, I shall fancy I am but dropping asleep."
Greatly shocked at what he heard, Crebillon took his child in his arms, and carried it back to its cradle. He returned to his wife, pressed her to his bosom, and sought vainly for words to relieve her apprehensions, and to lead back her thoughts into less sombre channels. He at length succeeded, but not without great difficulty, in persuading her to retire to rest; she scarcely closed an eye. Poor Crebillon sat in silence by the bedside of his wife praying fervently in his heart; for perhaps he believed in omens and presentiments even to a greater degree than did Charlotte. Finding, at length, that she had dropped asleep, he got into bed himself. When he awoke in the morning, he beheld Charlotte bending over him in a half-raised posture, as though she had been attentively regarding him as he slept. Terrified at the deadly paleness of her cheeks, and the unnatural brilliancy of her eyes, and sensitive and tender-hearted as a child, he was unable to restrain his tears. She cast herself passionately into his arms, and covered his cheeks with tears and kisses.
"'Tis all over now," she whispered, in a broken voice; "my heart beats too strongly to beat much longer, but I die contented and happy, for I see by your tears that you will not forget me."
Crebillon rose hastily and ran to his father-in-law. "Alas!" said the poor apothecary, "her mother, who was as beautiful and as good as she, died young of a disease of the heart, and her child will go the same way."
All the most celebrated physicians of the day were called in, but before they could determine upon a method of treatment, the spirit of poor Charlotte had taken flight from its earthly tabernacle.
Crebillon, inconsolable at his loss, feared not the ridicule (for in the eighteenth century all such exhibitions of feeling were considered highly ridiculous) of lamenting his wife; he wept her loss during half a century—in other words, to his last hour.
During the space of two years he scarcely appeared once at the Théâtre Française. He had the air of a man of another age, so completely a stranger did he seem to all that was going on around him. One might say that he still lived with his divine Charlotte; he would speak to her unceasingly, as if her gentle presence was still making the wilderness of his solitary dwelling blossom like the rose. After fifteen years of mourning, some friends one day surprised him in his solitude, speaking aloud to his dear Charlotte, relating to her his projects for the future, and recalling their past days of happiness: "Ah, Charlotte," he exclaimed, "they all tell me of my glory, yet I think but of thee!"