Balzac's Death-bed.

Thames Star, Volume XV, Issue 4757, 5 April 1884, Page 1

Balzac's Death-bed.

I saw Balzac some weeks before his last day. He came to the Theatre Francais, but as his usual heart disease did not allow him to mount tip the stairs, I was requested to go down and speak tcThim iD carriage. He wanted all his pieces to be played at the home of Moliere. His wife was in the carriage. He bad scarcely introduced me before she began to explain the dramatic genius of the noTelist. Frightened by the deathly palor of Balzac, I promised all that was asked of me. He requested me to call at his house and talk over the matter with him, as that would give him an opportunity of showing me his pictures and his curiosities. Three days afterwards I saw him in his library in the lilliputian house, which is still standing, in the Eve Balzac. Ho took me about everywhere with the solemnity of a Medicis. The pleasure of showing us his riches brought back a light color to his cheeks. In the afternoon of August 19,1850, I again returned to the house. I met Eugene Giraud, the artist, at the door. " Balzac ?" he said to me; " I have just seen him; it is all over." I felt myself grow pale. " Already P " I cried. Giraud opened his portfolio and showed me a magnificent crayon design—life in death. It was Balzac upon his funeral bed. The Countess had herself asked the artist to preserve his face for history. I looked with emotion upon the image of the great man. "You do not know," he said to me, " how Balzao died. Listen." He related a more terrible scene than the most dramatic ones in Balzac's novels. The sick man, wbo was not too anxious because his wife had the art of deceiving him, wished, however, to question the physician. " My dear doctor," he said to him, " I am not like other. men; Ido not wish to. be surprised by death. I have still a great many things to do to finish my work."

" Yes, you hare raised one of the monuments of the nineteenth century."

" How many windows are wanted in this monument! How many ornaments, how many statues!"

Balzac struck his head.

" The fronton is still there. There are some persons who do not comprehend. Inlelligence is the key of genius."

He became animated, aud feverish

" Doctor, I want you to tell me all the truth. You are a prince of science. You esteem me sufficiently toot to conceal the troth from me. Listen. I see that I am more dangerously ill than I believed ; I feel that lam losing ground. It is vain that I excite my hunger by imagination— everything is frightful to me. How much time do you believe that I can still live ?"■

The doctor did not reply.

" Cotao, doctor ; .do you take mo for a child ? I tell you again that I cannot die like other men. A man like myself owes a testament to the public."

The word testament made the doctor open his mouth. If Balzac owed a testament to the public, he perhaps owed one to his family and his wife.

" My dear patient, how much time do you need for' What remains to be done ? " " Six months," replied Balzac, with the air of a man who has well reckoned. And he looked steadily at his physician.

" Six months ! six months! " repeated the doctor, shaking his head.

-." Oh! " cried Balzac, sorrowfully, " I gee that you will not gire me six months.: You will at least give me six weeks ? Six weeks with a fe?er is still eternity. The hours are days * * * and then, the nights are not lost." The physician shook his head the same as before.

Balzac raised himself up, almost indignant. Did he think the doctor was a master of prolonging or of shortening his existence like another Peau de chagrin? The doctor had taken the sutrmons of his patient too seriously. He decided to tell him the truth. Balzac,: anxious, roused up his moral force in order to be worthy of the truth.

" What, doctor 1 am I then a dead man? Thank" God I am strong enough, to fight, hut I feel also that I have courage enough to submit; lam all ready for the sacrifice.

If your science dops not deceive you do not deceive me. What can I still hope for ? You will gire me six days ?" The doctor could no longer speak. He turned away his head to conceal his tears. "Six days I": repeated Balzac. " Well, I will indicate by some grand strokes what remains to be done to finish; my friends will look after the details. I shall hare the time to throw a rapid plance over my fifty volumes.j I will tear out the bad pages and strengthen the pood oues. The human can do miracles. God created the world in six days; I can give an immortal life to the world that I have created. I will rest on the seventh day." Here he gave'a painfnl look and a still more paiaful sigh. Since he had asked these terrible questions he had grown ten years older. He ao longer found any^voice to still question the physician, who no longer found any voice to reply. J " My dear patient," said the doctor at i last, in trying to sitaile—a doctor's smile ' —•" who can reply for the hour in this I world P Someone who is well may die | before you. But you have asked me for the truth; you have spoken of your testament to the public " "Well!" " Well, you must make your testament to the public to-day. Besides, you have, perhaps, another testament to make : you must not wait until to-morrow." Balzac raised his head. "I have then only six hours?" he cried, with terror. He fell back upon the pillow. This last word of the doctor was the death blow. The agonies ofjdeath began. That creative head took on the last paleness; that intelligent mind swooned away into darkness, He had asked for the truth and it had killed him before his time.— Anene Houssaye.