One evening his grandmother had again read him the story of the Vengeur
to make him bold, and in the night he had become delirious. The poor
little fellow died of fright.
THE DEATH OF OLIVIER BECAILLE
CHAPTER I
MY PASSING
It was on a Saturday, at six in the morning, that I died after a three
days' illness. My wife was searching a trunk for some linen, and when
she rose and turned she saw me rigid, with open eyes and silent pulses.
She ran to me, fancying that I had fainted, touched my hands and bent
over me. Then she suddenly grew alarmed, burst into tears and stammered:
"My God, my God! He is dead!"
I heard everything, but the sounds seemed to come from a great distance.
My left eye still detected a faint glimmer, a whitish light in which all
objects melted, but my right eye was quite bereft of sight. It was the
coma of my whole being, as if a thunderbolt had struck me. My will was
annihilated; not a fiber of flesh obeyed my bidding. And yet amid the
impotency of my inert limbs my thoughts subsisted, sluggish and lazy,
still perfectly clear.
My poor Marguerite was crying; she had dropped on her knees beside the
bed, repeating in heart-rending tones:
"He is dead! My God, he is dead!"
Was this strange state of torpor, this immobility of the flesh, really
death, although the functions of the intellect were not arrested? Was
my soul only lingering for a brief space before it soared away forever?
From my childhood upward I had been subject to hysterical attacks,
and twice in early youth I had nearly succumbed to nervous fevers.
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