brought him by Gutmann, raised the latter's hand, kissed it, and with
the words "Cher ami!" breathed his last in the arms of his pupil, whose
sorrow was so great that Count Gryzmala was obliged to lead him out of
the room. Liszt's account is slightly different. "Who is near me?" asked
Chopin, with a scarcely audible voice. He bent his head to kiss the hand
of Gutmann who supported him, giving up his soul in this last proof of
friendship and gratitude. He died as he had lived, loving.]

M. Gavard describes the closing hours of Chopin's life as follows:--

The whole evening of the 16th passed in litanies; we gave the
responses, but Chopin remained silent. Only from his difficult
breathing could one perceive that he was still alive. That
evening two doctors examined him. One of them, Dr. Cruveille,
took a candle, and, holding it before Chopin's face, which had
become quite black from suffocation, remarked to us that the
senses had already ceased to act. But when he asked Chopin
whether he suffered, we heard, still quite distinctly, the
answer "No longer" [Plus]. This was the last word I heard from
his lips. He died painlessly between three and four in the
morning [of October 17, 1849]. When I saw him some hours
afterwards, the calm of death had given again to his
countenance the grand character which we find in the mould
taken the same day [by Clesinger], and still more in the
simple pencil sketch which was drawn by the hand of a friend,
M. Kwiatkowski. This picture of Chopin is the one I like best.

Liszt, too, reports that Chopin's face resumed an unwonted youth,
purity, and calm; that his youthful beauty so long eclipsed by suffering
reappeared. Common as the phenomenon is, there can be nothing more
significant, more impressive, more awful, than this throwing-off in
death of the marks of care, hardship, vice, and disease--the corruption
of earthly life; than this return to the innocence, serenity, and
loveliness of a first and better nature; than this foreshadowing of
a higher and more perfect existence. Chopin's love of flowers was not
forgotten by those who had cherished and admired him now when his soul
and body were parted. "The bed on which he lay," relates Liszt, "the
whole room, disappeared under their varied colours; he seemed to repose
in a garden." It was a Polish custom, which is not quite obsolete even
now, for the dying to choose for themselves the garments in which they