f 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. By
degrees all those who surrounded me had got accustomed to consider me an
invalid and to see me sickly. So much so that I myself had forbidden my
wife to call in a doctor when I had taken to my bed on the day of our
arrival at the cheap lodginghouse of the Rue Dauphine in Paris. A little
rest would soon set me right again; it was only the fatigue of the
journey which had caused my intolerable weariness. And yet I was
conscious of having felt singularly uneasy. We had left our province
somewhat abruptly; we were very poor and had barely enough money to
support ourselves till I drew my first month's salary in the office
where I had obtained a situation. And now a sudden seizure was carrying
me off!

Was it really death? I had pictured to myself a darker night, a deeper
silence. As a little child I had already felt afraid to die. Being weak
and compassionately petted by everyone, I had concluded that I had not
long to live, that I should soon be buried, and the thought of the cold
earth filled me with a dread I could not ma