y.

He then took my hand, and continued: "Brother, friend, there are many
acts of my life, I think, which have cost me as much difficulty as this
one is likely to do; and, after all, I have been long prepared for it,
and have my lesson by heart. Have I not lived long enough? I am just
upon thirty-three. By the grace of God, my days so far have known
nothing but health and happiness; but in the ordinary course of our
unstable human affairs, this could not have lasted much longer; it would
have become time for me to enter on graver avocations, and I should thus
have involved myself in numberless vexations, and, among them, the
troubles of old age, from which I shall now be exempt. Moreover, it is
probable that hitherto my life has been spent more simply, and with less
of evil, than if God had spared me, and I had survived to feel the
thirst for riches and worldly prosperity. I am sure, for my part, that
I now go to God and the place of the blessed." He seemed to detect in
my expression some inquietude at his words; and he exclaimed, "What, my
brother, would you make me entertain apprehensions? Had I any, whom
would it become so much as yourself to remove them?"

The notary, who had been summoned to draw up his will, came in the
evening, and when he had the documents prepared, I inquired of La Boetie
if he would sign them. "Sign them," cried he; "I will do so with my own
hand; but I could desire more time, for I feel exceedingly timid and
weak, and in a manner exhausted." But when I was going to change the
conversation, he suddenly rallied, said he had but a short time to live,
and asked if the notary wrote rapidly, for he should dictate without
making any pause. The notary was called, and he dictated his will there
and then with such speed that the man could scarcely keep up with him;
and when he had done, he asked me to read it out, saying to me, "What a
good thing it is to look after what are called our riches." 'Sunt haec,
quoe hominibus vocantur bona'. As soon as the will was signed, the
chamber being full, he asked me if it would hurt him to talk. I
answered, that it would not, if he did not speak too loud. He then
summoned Mademoiselle de Saint Quentin, his niece, to him, and addressed
her thus: "Dear niece, since my earliest acquaintance with thee, I have
observed the marks of, great natural goodness in thee; but the services
which thou rendered to me, with so much affectionate diligence, in my
prese