[节选]THE DEATH OF OLIVIER BECAILLE

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 master--

a dread which haunted me day and night.  As I grew older the same

terror pursued me.  Sometimes, after long hours spent in reasoning

with myself, I thought that I had conquered my fear.  I reflected,

"After all, what does it matter?  One dies and all is over.  It is

the common fate; nothing could be better or easier."