of hearing your conceptions and imaginations communicated to me; will you not now still let me enjoy them?” “I would indeed,” he answered; “but, my brother, I am not able to do so; they are admirable, infinite, and unspeakable.”  We stopped short there, for he could not go on.  A little before, indeed, he had shown a desire to speak to his wife, and had told her, with as gay a countenance as he could contrive to assume, that he had a story to tell her.  And it seemed as if he was making an attempt to gain utterance; but, his strength failing him, he begged a little wine to resuscitate it.  It was of no avail, for he fainted away suddenly, and was for some time insensible.  Having become so near a neighbour to death, and hearing the sobs of Mademoiselle de la Boetie, he called her, and said to her thus:  “My own likeness, you grieve yourself beforehand; will you not have pity on me? take courage.  Assuredly, it costs me more than half the pain I endure, to see you suffer; and reasonably so, because the evils which we ourselves feel we do not actually ourselves suffer, but it certain sentient faculties which God plants in us, that feel them:  whereas what we feel on account of others, we feel by consequence of a certain reasoning process which goes on within our minds.  But I am going away” —­That he said because his strength was failing him; and fearing that he had frightened his wife, he resumed, observing:  “I am going to sleep.  Good night, my wife; go thy way.”  This was the last farewell he took of her.

After she had left, “My brother,” said he to me, “keep near me, if you please;” and then feeling the advance of death more pressing and more acute, or else the effect of some warm draught which they had made him swallow, his voice grew stronger and clearer, and he turned quite with violence in his bed, so that all began again to entertain the hope which we had lost only upon witnessing his extreme prostration.

At this stage he proceeded, among other things, to pray me again and again, in a most affectionate manner, to give him a place; so that I was apprehensive that his reason might be impaired, particularly when, on my pointing out to him that he was doing himself harm, and that these were not of the words of a rational man, he did not yield at first, but redoubled his outcry, saying, “My brother, my brother! dost thou then refuse me a place?” insomuch that he constrained me to demonstrate to him that, as he breathed and spoke, and had his physical being, therefore he had his place.  “Yes, yes,” he responded, “I have; but it is not that which I need; and, besides, when all is said, I have no longer any existence.”  “God,” I replied, “will grant you a better one soon.”  “Would it were now, my brother,” was his answer.  “It is now three days since I have been eager to take my departure.”

Being in this extremity, he frequently called me, merely to satisfy him that I was at his side.  At length, he composed himself a little to rest, which strengthened our hopes; so much so, indeed, that I left the room, and went to rejoice thereupon with Mademoiselle de la Boetie.  But, an hour or so afterwards, he called me by name once or twice, and then with a long sigh expired at three o’clock on Wednesday morning, the 18th August 1563, having lived thirty-two years, nine months, and seventeen days.