242 THE LIFE OF PASTEUR 



for young men without means came to him in August and 

 offered him the funds for a Pasteur Hospital, the natural out- 

 come, she said, of the Pastorian disco 1 . 



Pasteur's strength diminished day by day, he now could 

 hardly walk. When he was seated in the Park, his grand- 

 children around him suggested young rose trees climbing 

 around the trunk of a dying oak. The paralysis was increas- 

 ing, and speech was becoming more and more difficult. The 

 s alone remained bright and clear ; Pasteur was witnessing 

 the ruin of what in him was perishable 



How willingly they would have given a moment of their 

 lives to prolong his, those thousands of human beings wh< 

 existence had been saved by his methods : sick children, woi. 

 in lying-in hospitals, patients operated upon in surgical war 

 victims of rabid dogs saved from hydrophobia, and 60 m. 

 others protected against the infinitesimally small! But, whi 

 visions of those living beings passed through the minds of his 

 family, it seemed as if Pasteur already saw those dead c 

 who, like him, had preserved absolute faith in the Future Life. 



The last week in September he was no longer strong enough 

 to leave his bed, his weakness was extreme. On Septem. 

 27, as he was offered a cup of milk : " I cannot," he murmur 

 his eyes looked around him with an unspeakable expression 

 of resignation, love and farewell. His head fell back on 

 fallows, and he slept; but, after this delusive rest, suddt 

 came the gaspings of agony. For twenty-four hours he 

 mained motionless, his eyes closed, his body almost entir 

 tlyzed ; one of his hands rested in that of Mme. Pasteur, 

 other held a cruci 



Thus, surrounded by his family and disciples, in this n 

 of almost monastic simplicity, on Saturd mber . 



1895, at 4.40 in the afternoon. \ acefully, he passed 



Tub End. 



