LIFE OF ELIE METCHNIKOFF 273 



remember your promise ? You will do my post- 

 mortem ? and look at the intestines carefully, for I 

 think there is something there now." MM. Roux and 

 Martin then arrived. The feeling of weight in the 

 intestines of which he complained was mentioned. 

 He did not know that he had ascitis in the peritoneum. 



As I was attending to him I felt him move sud- 

 denly, and said, " I beg you, do not make such sudden 

 movements ; you know it is not good for you." He 

 did not answer. I raised my head ; his was thrown 

 back on the pillows, his face had assumed a blue 

 tinge, the white of the eyes alone could be seen under 

 the half -closed lids. 



Not a word, not a sound. 



All was over. 1 



Then an abyss of oblivion. . . . 



I saw him again, stretched on his deathbed. He 

 was white, cold, and dumb. His face bore a calm 

 and very serious expression. He looked like a 

 martyr who had at last entered into rest. Death 

 had marked his face with no dread seal. The lids 

 had closed of their own accord, and he seemed to be 

 sleeping after great lassitude ; one might have 

 thought that, with his usual kindness, he wished to 

 spare us all too painful an impression. . . . 



All through the night and the next morning his 

 face preserved the same expression. 



In the afternoon Salimbeni performed the autopsy. 

 Then he was laid in his coffin ; twenty-four hours had 

 elapsed since the end. Wrapped in a white sheet, 

 which framed his fine face, he had the appearance of 

 a biblical prophet. 



Now his expression had assumed absolute serenity, 



1 It was 5.20 by the conventional war time, 4.20 in reality. 



T 



