270 LIFE OF ELIE METCHNIKOFF 



happened just before and prevented them from 

 going. In any case they must not come here on 

 their way to the theatre, so that if it happens they 

 wiU not know, and can still enjoy the performance." 



Thanks to pantopon, he spent a very good night. 

 He awoke about five o'clock, but remained so quiet 

 that I thought him asleep. When I rose about six 

 he held out his hand to me and told me he had been 

 awake for a long time. He talked to me tenderly, in 

 the full intimacy of our afEection ; he spoke sweet, 

 unforgettable words. He made me promise once 

 again not to give way to grief. " At first, our friends 

 wUl help you, and then work, that infaUible remedy, 

 and duty. . . . You will have that of writing my 

 biography. Kemember how much I wish the last 

 chapter to be complete. You alone can write it, for 

 you have seen me all the time ; I have told you all 

 my thoughts, and yet ..." I understood that he 

 had occasionally, out of pity for me, hidden his suffer- 

 ings and his sad thoughts. But he did not know how 

 often I guessed what he did not say ; love and pain 

 have a dumb language, more eloquent than any 

 human words. 



" You will hold my hand when the moment comes," 

 he repeated. " But do not think I am afraid, now 

 that it is near. No, I assure you, I have an absolute 

 serenity of sold ! I spent a divine night. It seemed 

 to me that I was already half outside Ufe. This night 

 has taught me many things. . . . Everything which 

 troubled me, everything that seemed so disturbing, so 

 terrible, Uke this war for instance, seems so transitory 

 now, such a small thing by the side of the great 

 problems of existence ! . . . Science wiU solve them 

 some day." He ceased speaking. He seemed 



