Camille (La Dame aux Camilias)

Meanwhile Marguerite called me up to her bed, asked me to open a

cupboard, and pointed out a cap and a long chemise covered with lace,

and said in a feeble voice: "I shall die as soon as I have confessed. Then you will dress me in

these things; it is the whim of a dying woman."

Then she embraced me with tears and added: "I can speak, but I am stifled when I speak; I am stifling. Air!"

I burst into tears, opened the window, and a few minutes afterward the

priest entered. I went up to him; when he knew where he was, he seemed

afraid of being badly received.

"Come in boldly, father," I said to him.

He stayed a very short time in the room, and when he came out he said to

me: "She lived a sinner, and she will die a Christian."

A few minutes afterward he returned with a choir boy bearing a crucifix,

and a sacristan who went before them ringing the bell to announce that

God was coming to the dying one.

They went all three into the bed-room where so many strange words have

been said, but was now a sort of holy tabernacle.

I fell on my knees. I do not know how long the impression of what I saw

will last, but I do not think that, till my turn comes, any human thing

can make so deep an impression on me.

The priest anointed with holy oil the feet and hands and forehead of the

dying woman, repeated a short prayer, and Marguerite was ready to set

out for the heaven to which I doubt not she will go, if God has seen the

ordeal of her life and the sanctity of her death.

Since then she has not said a word or made a movement. Twenty times I

should have thought her dead if I had not heard her breathing painfully.

February 20, 5 P.M.

All is over.

Marguerite fell into her last agony at about two o'clock. Never did a

martyr suffer such torture, to judge by the cries she uttered. Two or

three times she sat upright in the bed, as if she would hold on to her

life, which was escaping toward God.

Two or three times also she said your name; then all was silent, and she

fell back on the bed exhausted. Silent tears flowed from her eyes, and

she was dead.

Then I went up to her; I called her, and as she did not answer I closed

her eyes and kissed her on the forehead.