He approached the subject cautiously on the doctor's next visit.[*] Perhaps, he said, he had after all never realised sufficiently the acuteness of his malady. He certainly felt terribly ill, and knew that he was losing ground; while, in spite of all his efforts, he was unable to eat anything. His duty required that he should bequeath a certain legacy to the public, and he had calculated carefully, and had discovered that he would be able in six months to accomplish his task. Could the doctor promise him that length of time? There was no answer to this searching question, but a shake of the head from the pitying doctor. "Ah," cried Balzac sorrowfully, "I see quite well that you will not allow me six months. . . . Well, at any rate, you will at least give me six weeks? . . . Six weeks with fever is an eternity. Hours are like days . . . and then the nights are not lost." Again the doctor shook his head, and Balzac once more lowered his claims for a vestige of life. "I have courage to submit," he said proudly; "but six days . . . you will certainly give me that? I shall then be able to write down hasty plans that my friends may be able to finish, shall tear up bad pages and improve good ones, and shall glance rapidly through the fifty volumes I have already written. Human will can do miracles." Balzac pleaded pathetically, almost as though he thought his interlocutor could grant the boon of longer life if he willed to do so. He had aged ten years since the beginning of the interview, and he had now no voice left to speak, and the doctor hardly any voice for answering. The latter managed, however, to tell his patient that everything must be done to-day, because in all probability to-morrow would not exist for him; and Balzac cried with horror, "I have then only six hours!" fell back on his pillows, and spoke no more. [*] The following account of Balzac's interview with his doctor is taken from an article written by Arsene Houssaye in the _Figaro_ of August 20th, 1883. It is right to add that the Vicomte de Spoelberch de Lovenjoul, the great authority on Balzac, throws grave doubts on the accuracy of the story. He died the next day, and Victor Hugo gives us one more glimpse of him.[*] The poet was told by his wife, who had visited Madame de Balzac during the day, that Balzac's last hour had come; and directly after dinner he took a cab and drove rapidly to the Rue Fortunee. "I rang. It was moonlight, occasionally veiled by clouds. The street was deserted. No one came. I rang a second time. The door was opened. A servant appeared with a candle. 'What does Monsieur want?' she said. She was crying. [*] "Choses Vues, 1850: Mort de Balzac," by Victor Hugo.