As I was attending to him I felt him move suddenly, 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.[36] [36] It was 5.20 by the conventional war time, 4.20 in reality. 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, illumined by gentleness and kindness. He had a look of elevation, grandeur, and beauty which was really divine. It was an apotheosis. His beautiful soul beamed in its full purity; neither suffering nor any earthly preoccupation had any hold on it. He gave an impression of eternal rest. It was his final image, a splendid one, the last ... for ever. The bier was closed and covered with a heavy black pall. On life also a blacker and heavier pall had fallen. The light had gone out. Two days later, on the 18th July, he was carried to the cemetery of the Père Lachaise, to be cremated in all simplicity, as he had wished. Faithful to his ideas, he had wished for a lay funeral, with no speeches, flowers, or invitations. His bier disappeared into a large sarcophagus; on each side black curtains fell to hide what was going on.... Then one hour of heavy silence whilst the poor body was being consumed by the flames.... A death silence.... And that was all.... The mercurial, vivacious child, good-hearted, intelligent, and precocious; the young man, ardent, impetuous, passionate, a lover of science and of all that was exalted; the mature man, a bold thinker, an indefatigable investigator, eager, generous, tender, and devoted; the old man, in everything faithful to himself, but progressing in serenity, shining with an ever softer light, like a mountain peak in the setting sun; the martyr at last, enduring suffering with patience and resignation, seeing the approach of death without fear, observing it as he had observed life....