“My legs are being held.” I looked at him more attentively, while Duquesnel asked for silence for M. De Chilly’s speech. I saw that his fingers were grasping a fork desperately, the tips of his fingers were white, the rest of the hand was violet. I took his hand, and it was icy cold, the other was hanging down inert under the table. There was silence and all eyes turned toward Chilly. “Get up,” I said, seized with terror. He made a movement, and his head suddenly fell forward with his face on his plate. There was a muffled uproar, and the few women present surrounded the poor man. Stupid, commonplace, indifferent things were uttered in the same way that one mutters familiar prayers. His son was sent for, and then two of the waiters came and carried the body away, living, but inert, and placed it in a small drawing-room. Duquesnel stayed with him, begging me, however, to go back to the poet’s guests. I returned to the room where the supper had taken place. Groups had been formed, and when I was seen entering I was asked if he was no better. “The doctor has just arrived and he cannot yet say,” I replied. “It is indigestion,” said Lafontaine (_Ruy Blas_), tossing off a glass of liqueur brandy. “It is cerebral anæmia,” pronounced Tallien (_Don Guritan_) clumsily, for he was always losing his memory. Victor Hugo approached and said very simply: “It is a beautiful kind of death.” He then took my arm and led me away to the other end of the room, trying to chase my sadness away by gallant and poetical whispers. Some little time passed with this gloom weighing on us, and then Duquesnel returned. He was pale, but had put on the attitude of a man of the world, and was ready to answer all questions. “Oh, yes, he had just been taken home. It would be nothing, it appeared. He only needed rest for a couple of days. Probably his feet had been cold during the meal.” “Yes,” put in one of the “Ruy Blas” guests, “there certainly was a fine draught from some chink under the table!” “Yes,” Duquesnel was just replying to some one who was worrying him. “Yes, no doubt, there was too much heat for his head.” “Yes,” added another of the guests, “our heads were nearly on fire with that wretched gas.” I could see the moment arriving when Victor Hugo would be reproached by all of his guests for the cold, the heat, the food, and the wine of his banquet. All these imbecile remarks got on Duquesnel’s nerves. He shrugged his shoulders, and drawing me away from the crowd said: “It’s all over with him.” I had had a presentiment of this, but the certainty of it now caused me intense grief. “I want to go,” I said to Duquesnel. “Would you kindly tell some one to ask for my carriage?” I moved toward the small drawing-room which served as a cloak room for our wraps, and there old Mme. Lambquin knocked up against me. Slightly intoxicated by the heat and the wine, she was waltzing with Tallien.