While hoping and planning for the future, his wife was not unaware of her own decline. "For the first time," she writes about December, "I have had pain in looking into Penini's face lately--which you will understand." And a little earlier: "I wish to live just as long as, and no longer than to grow in the soul." The winter was mild, though snow had fallen once; a spell of colder weather was reserved for the month of May. They thought of meeting Browning's father and sister in some picturesque part of the forest of Fontainebleau, or, if that should prove unsuitable, perhaps at Trouville. Mrs Browning, who had formerly enjoyed the stir of life in Paris, now shrank from its noise and bustle. Her wish would be to creep into a cave for the whole year. At eight o'clock each evening she left her sitting-room and sofa, and was in bed. Yet she trusted that when she could venture again into the open air she would be more capable of enduring the friction of the world. In May she felt stronger, and saw visitors, among whom was Hans Andersen, "very earnest, very simple, very childlike."[82] A little later she was cast down by the death of Cavour--"that great soul which meditated and made Italy"; she could hardly trust herself to utter his name. It was evident to Browning that the journey to France could not be undertaken without serious risk. They had reached Casa Guidi, and there for the present she must take her rest. The end came swiftly, gently. A bronchial attack, attended with no more than the usual discomfort, found her with diminished power of resistance. Browning had forebodings of evil, though there seemed to be no special cause to warrant his apprehension. On the last evening--June 28, 1861--she herself had no anticipation of what was at hand, and talked of their summer plans. When she slept, her slumber was heavy and disturbed. At four in the morning her husband was alarmed and sent to summon the doctor; but she assured him that his fears were exaggerated. Then inestimable words were spoken which lived forever in his heart. And so "smilingly, happily, with a face like a girl's," resting her head upon her husband's cheek, she passed away.[83] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 70: Letters of E.B.B. (To Mrs Jameson), ii. 221.] [Footnote 71: F.G. Kenyon. _Letters of E.B.B._, ii. 263.] [Footnote 72: "Browning was intimately acquainted," writes Miss Anna Swanwick, "with Salvini." What especially lived in Browning's memory as transcending everything else he had witnessed on the stage was Salvini's impersonation of the blind Oedipus, and in particular one incident: a hand is laid on the blind man's shoulder, which he supposes the hand of one of his sons; he discovers it to be the hand of Antigone; the sudden transition from a look of fiery hate to one of ineffable tenderness was unsurpassable in its mastery of dramatic expression. (Condensed from "Anna Swanwick, a Memoir and Recollections," 1903, pp. 132, 133.)]