"He had lost consciousness since two days. He no longer suffered, his life slowly ebbed away, and after two convulsions, he breathed his last. He looked as beautiful again as ever. On the first day after death, there was still a deep wrinkle, caused by the convulsions, between his eyebrows; the second day his habitual expression of goodness reappeared. One would have expected to see him smile."[30] [29] "Kind and dear Leo Nikoláyevitch,--I have long not written to you, because, to tell the truth, I have been, and am, on my deathbed. I cannot recover: that is out of the question, I am writing to you specially to say how glad I am to be your contemporary, and to express my last and sincere request. My friend, return to literary activity! That gift came to you whence comes all the rest. Ah! how happy I should be if I could think my request would have an effect on you!... I am played out--the doctors do not even know what to call my malady, _névralgie stomacale goutteuse_. I can neither walk, nor eat, nor sleep. It is wearisome even to repeat it all! My friend--great writer of our Russian land--listen to my request!... I can write no more I am tired. (Unsigned), Bougival, 27 or 28 June 1883."--Translated by A. Maude, _The Life of Tolstoy_, vol. ii. p. 182. [30] For this and other details, see Haumant, p. 110. The autopsy made by the French doctors revealed that the weight of Turgenev's brain, 2012 grammes, surpassed by a third the normal weight, and, though Turgenev's high stature partly accounted for this, the doctors were astonished by its volume, which much exceeded Cuvier's, hitherto the largest brain known. Turgenev was buried, according to his wish, in the Volkov cemetery at Petersburg, by the side of his friend, the critic Byelinsky. A crowd of 100,000 people accompanied the funeral procession, including 285 deputations from all parts of Russia. The Russian Government declined to take part in it![31] Renan, in France, pronounced the valedictory oration, and the passage we extract stands as Turgenev's noble epitaph: