That the poor wretch who dies in a hospital, without home or family, without other name than the number of his bed, that he should accept death as a deliverance or bear it as his last trial; that the old peasant who passes away, bent double, worn out, in his dark and smoky cellar, that he should depart without regret, savouring in advance the taste of that fresh earth which he has so many times dug over and over—­that is intelligible.  And yet how many, even among such, cling to existence despite all their misery! how many there are who cry, holding on to their sordid furniture and to their rags, “I don’t want to die!” and depart with nails broken and bleeding from that supreme wrench.  But here there was nothing of the kind.

To possess all, and to lose all.  What a catastrophe!

In the first silence of that dreadful moment, while he heard the sound of the music coming faintly from the duchess’s ball at the other end of the palace, whatever attached this man to life, power, honour, wealth, all that splendour must have seemed to him already far away and in an irrevocable past.  A courage of a quite exceptional temper must have been required to bear up under such a blow without any spur of personal vanity.  No one was present save the friend, the doctor, the servant, three intimates acquainted with all his secrets; the lights moved back, left the bed in shadow, and the dying man might quite well have turned his face to the wall in lamentation of his own fate without being noticed.  But not an instant of weakness, nor of useless demonstration.  Without breaking a branch of the chestnut-trees in the garden, without withering a flower on the great staircase of the palace, his footsteps muffled on the thick pile of the carpets, Death had opened the door of this man of power and signed to him “Come!” And he answered simply, “I am ready.”  The true exit of a man of the world, unforeseen, rapid, and discreet.

Man of the world!  Mora was nothing if not that.  Passing through life masked, gloved, breast-plated—­breast-plate of white satin, such as the masters of fence wear on great days; preserving his fighting dress immaculate and clean; sacrificing everything to that irreproachable exterior which with him did duty for armour; he had determined on his role as statesman in the passage from the drawing-room to a wider scene, and made, indeed, a statesman of the first rank on the strength alone of his qualities as a man about town, the art of listening and of smiling, knowledge of men, scepticism, and coolness.  That coolness did not leave him at the supreme moment.

With eyes fixed on the time, so short, which still remained to him—­for the dark visitor was in a hurry, and he could feel on his face the draught from the door which he had not closed behind him—­his one thought now was to occupy the time well, to satisfy all the obligations of an end like his, which must leave no devotion unrecompensed nor compromise any friend.  He gave a list of certain persons whom he wished to see and who were sent for immediately, summoned the head of his cabinet, and, as Jenkins ventured the opinion that it was a great fatigue for him, said: