Золотой жук / The Gold-bug

I determined to hazard a few words of conversation.

«M. Valdemar,» I said, «are you asleep?» He made no answer, but I perceived a tremor about the lips, and was thus induced to repeat the question, again and again. At its third repetition, his whole frame was agitated by a very slight shivering; the eyelids unclosed themselves so far as to display a white line of a ball; the lips moved sluggishly, and from between them, in a barely audible whisper, issued the words —

«Yes; asleep now. Do not wake me! – let me die so!»

I here felt the limbs and found them as rigid as ever.

The right arm, as before, obeyed the direction of my hand. I questioned the sleep-waker again —

«Do you still feel pain in the breast, M. Valdemar?»

The answer now was immediate, but even less audible than before —

«No pain – I am dying.»

I did not think it advisable to disturb him further just then, and nothing more was said or done until the arrival of Dr. F —, who came a little before sunrise, and expressed unbounded astonishment at finding the patient still alive.

After feeling the pulse and applying a mirror to the lips, he requested me to speak to the sleep-waker again. I did so, saying —

«M. Valdemar, do you still sleep?»

As before, some minutes elapsed ere a reply was made; and during the interval the dying man seemed to be collecting his energies to speak. At my fourth repetition of the question, he said very faintly, almost inaudibly —

«Yes; still asleep – dying.

»

It was now the opinion, or rather the wish, of the physicians, that M. Valdemar should be suffered to remain undisturbed in his present apparently tranquil condition, until death should supervene – and this, it was generally agreed, must now take place within a few minutes. I concluded, however, to speak to him once more, and merely repeated my previous question.

While I spoke, there came a marked change over the countenance of the sleep-waker.

The eyes rolled themselves slowly open, the pupils disappearing upwardly; the skin generally assumed a cadaverous hue, resembling not so much parchment as white paper; and the circular hectic spots which, hitherto, had been strongly denned in the centre of each cheek, went out at once. I use this expression, because the suddenness of their departure put me in mind of nothing so much as the extinguishment of a candle by a puff of the breath.