Litchfield enquirer., 1878-08-15

sBeit SO. said Deat'., and he got up into
 thepear tree.
 He plucked the three pears. and attempted
 to cone down, but, to his great surprise, he was unable to stir from the tree
 | sHoi Misery" cried he; 'shelp me to get
 down believe this cursed tree is bewitch- 1 ed 1 Misery came to the doorway Death was
 waking snperhuman efforts with his long arms
 and his long legs, but every time that he got
 himself free from the tree, the tree, as if it
 were living creature, took hold of him again
 and folded him in it's long branches
 l My soul" said she, q am not at all in l any hurry to go to paradise Thou art very well oil. Stay where thou art, my good fel- l low The human race will owe me debt of gratitude"
 And Misery shut her door and left Death | perched up in her pear tree.
 At the end of, month, as Death mo longer did bis work, everybody was astonished to l find that there had not been a single loss of I life at Vicq, at Fresness, and at Condo. The astOnlshment was redoubled at the end of the nexs month, especially when it was learned thatit was the same at Valencinnes at Douai
 at Lille and throughout Flanders.
 A like thing had never been heard of, and
 when the new year came in, it was known by the almanac that the same thing had happen Tn France, in Belgium, in Holland, as well as with the Austrians, the Swedes and the Rus sians.
 The year went by, and it was settled fact 1 that for fifteen months there had not been throughout the entire world single case ot death. All the sick had got we'll without the l doctors knowing how or why, which had not at ali prevented them from taking to them cntnlc a fho oaraJf ffOffl
 This year rolled around like the previous one without any deaths, and when it came to I St. Sylvester's day, from one end of the land l to the other men embraced one another and congratulated themselves on having become l immortal. There were public rejoicings, and | they had a fete in Flanders, such as had not been since the world was
 The good Flen1ings no longer had any fear
 of dying from indigestion, or from gout or 1 apoplexy, ate and drank their fill It was l calculated that in three days each person ate | bushel of grain not counting meat an vege- 1 tables, and drank barrel of beer, to say noth- l ing of Geneva and brandy. ... | Iconfess for my part that find it hard to
 believe this, but all the same the world was
 never so happy and nobody suspected Misery of being the cause of this universal felicity {; Misery did not boast of it,. from modesty. All went we'll for ten, twenty, thirty years j; | but. at the end of thirty years it was not a | rare thing to see old men of one hundred and
 ten and one hundred and twenty years, which ordinarily is the age of the most extreme de- crepitude. Now, these last, loaded down with
 lnflrnntles, with memory gone, blind and
 deaf, deprived of taste, feeling and smell, in-
 sensible of the slightest enjoyment, began to
 find that immortality is not at all the great l blessing which it had been at first thought to be. They were seen dragging themselves | along in the sum- bent double over their staffs, | with hoary locks, shaking heads, sightless eyes, coughing, tottering, their flesh gone, out
 of shape, withered up, like so many enormous l snails. The women were even more horrible 1 than the men. The feeblest of the old men kept their beds | and there was not house where you did not | find five or six beds where the ancestors bab-
 bled to the great weariness of their great r gTandsonS and the sons of their great-grand- l sons.
 They were even obliged to get them togeth-
 CT in immense hospitals where each new gen. eratlon was occupied in taking care of the preceding ones who could not be cured of life. More than this. as there were no longer any
 wills made, nobody inherited anything and | the new generations possessed nothing of theil
 own, all the property belonging by law to the great -grandfathers and t-great-grandfathers l who could not enjoy it.
 Under invalid kings governments grew weak, | laws relaxed, and soon the immortals, sure oi
 not being punished after death, gave them | selves up to every crime they pillaged, rob- 1 bed, burned, but alas, they could not kill l In every kingdom the cry ''Long live the
 king" became seditious cry, and was forbid. l den under the severest penalties, with the ex. ! ception of the penalty of death. This was not
 all As the animals did not die any more
 than the men, soon the earth was so overrun | with inhabitants that it could not nourish
 them; then came terrible famine, and men wandering half naked through the fields for want of a roof to cover their heads, suffered
 cruelty from hungry, without being able to | die of it.
 Ii Misery had only known of this frightfu]
 state of things she would not have been willing to prelong it, even at the price of life but ac.
 customed of old to priyations and infirmities,
 she and Faro suffered less from them than l others; and then they had become as it were,
 deaf and blind, and Misery did not take much
 account of what was going on about her. Then men set themselves to work with as
 much ardor to seek their final end as they had
 hitherto done to avoidit. They had recourse to
 the most subtle poisons and the most deadly weapons; but weapons and poisons only in- Jured their bodies without destroying them. | Formidable wars were decreed With com
 mon accord, in order to render one another the
 service of mutual destruction nations rushed | to arms, each against the other but they in- | fiicted the most frightful calamities without
 succeeding in killing a single man. A Con- gress of Death was assembled the doctors 1ocked to it from the four quarters of the globe; there came white black, yellow and copper -colored; and they all sought together
 for remedy against life, without being able
 ts find it. A prize of ten millions was offered
 to Whomsoever it might be should discover it :; all the doctors wrote pamphlets on life, as they | used to do on cholera, and they did not cure
 this disease any more than the other. 0t g..s It was more dreadful calamity than the
 deluge, for it lasted longer and there appeared
 no sign of it's ever coming to an end,
 | Now, at this time, there was in Condo a
 most learned physician, who spoke almost al-
 together in Latin, and whom they called Dr. De Profundis. He was a most worthy man,
 who, in the good old times, had helped of
 many poor body into the other world, and who now was disgustcd at being unable to l cure any one. One evening when he was coming from dining with the mayor of Vicq, l he lost his way in the marsh. Chance brought
 him near Misery's garden, and he heard 8 plaintive voice, which said. sas. !.
 'sOh, who will set me free, and whowill de
 liver the land from immortality, a hundred times worse than the pestilence !"
 The learned doctor lifted up his eyes, and
 his delight was only equaled by his surprise
 he had recognized Death.
 ssWhat is it you, my old friend" said he, l "qstd Ggis taa hoc. Pyro perched? What are you doing up there in the pear-tree p -....!a
 Nothing at all. Dr. De Profundis, and that
 is what makes me so unhappy, replied Death;
 sslend me your hand to get down. -psf5
 The good doctor gave him his hand, and l Death made such an effort to get himself out of the tree, that he lifted the doctor off fhe ground. .s...-....s l The pear-tree immediately seized hold o1
 him and held him in it's branches. 1.f5 sfi@7t
 De Profundis struggled in vain; he was
 obliged to keep company with Death
 There was much astonishment the next day
 and the day after when he failed to appear
 As he gave no sign of life they had him pla carded and advertised in the isGazette," but il
 was labor lost. De Profundis was the first
 man that had disappeared from Condo fol
 many year. Had he then found cut the SC
 cret of dying, and had he, heretofore so gener