Year: 1878




she, in an altered voice, 'and what have you
come for with that scythe?'


II come to do my work. Come, my good
Misery, thine hour hath struck thou must
follow me-"


"Arendy?' y


Already But thou shouldst thank me-
who art so old, so poor, and so crippled


Not so poor nor so old as you think for
master. | have bread in the cupboard and
wood in the pile. / shall be only ninety-tiv
come Candemas, and as for being crippled, |
am as straight as you on my legs, without Of
fense be it said"


"Go to Thou wilt be much better off in
Paradise"


"We know what we lose what we gain by
change we know not" said Misery, philo-
sophically. And besides, it would grieve
Faro so much"


Faro shall follow thee. Come, make up
thy mind"


Misery sighed. Grant me at least a few
moments. till l tidy up bit. l should not
like to make the people in the other world
ashamed Of me-"


Death consented.


Misery put on her best gown of flowered
India muslin. which she had had for more
than thirty years, her white bonnet and her
Silesian mantle, all worn, but without "A hole
or a spot which she never wore except on the
great saints days.


While dressing herself she cast last glance
upon her cabin and called to mind her pear
tree. A strange thought came into her head.
and she could hardly keep back a smile.


"While / am getting ready, will you kind
ly do me a service, man Of God = said she to
Death IF you will get up into my pear
tree and pluck me the three pears which are
left. can eat them on my journey"


BE it So said Death, and he got up into
the pear tree.


lie pucked the three pears and attempted
to come down. but, to his great surprise he
was unable to stir from the tree.


"Ho, Misery - he cried, ''help me to get
down. | believe this cursed tree is be-
witched


Misery came to the doorway Death was
making superhuman efforts with his long
arms and his long legs but every time he got
himself free from the tree, the tree, as if it
We're living creature took hold of him
again and folded him in its long branches.


My soul - said she. II am not at all in
hurry to 90 to Paradise. Thou art very well
Off Stay where thou art. my good fellow
The human race will owe me "A debt of graft
tude.'


And Misery shut the door and left Death
perched up in her pear tree.


At the end of n month, as Death no longer
did its work, everybody was astonished to
find that there had not been single loss Of
life at Nicq, at Fresno, and at Conde. The
astonshmcnt was redoubled at the end of the
next month, especially when it was learned
that it was the same at Nalenciennes, at Do
mai and throughout all 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
ed in France, in Belgium, in Holland, as well
as with the Austrians, the Swedes and the
Russians.


The year went by, and it was a settled fact
that for fifteen months there had not been
throughout the entire world IA single case of
death All the sick had got well without the
doctors knowing how or why, which had not
at all prevented them from taking TO them
selves all the credit of the cures


This year rolled around like the previous
one. without any deaths, and when it came to
It. Sylvester's day, from one end of the land
to the other men embraced one another and
congratulated themselves on having become
immortal. There were public rejoicings and
they had Il fete in Flanders, such as had not
been seen since the world was.


The good Flemings no longer having any
fear of dying from indigestion, or from gout
or apoplcxy. ate and drank their I'LL 1t was
calculated that in three days each person ate
bushel of grain. without counting meat and
vegetables, aud drank barrel of beer to say
nothing of Geneva and brandy.
confess for my part that | find it hard to
believe this. but all the same the world was
never so happy, and nobody suspected Mis-
cry of being the cause of this universal felic-
| ity; Misery did not boast of it, from mod
| esty


All went well for ten, twenty, thirty years ;
| but ut the end Of thirty years, 1t was not a
Il ..F
| ten and one hundred and twenty years. which
ordinarily is the age of the most extreme de
creptude. Now, these last, loaded down
| with intrmities, with memory gone, blind
| and deaf, deprived of taste, feeling and smell
| insensible to the slightest enjoyment. began
| TO feel that Immortality is not at all the great
| blessing which il had been at first thought tC
be. They We're seen dragging themselves
| along in the sun, bent double over their staffs
with hoary locks, shaking heads, sightles'
eyes coughing tottering, their flesh gone,
out of shape, withered up like so many enor
nous snails. The women were even more
horrible than the men.


The feehlest of the old men kept their beds,
and there was not house where you did moi
find five or six beds where the ancestors bab
| bled to the great wearness of their great
grandsons, and the sons of their great-grand
sons.


They were even obliged to get them to
| gether in immense hospitals, where each new
generation was occupied in taking care o
the preceding ones who could not be cured o
life. More than this there were no long
er any wills made, nobody inherited any
thing and the new generations possessed
nothing of their own, all the property be
longing by law TO the great-grandfathers ant
great-great- -gmndfathers, who could not en-
JOY it.


Under invalid kings, governments grew
weak laws relaxed. and soon the immortals
sure of not being punished after death, gave
themselves up to every crime they pillaged
robbed, burned but alas, they could no
kill


In every kingdom the cry Long live tn,
king became Il seditiOus cry and was for
hidden under the severest penalties with tn,
exception of the penalty of death. This wa
not all. As the animals did not die any NOR,
than the men, soon the earth was overruI
with inhabitants that it could not nOurisl
them: then came n terrible famine, and mel
wandering half naked through the fields fo
want of n roof to cover their heads, suffered
cruelty from hunger, without being able Il
die of it.


II Misery had only known of this frightfu
state of things she would not have been will
ing to prolong ii. even at the price of life
nut accustomed OF olu W prlNhuOhh anu III
firmities, she and Faro suffered less from
them than others and they had become, a
it were, deaf and blind, aud Misery did no
take much account of what was going ol
about her.


The men set themselves to work, with a
much ardor to seek their final ends as the.
had hitherto done to avoid it. They had re
course to the most subtle poisons and tn,
most deadly weapons; but weapons and poi
sons only injured their bodies without de
stroying them.


Formidable wars were decreed. With com
mon accord, in order to render one anothe
service of mutual destruction, nations rushet
to arms against the other; but they inflicted
the most frghtful calamities without succeed
ing in killing u single man. A congress o
Death was assembled; the doctors flOcked h
it from the four quarters of the globe +; ther
came white, black, yellow and dcopper-colored
! 4 tnnatbar far n