blindness increased; his legs had become emaciated and
soft, "like cotton wool," the sufferer declared; his back
had become twisted; and in order to somewhat relieve
the cramps in the spine it had to be cauterized. For a
time it was the poet's wish to be taken to Germany,
there to end his days quietly; but the problem of how to
journey thither was insoluble, and ere long he realized
that not only for this practical reason, but for his wife's
sake he must await the inevitable end in Paris. Ere 1848
had passed away he was no longer able to lie upon an
ordinary bed, but upon a heap of mattresses and pillows
laid upon the floor; from this mattress-heap, this
"mattress-grave," he looked out upon the world as a
prisoner immured in a dungeon for life.

For the first year or two of this dreadful life, Heine
was so much visited that the apartments in the Rue
d'Anisterdam resembled rather the salon of some pros-
perous celebrity than the lodging of a poverty-stricken,
disease-wasted, death-sick Jew. Even the aged Béranger
once toiled up the steep stairs in order to greet a greater
than himself; and from time to time Dumas the elder
and Thdophile Gautier cheered the sufferer by their
visits: nor should special mention be omitted of the two
friends who by their translations and essays did so much to
make Heine's genius appreciated by the French public-
Gérard de Nerval and Saint-René Taillendier. But at
last, as was inevitablez -- since, as Heine himself remarked,
he was so unconscionably long a-dying -- the door-bell
rang but rarely, and ultimately weeks would pass without
any other than Mathilde to keep him company. True,
"Nonotto" was pleasant company, even though she

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