Proudhon - A Biography

THE STRICKEN YEARS
and a glass o f wine in the morning.’ Proudhon himself showed
no such evidences o f indestructibility. From Dampierre he told
Euphrasie that his hair was falling, as a result o f the erysipelas,
and that his beard, which had been blond when he set out on his
travels, had turned decidedly grey in a few days. These signs
seemed to belie his efforts to convince himself that his health
might really be improving, and it was with a rather desperate
bravado that he wrote to Delhasse from Dampierre, prophesying
‘a universal European bankruptcy, political, economic, social and
moral,’ which would precipitate the social revolution. ‘Feeble as
I am,’ he added, ‘I shall live long enough to see that downfall.’
In mid-September he returned to Passy, having gained a vast
pleasure from the kindness o f the friends among whom he had
travelled; he even thought of a final return to the Franche-Comtd,
where he might end his days in the congenial company and
pleasant air o f some village o f the Jura. But he was still anxious
about his condition. He jested to Beslay that, instead o f being
cured, he was more likely to become accustomed to his illness,
but he wrote to Delhasse in a more gloomy tone, as if he were
already conscious o f the proximity of his end. ‘I live in resignation,
so passionately does man cling to life, but if I were called from
this earth, I should not be at all surprised; I should only regret not
having been able to put my hand to my testament. My testament
— if I can say this without seeming to ape Jesus and Moses— is
the complete exposition o f my thoughts on Justice.’ By October
he was complaining to Cretin of the alarming asthmatic symp­
toms which appeared with increasing regularity, and he declared
that he was weaker than ever before, with no sign o f a halt to
the frightening regression. ‘I do not think I can continue in this
way for another year, and I believe that if, after next summer—
supposing I get so far— I do not triumph over my illness, which
despite you has become chronic, I must make up my mind and
set my last wishes in order.’
Now, with the desperation o f a man who knows he has little
time, he forced himself to work in spite o f his sickness. ‘Every
day,’ he told Buzon at the end o f October, ‘from seven to noon,
I work at my task; a repugnant labour, inspired by sorrow, anger,
disgust, the desire for death, which I have not yet been able to
finish... Despite the gods, despite everything, I will have the
last word.’ And as he laboured, fighting often for breath, battling