Tuesday, Feb. 7th, going about dinner-time, I found the usual party of
friends sitting down alone; for Kant was in bed. This was a new scene
in his house, and increased our fears that his end was now at hand.
However, having seen him rally so often, I would not run the risk of
leaving him without a dinner-party for the next day; and accordingly, at
the customary hour of one, we assembled in his house on
Wednesday, Feb. 8th. I paid my respects to him as cheerfully as
possible, and ordered dinner to be served up. Kant sat at the table with
us; and, taking a spoon with a little soup in it, put it to his lips;
but immediately put it down again, and retired to bed, from which he
never rose again, except during the few minutes when it was re-arranged.
Thursday, the 9th, he had sunk into the weakness of a dying person,
and the corpse-like appearance had already taken possession of him. I
visited him frequently through the day; and, going at ten o'clock at
night, I found him in a state of insensibility. I could not draw any
sign from him that he knew me, and I left him to the care of his sister
and his servant.
Friday, the 10th, I went to see him at six o'clock in the morning. It
was very stormy, and a deep snow had fallen in the night-time. And, by
the way, I remember that a gang of house-breakers had forced their way
through the premises in order to reach Kant's next neighbor, who was a
goldsmith. As I drew near to his bed-side, I said, 'Good morning.' He
returned my salutation by saying, 'Good morning,' but in so feeble and
faltering a voice that it was hardly articulate. I was rejoiced to find
him sensible, and I asked him if he knew me:--'Yes,' he replied; and,
stretching out his hand, touched me gently upon the cheek. Through the
rest of the day, whenever I visited him, he seemed to have relapsed into
a state of insensibility.
Saturday, the 11th, he lay with fixed and rayless eyes; but to all
appearance in perfect peace. I asked him again, on this day, if he knew
me. He was speechless, but he turned his face towards me and made signs
that I should kiss him. Deep emotion thrilled me, as I stooped down to
kiss his pallid lips; for I knew that in this solemn act of tenderness
he meant to express his thankfulness for our long friendship, and to
signify his affection and his last farewell. I had never seen him confer
this mark of his love upon anybody, except once, and that was a few
weeks before his death, when he drew his sister to him and kissed her.
The kiss which he now gave to me was the last memorial that he knew me.
Whatever fluid was now offered to him passed the oesophagus with a
rattling sound, as often happens with dying people; and there were all
the signs of death being close at hand.
I wished to stay with him till all was over; and as I had been witness
of his life, to be witness also of his departure; and therefore I never
quitted him except when I was called off for a few minutes to attend
some private business. The whole of this night I spent at his bed-side.
Though he had passed the day in a state of insensibility, yet in the
evening he made intelligible signs that he wished to have his bed put in
order; he was therefore lifted out in our arms, and the bed-clothes and
pillows being hastily arranged, he was carried back again. He did not
sleep; and a spoonful of liquid, which was sometimes put to his lips, he
usually pushed aside; but about one o'clock in the night he himself made
a motion towards the spoon, from which I collected that he was thirsty;
and I gave him a small quantity of wine and water sweetened; but the
muscles of his mouth had not strength enough to retain it, so that to
prevent its flowing back he raised his hand to his lips, until with
a rattling sound it was swallowed. He seemed to wish for more; and I
continued to give him more, until he said, in a way that I was just
able to understand,--'It is enough.' And these were his last words.
At intervals he pushed away the bed-clothes, and exposed his person; I
constantly restored the clothes to their situation, and on one of these
occasions I found that the whole body and extremities were already
growing cold, and the pulse intermitting.
At a quarter after three o'clock on Sunday morning, February 12, Kant
stretched himself out as if taking a position for his final act, and
settled into the precise posture which he preserved to the moment of
death. The pulse was now no longer perceptible to the touch in his
hands, feet or neck. I tried every part where a pulse beats, and found
none anywhere but in the left hip, where it beat with violence, but
often intermitted.
About ten o'clock in the forenoon he suffered a remarkable change; his
eye was rigid and his face and lips became discolored by a cadaverous
pallor. Still, such was the effect of his previous habits, that no trace
appeared of the cold sweat which naturally accompanies the last mortal
agony.
It was near eleven o'clock when the moment of dissolution approached.
His sister was standing at the foot of the bed, his sister's son at
the head. I, for the purpose of still observing the fluctuations of the
pulse in his hip, was kneeling at the bed-side; and I called his servant
to come and witness the death of his good master. Now began the last
agony, if to him it could be called an agony, where there seemed to be
no struggle. And precisely at this moment, his distinguished friend, Mr.
R. R. V., whom I had summoned by a messenger, entered the room. First of
all, the breath grew feebler; then it missed its regularity of return;
then it wholly intermitted, and the upper lip was slightly convulsed;
after this there followed one slight respiration or sigh; and after that
no more; but the pulse still beat for a few seconds--slower and fainter,
till it ceased altogether; the mechanism stopped; the last motion was at
an end; and exactly at that moment the clock struck eleven.
Soon after his death the head of Kant was shaved; and, under the
direction of Professor Knorr, a plaster cast was taken, not a masque
merely, but a cast of the whole bead, designed (I believe) to enrich the
craniological collection of Dr. Gall.
The corpse being laid out and properly attired, immense numbers of
people of every rank, from the highest to the lowest, flocked to see it.
Everybody was anxious to make use of the last opportunity he would have
for entitling himself to say--'I too have seen Kant.' This went on for
many days--during which, from morning to night, the house was thronged
with the public. Great was the astonishment of all people at the
meagreness of Kant's appearance; and it was universally agreed that a
corpse so wasted and fleshless had never been beheld. His head rested
upon the same cushion on which once the gentlemen of the university had
presented an address to him; and I thought that I could not apply it to
a more honorable purpose than by placing it in the coffin, as the final
pillow of that immortal head.
Upon the style and mode of his funeral, Kant had expressed his wishes in
earlier years in a separate memorandum. He there desired that it should
take place early in the morning, with as little noise and disturbance
as possible, and attended only by a few of his most intimate friends.
Happening to meet with this memorandum, whilst I was engaged at his
request in arranging his papers, I very frankly gave him my opinion,
that such an injunction would lay me, as the executor of his will, under
great embarrassments; for that circumstances might very probably arise
under which it would be next to impossible to carry it into effect. Upon
this Kant tore the paper, and left the whole to my own discretion. The
fact was, I foresaw that the students of the University would never
allow themselves to be robbed of this occasion for expressing their
veneration by a public funeral. The event showed that I was right; for
a funeral such as Kant's, one so solemn and so magnificent, the city of
Königsberg has never witnessed before or since. The public journals, and
separate accounts in pamphlets, etc., have given so minute an account of
its details, that I shall here notice only the heads of the ceremony.
On the 28th of February, at two o'clock in the afternoon, all the
dignitaries of church and state, not only those resident in Königsberg,
but from the remotest parts of Prussia, assembled in the church of the
Castle. Hence they were escorted by the whole body of the University,
splendidly dressed for the occasion, and by many military officers of
rank, with whom Kant had always been a great favorite, to the house
of the deceased Professor; from which the corpse was carried by
torch-light, the bells of every church in Königsberg tolling, to the
Cathedral which was lit up by innumerable wax-lights. A never-ending
train of many thousand persons followed it on foot. In the Cathedral,
after the usual burial rites, accompanied with every possible expression
of national veneration to the deceased, there was a grand musical
service, most admirably performed, at the close of which Kant's mortal
remains were lowered into the academic vault, where he now rests among
the ancient patriarchs of the University. PEACE BE TO HIS DUST, AND
EVERLASTING HONOR!