AMONG the little suppers which Irving accepted after the play was
a cosey entertainment given by Major Frank Bond, at which a dozen
gentlemen of distinction in politics, science, and the army, were
present. Dr. Fordyce Barker, who was intimate with Dickens, during
that illustrious author’s visits to America, was one of the guests. He
started, among other subjects, a very interesting conversation.
“Have you ever made studies of deaths for stage purposes?” asked Dr.
Barker.
“No.”
“And yet your last moments of Mathias and of Louis XI. are perfectly
consistent and correct psychologically.”
“My idea is to make death in these cases a characteristic Nemesis; for
example, Mathias dies of the fear of discovery; he is fatally haunted
by the dread of being found out, and dies of it in a dream. Louis pulls
himself together by a great effort of will in his weakest physical
moment, to fall dead—struck as if by a thunderbolt—while giving an
arrogant command that is to control Heaven itself; and it seems to me
that he should collapse ignominiously, as I try to illustrate.”
“You succeed perfectly,” the doctor replied, “and from a physiological
point of view, too.”
“Hamlet’s death, on the other hand, I would try to make sweet and
gentle as the character, as if the ‘flights of angels winged him to his
rest.’”
“You seem to have a genius for fathoming the conceptions of your
authors, Mr. Irving,” said the doctor; “and it is, of course, very
important to the illusion of a scene that the reality of it should
be consistently maintained. Last night I went to see a play called
‘Moths,’ at Wallack’s. There is a young man in it who acts very well;
but he, probably by the fault of the author more than his own, commits
a grave error in the manner of his death. We are told that he is shot
through the lungs. This means almost immediate unconsciousness, and a
quick, painless death; yet the actor in question came upon the stage
after receiving this fatal wound, made a coherent speech, and died in a
peaceful attitude.”
“Talking of interesting psychological investigations,” said Irving, “I
came upon a curious story, the other day, of the execution of Dr. de la
Pommerais, in 1864. He was a poisoner, somewhat after the Palmer type.
I was present, then a boy, during the trial of the English murderer,
and was, therefore, all the more interested in the last hours of the
Frenchman. He was a skilled physician, it seems, and a surgeon named
Velpeau visited him in his prison, the night before his execution, in
the pure interest of physiological science. ‘I need not tell you,’ he
said to de la Pommerais, ‘that one of the most interesting questions in
this connection is, whether any ray of memory or sensibility survives
in the brain of a man after his head is severed from his body.’ The
condemned man turned a startled and anxious face to the surgeon. ‘You
are to die; nothing, it seems, can save you. Will you not, therefore,
utilize your death in the interest of science?’ Professional instinct
mastered physical fear, and de la Pommerais said, ‘I will, my friend;
I will.’ Velpeau then sat down, and the two discussed and arranged the
proposed experiment. ‘When the knife falls,’ said Velpeau, ‘I shall
be standing at your side, and your head will at once pass from the
executioner’s hands into mine. I will then cry distinctly into your
ear: “Count de la Pommerais, can you at this moment thrice lower the
lid of your right eye while the left remains open?“‘ The next day, when
the great surgeon reached the condemned cell, he found the doomed man
practising the sign agreed upon. A few minutes later the guillotine
had done its work,—the head was in Velpeau’s hands and the question
put. Familiar as he was with the most shocking scenes, it is said
that Velpeau was almost frozen with terror as he saw the right lid
fall, while the other eye looked fixedly at him. ‘Again,’ he cried
frantically. The lids moved, but they did not part. It was all over. A
ghastly story. One hopes it may not be true.”