Gustav Mahler: Memories and Letters

He had difficulty in breathing and was given oxygen. Then uraemia-and the end. Chvostek was summoned. Mahler lay with dazed eyes: one finger was conducting on the quilt. There was a smile on his lips and twice he said: “Mozart!” His eyes were very big. I begged Chvostek to give him a large dose of morphia so that he might feel nothing more. He replied in a loud voice. I seized his hands: “Talk softly, he might hear you.”-“He hears nothing now.”

How terrible the callousness of doctors is in such moments. And how did he know that he could not hear? Perhaps he was only incapable of movement.

The death-agony began. I was sent into the next room. The death-rattle lasted several hours.

That ghastly sound ceased suddenly at midnight of the 18th of May during a tremendous thunderstorm.

Alma Mahler

Gustav Mahler: Memories and Letters London: W. Clowes and Son; 1946

Submitted by:

Irving A. Warren, MD

Bradenton, FL

• Copyright ©2004 by the American College of Physicians