Jane Austen, a British writer, lived a short but very vibrant life.
At the end of May, Cassandra and Jane Austen, having borrowed the crew from their older brother, James, went to Winchester - Jane Austen's condition was getting worse and the family was hoping that Dr. Lyford, a doctor at the hospital there, would help her. Osten moved the road well, and until mid-June, her condition was quite tolerable, but then the disease returned to her in a more acute form. (We still don't know exactly what killed Jane Austen, the most recent version is Brill Zinser's disease, a relapse into epidemic typhus.)
On July 15, in the evening, Jane Austen felt a sharp, severe malaise, as reported to her sister Cassandra. Jane Austen spent the next two days almost unconscious, only rarely recovering. On Thursday, July 17, Jane Austen regained consciousness for the last time and, according to a letter that Cassandra Austen wrote to her niece Fanny Osten-Night, the future Lady of Natchbull, after her death, was unable to say for sure that she was the one who was in pain, although, on the whole, she complained of unremitting pain. When Cassandra asked her sister if she wanted anything, she replied - nothing but to die, and again, according to Cassandra, her last words were:
"Lord, give me patience. Pray for me, oh, pray for me".
Dr. Lyford called in a sick dose of laudanum and Jane Austen was no longer awake. At about nine o'clock she was lying on the bed in a very uncomfortable position across so that her head was hanging from one side and Cassandra had to keep her head on her knees on a pillow. At night, she was briefly replaced by their daughter-in-law, Mary, James Austen's second wife. At about three o'clock in the morning, Cassandra returned to her post and at half-past midnight, Jane Austen died on Friday 18 July 1817.
Interestingly, the Austens decided to bury her in Winchester Cathedral, although it was only some five hours before Chowton or Steventon, a short distance even by the standards of the time. Moreover, the funeral cost 92 pounds - a huge, incredible amount that could live a year, and this even though it was dressed sister Cassandra herself and the wake - as some event with a treat - was not there. All the money went to pay for the burial place itself. The Ostenov family was going through a difficult time - Henry Osten's bank burst, his brother and uncle, former guarantors, lost about £30,000, also, Edward Osten-Night recently lost a complicated lawsuit that also cost him a lot of money. And here is such a huge sum for the funeral of his youngest, unmarried daughter. I think Jane Austen was buried so lavishly because she was loved. Loved by brothers, loved by her many nephews and nieces, loved by her sister, for whom she was the "light of life". And these magnificent, beautiful funerals in a majestic, important place - a sign of how suddenly and acutely felt her departure. The same Helena Kelly writes - if she had lived another thirty or forty years. She would have taken the train. She would have met Dickens. We'd have a picture of her and we'd know exactly what she looked like.
But I think that if she had lived another year or two, she would have finished Sandyton. And, of course, when you reread all six of her novels, it becomes somehow unbearable, somehow to tears pity all unwritten. In "Reasonable reasons" for the first time Osten has a romantic landscape, in "Sandyton" there is a heroine mulatto - and so interesting, where would all this lead, but what if something like Wuthering Heights would appear much earlier? It is clear that on Emily Bronte the novel of such power really, as her afraid older sister assured her, has descended a little from above and it happens once, but when you read Persuasion - the most autumn her novel, the most final - it is felt that under other circumstances it could not be autumn, and the early spring, followed by something quite incredible, from which British literature could not come to its senses approximately ever, and if Osten stood alongside Shakespeare with six novels, it would be ten years, five more!
By the 200th anniversary of Osten's death, I had read a bunch of clever articles, serious research and, in general, new literary words in the field of oriental studies. And all these great smart people are trying hard to prove, in general, one thing: novels Osten - it's not just a story, not just a story. It is an important criticism of everything, a revolutionary view of everything, satire, irony, anger, bargaining, etc.