My Years with Ludwig von Mises.pdf - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

he said to me: "The only goodthing about being a nonagenarian is
that you are able to read your obituaries while you are still alive."
We now lived very quietly, but nevertheless I invited friends
every week, for I did not want Lu to feel isolated. The ones he
loved to see most were Larry Fertig, Henry Hazlitt, and Percy and
Bettina. They all had strong, clear voices, spqke distinctly, and
chose subjects that interested Lu, so he could participate in the
conversation. But mostly he wanted to be alone with me. "If it
were not for you," he often said, "I would not want to live anymore."
I never believed the doctor when he told me in the last
weeks of Lu's life that a patient does not know when his mind is
slipping. Lu knew it, and he saw no purpose for his living any
longer.
The last summer, 1973, I was too tired to keep house again, and
we flew to Switzerland, to a health resort high above Lucerne, with
a most beautiful view on the Vierwaldstaettersee and the surrounding
snow-covered mountains. The place had a beautiful park; the
owners were friendly and attentive; and Lu loved to walk in the
park. But the place was too remote for proper medical attention.
We left~after a few weeks, and the very day after our return to
New York Luhad to enter the hospital and never left it again. He
was not allowed any visitors, but when Percy and Bettina came to
see him on his ninety-second birthday, he asked me to let them
enter. Bettina wished him a happy birthday, and he thanked her
and kissed herhand. The Austrian gentleman had remembered the
old Austrian custom. Bettina and Percy cried so hard I led them
out of the room; I did not want Lu to be disturbed. With the help of
valium I managed to keep my s'mile for Lu all the time.
The last and greatest joy for Lu was when I read him part of the
article tbat Henry Hazlitt had published in Barron's for Lu's ninety-second
birthday. I only read him a short passage, in which
Hazlitt says:
These 92 years of his life have been amazingly fruitful. In conferring
the Distinguished Fellow Award in 1969, the American Economic
Association credited Mises as the author of 19 volumes if one
only counts first editions, but of 46 if one counts all revised editions
and foreign translations. In his last years other honors have come to
Mises. But such honors, even taken as a whole, seem scarcely proportionate
to his achievements. If ever a man deserved the Nobel Prize
in economics, it is Mises.
I read it twice to Lu, to be sure he understood. And he smiled, a
sad, resigned little smile.
This same little sad smile I remember only too well when, on
December 4, 1969, Lu read an article by Winston Duke, published
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