When questioned it came out they had only one clean shirt between them and they were taking turns wearing it for meals. They had arrived with no French money, only worthless Spanish currency. Later funds were to come from the Republican embassy, permitting them to buy cigarettes and writing material, and to take care of the hotel. Antonio’s French friends also worried about Antonio’s clothes, which were torn and shabby after the escape from Spain. If he died, how could he be buried in a decent suit?

Antonio was able to go out on one occasion for a longer walk down to the beach of this Mediterranean village. Three decades earlier in Collioure, in the winter of 1909-10, George Braque and his compatriot Picasso invented cubism, and much later Matisse went there to paint and find his cutout sun. Most of Antonio’s short walks were up the narrow alley by the hotel, around the cemetery, and back to the Hotel Quintana, sometimes stopping at a store to chat in his good French with new acquaintances. In his memoirs José draws a sensitive and lovely picture of Machado and the sea:

A few days before his death and in his infinite love for nature, he told me before the mirror, while he tried in vain to straighten out his unruly hair, “Let’s look at the sea.”

This was his first and last outing. We set out for the beach. There we sat down on one of the boats that was resting on the sand.

The noon sun gave almost no heat. It was at that unique moment when one might say that his body buried its shadow under his feet.

It was windy, but he took off his hat that he fastened with one hand to his knee while his other hand rested, in its own way, on his cane. So he remained absorbed, silent, before the constant coming and going of the waves, untiring, stirring as under a curse that would never let it rest. After a long while of contemplation, he told me, pointing to one of the small humble houses of the fishermen, “If I could only live there behind one of those windows, freed at last from worry.” Then he got up with a great effort and, walking laboriously over the slipping sand in which his feet were almost completely sinking, we went back in the most profound silence.16

In addition to the desolation of many losses—of Spain, his last manuscripts, and his health—Antonio spoke often of missing his two young nieces who had been evacuated, like many children, to parts of Russia. It was impossible to contact them. He called them las rosas del jardín—the roses of the garden.

The poet’s health did not improve. Very early one morning on the 18th of February, his sister-in-law Matea Machado noticed that Antonio had taken a turn for the worse. His chest was completely congested. They called for the doctor, who came, gave him medicines, but could not help him.

The poet was gravely sick. He agonized for four days. At times he was saying, “Adiós, madre; adiós, madre!” Next to him on her cot his mother had fallen into a coma. On the evening of February 21, Matea used a bottle of champagne, given to them by the hotel landlady, Madame Quintana, to wet their lips. Antonio was still conscious and thanked her with a smile. He fell into a coma, and in his last moments he was saying in a low, monotonous voice, “Merci, madame; merci madame.” He died on February 22 at half-past three in the afternoon. In the deathbed photograph taken of the poet in his iron-frame bed in his room at Hotel Bougnol-Quintana, Machado is covered with the Republican flag. The eyes are not closed. They are gazing as they always were.

Antonio Machado was buried the next day in the local Collioure cemetery. Madame Quintana provided the plot. The morning of the funeral, José sent a telegram to the Spanish Embassy in Paris announcing the death of the poet. The funeral was simple. A great many Spaniards in Collioure came.