vinegar to his nostrils and he recovered consciousness. Nevertheless
his haggard eyes were so devoid of life and intelligence that the

surgeon said to the officer after feeling Prosper's pulse,--
"Captain, it is impossible to question the man at this moment."

"Very well! Take him away," replied the captain, interrupting the
surgeon, and addressing a corporal who stood behind the prisoner. "You

cursed coward!" he went on, speaking to Prosper in a low voice, "try
at least to walk firmly before these German curs, and save the honor

of the Republic."
This address seemed to wake up Prosper Magnan, who rose and made a few

steps forward; but when the door was opened and he felt the fresh air
and saw the crowd before him, he staggered and his knees gave way

under him.
"This coward of a sawbones deserves a dozen deaths! Get on!" cried the

two soldiers who had him in charge, lending him their arms to support
him.

"There he is!--oh, the villain! the coward! Here he is! There he is!"
These cries seemed to be uttered by a single voice, the tumultuous

voice of the crowd which followed him with insults and swelled at
every step. During the passage from the inn to the prison, the noise

made by the tramping of the crowd and the soldiers, the murmur of the
various colloquies, the sight of the sky, the coolness of the air, the

aspect of Andernach and the shimmering of the waters of the Rhine,--
these impressions came to the soul of the young man vaguely,

confusedly, torpidly, like all the sensations he had felt since his
waking. There were moments, he said, when he thought he was no longer

living.
I was then in prison. Enthusiastic, as we all are at twenty years of

age, I wished to defend my country, and I commanded a company of free
lances, which I had organized in the vicinity of Andernach. A few days

before these events I had fallen plump, during the night, into a
French detachment of eight hundred men. We were two hundred at the

most. My scouts had sold me. I was thrown into the prison of
Andernach, and they talked of shooting me, as a warning to intimidate

others. The French talked also of reprisals. My father, however,
obtained a reprieve for three days to give him time to see General

Augereau, whom he knew, and ask for my pardon, which was granted. Thus
it happened that I saw Prosper Magnan when he was brought to the

prison. He inspired me with the profoundest pity. Though pale,
distracted, and covered with blood, his whole countenance had a

character of truth and innocence which struck me forcibly. To me his
long fair hair and clear blue eyes seemed German. A true image of my

hapless country. I felt he was a victim and not a murderer. At the
moment when he passed beneath my window he chanced to cast about him

the painful, melancholy smile of an insane man who suddenly recovers
for a time a fleeting gleam of reason. That smile was assuredly not

the smile of a murderer. When I saw the jailer I questioned him about
his new prisoner.

"He has not spoken since I put him in his cell," answered the man. "He
is sitting down with his head in his hands and is either sleeping or

reflecting about his crime. The French say he'll get his reckoning to-
morrow morning and be shot in twenty-four hours."

That evening I stopped short under the window of the prison during the
short time I was allowed to take exercise in the prison yard. We

talked together, and he franklyrelated" target="_blank" title="a.叙述的；有联系的">related to me his strange affair,
replying with evident truthfulness to my various questions. After that

first conversation I no longer doubted his innocence; I asked, and
obtained the favor of staying several hours with him. I saw him again

at intervals, and the poor lad let me in without concealment to all
his thoughts. He believed himself both innocent and guilty.

Remembering the horribletemptation which he had had the strength to
resist, he feared he might have done in sleep, in a fit of

somnambulism, the crime he had dreamed of awake.
"But your companion?" I said to him.

"Oh!" he cried eagerly. "Wilhelm is incapable of--"
He did not even finish his sentence. At that warm defence, so full of

youth and manly virtue, I pressed his hand.
"When he woke," continued Prosper, "he must have been terrified and

lost his head; no doubt he fled."
"Without awaking you?" I said. "Then surely your defence is easy;

Wahlenfer's valise cannot have been stolen."
Suddenly he burst into tears.

"Oh, yes!" he cried, "I am innocent! I have not killed a man! I
remember my dreams. I was playing at base with my schoolmates. I

couldn't have cut off the head of a man while I dreamed I was
running."

Then, in spite of these gleams of hope, which gave him at times some
calmness, he felt a remorse which crushed him. He had, beyond all

question, raised his arm to kill that man. He judged himself; and he
felt that his heart was not innocent after committing that crime in

his mind.
"And yet, I AM good!" he cried. "Oh, my poor mother! Perhaps at this

moment she is cheerfully playing boston with the neighbors in her
little tapestry salon. If she knew that I had raised my hand to murder

a man--oh! she would die of it! And I AM in prison, accused of
committing that crime! If I have not killed a man, I have certainly

killed my mother!"
Saying these words he wept no longer; he was seized by that short and

rapid madness known to the men of Picardy; he sprang to the wall, and
if I had not caught him, he would have dashed out his brains against

it.
"Wait for your trial," I said. "You are innocent, you will certainly

be acquitted; think of your mother."
"My mother!" he cried frantically, "she will hear of the accusation

before she hears anything else,--it is always so in little towns; and
the shock will kill her. Besides, I am not innocent. Must I tell you

the whole truth? I feel that I have lost the virginity of my
conscience."

After that terrible avowal he sat down, crossed his arms on his
breast, bowed his head upon it, gazing gloomily on the ground. At this

instant the turnkey came to ask me to return to my room. Grieved to
leave my companion at a moment when his discouragement was so deep, I

pressed him in my arms with friendship, saying:--
"Have patience; all may yet go well. If the voice of an honest man can

still your doubts, believe that I esteem you and trust you. Accept my
friendship, and rest upon my heart, if you cannot find peace in your

own."
The next morning a corporal's guard came to fetch the young surgeon at

nine o'clock. Hearing the noise made by the soldiers, I stationed
myself at my window. As the prisoner crossed the courtyard, he cast

his eyes up to me. Never shall I forget that look, full of thoughts,
presentiments, resignation, and I know not what sad, melancholy grace.

It was, as it were, a silent but intelligible last will by which a man
bequeathed his lost existence to his only friend. The night must have

been very hard, very solitary for him; and yet, perhaps, the pallor of
his face expressed a stoicism gathered from some new sense of self-

respect. Perhaps he felt that his remorse had purified him, and
believed that he had blotted out his fault by his anguish and his

shame. He now walked with a firm step, and since the previous evening
he had washed away the blood with which he was, involuntarily,

stained.
"My hands must have dabbled in it while I slept, for I am always a

restless sleeper," he had said to me in tones of horrible despair.
I learned that he was on his way to appear before the council of war.

The division was to march on the following morning, and the
commanding-officer did not wish to leave Andernach without inquiry

into the crime on the spot where it had been committed. I remained in
the utmostanxiety during the time the council lasted. At last, about

mid-day, Prosper Magnan was brought back. I was then taking my usual
walk; he saw me, and came and threw himself into my arms.

"Lost!" he said, "lost, without hope! Here, to all the world, I am a