[At the moment when Monsieur Hermann uttered the name of Prosper
Magnan, my opposite neighbor seized the decanter, poured out a glass
of water, and emptied it at a draught. This movement having attracted
my attention, I thought I noticed a slight trembling of the hand and a
moisture on the brow of the capitalist.
"What is that man's name?" I asked my neighbor.
"Taillefer," she replied.
"Do you feel ill?" I said to him, observing that this strange
personage was turning pale.
"Not at all," he said with a polite gesture of thanks. "I am
listening," he added, with a nod to the guests, who were all
simultaneously looking at him.
"I have forgotten," said Monsieur Hermann, "the name of the other
young man. But the confidences which Prosper Magnan subsequently made
to me enabled me to know that his companion was dark, rather thin, and
jovial. I will, if you please, call him Wilhelm, to give greater
clearness to the tale I am about to tell you."
The worthy German resumed his narrative after having, without the
smallest regard for romanticism and local color, baptized the young
French surgeon with a Teutonic name.]
By the time the two young men reached Andernach the night was dark.
Presuming that they would lose much time in looking for their chiefs
and obtaining from them a military billet in a town already full of
soldiers, they resolved to spend their last night of freedom at an inn
standing some two or three hundred feet from Andernach, the rich color
of which, embellished by the fires of the setting sun, they had
greatly admired from the summit of the hill above the town.
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