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.
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