‘Towards daybreak I found myself lying in a cart upon some straw, beside another wounded man dressed in the uniform of the Tyrolese Jagers. His head was fearfully gashed by a sabre-cut, and a musket-ball had shattered his forearm. As I looked at him, a grim smile of savage glee lit up his pale features, and he looked from my wound to his own with a horrid significance. All my efforts to learn the fate of my comrades were fruitless; he could neither comprehend me nor I him, and it was only by conjecturing from the tones and gestures of those who occasionally came up to the cart to speak to him, that I could learn the fearful reality.
‘That day and the following one we journeyed onwards, but I knew naught of time. The fever of my wound, increased by some styptic they had used to stop the bleeding, had brought on delirium, and I raved of the fight, and strove to regain my legs and get free. To this paroxysm, which lasted many days, a low lingering fever succeeded, in which all consciousness was so slight that no memory has remained to tell of my sensations.
‘My first vivid sensation—it is before me at this minute—was on entering the little mountain village of the Marien Kreutz. I was borne on a litter by four men, for the path was inaccessible except to foot passengers. It was evening, and the long procession of the wounded men wound its way up the mountain defile and along the little street of the village, which now was crowded by the country-people, who with sad and tearful faces stood looking on their sons and brothers, or asking for those whom they were never to behold again. The little chapel of the village was converted into a hospital, and here beds were brought from every cabin, and all the preparations for tending the sick began with a readiness that surprised me.
‘As they bore me up the aisle of the chapel, a voice called out some words in Tyrolese; the men halted and turned round, and then carried me back into a small chapelry, where a single sick man was lying, whom in an instant I recognised as my wounded companion of the road. With a nod of rude but friendly recognition, he welcomed me, and I was placed near him on a straw mattress stretched beneath the altar.
‘Why I had been spared in the fearful carnage, and for what destiny I was reserved, were thoughts which rapidly gave way to others of deep despondency at my fortune—a despair that made me indifferent to life. The dreadful issue of the expedition would, I well knew, have ruined more prosperous careers than mine in that service, where want of success was the greatest of all crimes. Careless of my fate, I lived on in gloomy apathy, not one gleam of hope or comfort to shine upon the darkness of my misery.
‘This brooding melancholy took entire possession of me, and I took no note of the scenes around me. My ear was long since accustomed to the sad sounds of the sickbeds; the cries of suffering, and the low moanings of misery had ceased to move me; even the wild and frantic ravings of the wounded man near broke not in upon my musings, and I lived like one immured within a solitary dungeon.
‘I lay thus one night—my sadness and gloom weightier than ever on my broken spirits—listening to the echoed sounds of suffering that rose into the vaulted roof, and wishing for death to call me away from such a scene of misery, when I heard the low chanting of a priest coming along the aisle; and the moment after the footsteps of several persons came near, and then two acolytes, carrying lighted tapers, appeared, followed by a venerable man robed in white, and bearing in his hands a silver chalice. Two other priests followed him, chanting the last service, and behind all there came a female figure dressed in deep mourning; she was tall and graceful-looking, and her step had the firm tread of youth, but her head was bowed down with sorrow, and she held her veil pressed closely over her face. They gathered round the bed of the wounded man, and the priest took hold of his hand and lifted it slowly from the bed; and letting it go, it fell heavily down again, with a dull sound. The old man bent over the bed, touched the pale features, and gazed into the eyes, and then with clasped hands he sank down on his knees and prayed aloud; the others knelt beside him—all save one; she threw herself with frantic grief upon the dead body (for he was dead) and wept passionately. In vain they strove to calm her sorrow, or even withdraw her from the spot. She clung madly to it, and would not be induced to leave it.
‘I think I see her still before me—her long hair, black as night, streaming back from her pale forehead, and hanging down her shoulders; her eyes fixed on the dead man’s face, and her hands pressed hard upon her heart, as if to lull its agony. In all the wild transport of her grief she was beautiful; for although pale to sickness, and worn with watching, her large and lustrous eyes, her nose straight and finely chiselled like the features of an antique cameo, and her mouth, where mingled pride and sorrow trembled, gave her an expression of loveliness I cannot convey. Such was she, as she watched beside her brother’s death-bed day and night, silent and motionless; for as the first burst of grief was over she seemed to nerve her courage to the task; and even when the hour came, and they bore the body away to its last resting-place, not a sigh or sob escaped her.
‘The vacant spot—though it had been tenanted by suffering and misery—brought gloom to my heart. I had been accustomed each day to look for him at sunrise, and each evening to see him as the light of day declined; and I sorrowed like one deserted and alone. Not all alone! for, as if by force of habit, when evening came, she was at her place near the altar.
‘The fever, and my own anxious thoughts, preyed on my mind that night; and as I lay awake I felt parched and hot, and wished to drink, and I endeavoured with my only arm to reach the cup beside me. She saw the effort, and sprang towards me at once; and as she held it to my lips, I remembered then that often in the dreary nights of my sickness I had seen her at my bedside, nursing me and tending me. I muttered a word of gratitude in German, when she started suddenly, and stooping down, said in a clear accent—