Never had all the pomp and circumstance of war seemed so grand and so splendid to my eyes as when, through the grating of my prison-cell, I strained my glances after the dense columns and the clanking squadrons, as they passed. The gorgeous group of staff-officers and the heavy-rolling artillery had all a significance and a meaning that they had never possessed for me before. They seemed to shadow forth great events for the future, portentous changes in time to come, gigantic convulsions in the condition of the world, kingdoms rocking, and thrones overturned. The shock of battle was, too, present to my eyes,—the din, the crash, and the uproar of conflict, with all its terrors and all its chivalry. What a glorious thing must life be to those about to enter on such a career! How high must beat the hearts of all who joined in this enthusiasm!
That day was to me like whole years of existence, filled with passages of intensest excitement and moments of the very saddest depression. My brain, hitherto calm and collected, struggled in vain against a whole torrent of thoughts without coherence or relation, and at length my faculties began to wander. I forgot where I was, and the fate that impended over me. I spoke of all that had happened to me long before,—of my infancy, my boyhood, my adventures as a man, and those with whom I lived in intimacy. The turnkey, an invalided sergeant of artillery and a kind-hearted fellow, tried to recall me to myself, by soothing and affectionate words. He even affected an interest in what I said, to try and gain some clew to my wanderings, and caught eagerly at anything that promised a hope of obtaining an influence over me. He fetched the surgeon of the jail to my cell at last, and he pronounced my case the incipient stage of a brain fever. I heard the opinion as he whispered it, and understood its import thoroughly. I was in that state where reason flashes at moments across the mind, but all powers of collected thought are lost. Amongst the names that I uttered in my ravings one alone attracted their attention: it was that of Ysaffich, the Pole, of whom I spoke frequently.
“Do you know the Colonel Ysaffich?” said the doctor to me.
“Yes,” said I, slowly; “he is a Russian spy.”
“That answer scarcely denotes madness,” whispered the doctor to the turnkey, with a smile, as he turned away from the bed.
“Should you like to see him?” said he, in a kind tone.
“Of all things,” replied I, eagerly; “tell him to come to me.”
I conclude that this question was asked simply to amuse my mind, and turn it from other painful thoughts, for he shortly after retired, without further allusion to it; but from that hour my mind was riveted on the one idea; and to everybody that approached my sick bed, my first demand was, “Where was Count Ysaffich, and when was he coming to see me?”
I had been again conveyed back to the military hospital, in which I was lying when the Emperor came to make his customary visit. The prisoners' ward was, however, one exempted from the honor he bestowed on the rest; and one could only hear the distant sounds of the procession as it passed from room to room.
I was lying, with my eyes half closed, lethargic and dull, when I heard a voice say,—