"Not at all!" cried Fernow passionately, and turned away. The deep flush which earlier had suffused his pale face at every violent excitement, again appeared, although less visible in the bronzed countenance.
This sudden emotion had escaped the surgeon. He had been a younger colleague of Doctor Stephen, a private tutor in the university of B. He and Fernow had known each other sufficiently to exchange a passing salutation as they met. This had lasted for three years, but the army life had in a few hours made them acquaintances, and in a few weeks, friends.
The always merry young doctor laughed aloud at his own comic idea. "I have really been very curious as to the where and when! Since we have been in the field, I have scarcely stirred from your side, and in B. you never so much as looked at a woman, for which reason, the fairer half of the city, with good reason, declared you outlawed and proscribed." Fernow made no answer; he busied himself with the hilt of his sword.
"But Doctor Stephen was right with his diagnosis," continued the surgeon after a momentary pause, "although I would not believe it when he came over to H. to commend you to my care, he having heard that I was assigned to your regiment. I could with a good conscience, promise to do my best, for I was convinced that you would be the first patient, to fall into my hands. The first week, I would not have given a penny for your life, but when the marches and hardships began, when our men fell in scores beneath the fiery August sun, and you still held out; when amid all the over exertion and deprivation which sometimes lay low the strongest, you grew only healthier and more robust then I took off my hat to the superior discernment of my old colleague. Walter, you have one of the best constitutions, a really magnificent constitution, which only needed to renounce the study and the writing-desk, to gain its full development; and you have found the right, although somewhat unusual remedy for your nerves. The thunder of the cannon has thoroughly re-established them! This will be a surprise to everyone when you return to B."
"When I return?"
"Forever and eternally, these presentiments of death!" cried the surgeon, with an impatient gesture. "You cling to them with a genuine passion."
"Because I feel them!"
"Nonsense! If there is a man bullet-proof it is you! Do not take it ill of me, Walter, but your rushing to the front in all these battles, borders on insanity. Courage need not become reckless; but where excitement urges you on, you see and hear nothing. Your comrades all say this."
"And still there is not one among them, who a little while ago, would have owned that I possessed any courage at all," returned Fernow, with some bitterness.
"I know that," said the surgeon, frankly. "But to tell the truth you used to have little enough of the hero in you. You were entirely a man of the pen, who wholly absorbed in his books had nothing to do with the outside world. Now that is all a thing of the past, as well as the error of your comrades. Since the first battle, none doubt your courage."