Accordingly, my son, Marion governed Gaul for two months to the satisfaction of all. One evening, shortly before sunset, seeking some diversion from the grief that oppressed me, I took a walk into the woods near Mayence. I had been walking ahead mechanically a long time, seeking only silence and seclusion and thus penetrating deeper and deeper into the wood, when my feet struck an object that I had not noticed. I tripped and was thus drawn from my sad revery. At my feet lay a casque the visor and gorget of which were turned up. I recognized on the spot Marion's casque by those features peculiar to the casque that he wore. I examined the ground more attentively by the last rays of the sun which penetrated the foliage with difficulty. I detected traces of blood on the grass; I followed them; they led to a thicket; I entered it.
There, stretched upon some tree branches that were bent and broken with his fall, I saw Marion, bareheaded and bathed in his own blood. I thought he was dead, or at least unconscious. I was mistaken. As I stooped to raise him and to give him some aid, my eyes caught his; they were fixed but still clear, despite approaching dissolution.
"Go away, Schanvoch!" Marion said in a voice that though fainting indicated anger. "I dragged myself to this spot in order to die in peace—I threw myself into this thicket to escape detection. Go away, Schanvoch! Leave me alone!"
"Leave you!" I cried, looking at him in stupor and observing that his blouse was red with blood just above the heart. "Leave you when your blood is flowing over your clothes, and when your wound is perhaps mortal!"
"Oh, perhaps!" replied Marion with a sarcastic smile. "It is certainly mortal, thanks to the gods!"
"I shall run to town!" I cried without stopping to consider the distance that I had just walked, absorbed as I was in my own sorrow. "I shall go for help!"
"Ha! Ha! Ha!—to run to the city—and we are two leagues away!" replied Marion with a lugubrious peal of laughter. "I am not afraid of any help that you may bring, Schanvoch. I shall be dead in less than a quarter of an hour. But, in the name of heaven, go away!"
"Are you resolved to die—did you smite yourself with your sword?"
"You have said it."
"No! You are trying to deceive me. Your sword is in its sheath."