“Where then do you go?”
“To the war. To the civil war, the most terrible of all, at Navarre.”
“To the war!” exclaimed the Spaniard, examining the kind and docile, almost humble, and very little belligerent, countenance of the German. “Then you would become a military man?”
“No, sir; that is not my vocation. Neither my affections nor my principles induce me to take up arms, if it were not to defend the holy cause of the independence of Germany, if the foreigner will become the invader. I go to the army of Navarre to procure employment as a surgeon.”
“You do not know the language?”
“No, sir; but I can learn it.”
“Nor the country?”
“Neither. I have never left my native town, except for the university.”
“But you are provided with recommendations?”
“None whatever.”