"Well, stand back there, doctor," cried Blucher, "let me out! Do not make me angry; leave the door!"
"I do not care if you are angry, your excellency," said the surgeon- general, folding his arms, "but in order to get me out of this doorway you will have to kill me."
At this moment, Gneisenau uttered a cry of terror, and hastened toward Blucher. "What! your excellency," he exclaimed, "you intend to leave us? To set out secretly?"
"What do you say?" thundered the physician. "What did my patient intend to do?"
"He intends to forsake us—his army that worships him, his friends who idolize him, his king who hopes in him—he intends to leave us all!" said Gneisenau, mournfully. "It is written here, doctor; I may mention it to you, for you are one of our most devoted friends."
"And he intends also to leave his physician; he will go, and get blind!" exclaimed Voelzke, reproachfully.
"Well, it is precisely because I do not wish to get blind that I must move from here," said Blucher, who had now recovered his firmness, and felt relieved, since his secret had been disclosed. "What am I, a poor blind old man, to do longer in the field? I am fit for nothing. In the end I shall perhaps fare like old Kutusoff, whom they dragged along with the army. Thus would they drag me when I am no longer myself." [Footnote: Blucher's words.—Vide Varnhagun, "Prince Blucher of Wahlstatt," p. 373]
"But," said the physician, "your excellency is not blind; you will be well in two weeks if you only resolve to comply with my prescriptions, use the remedies I give you, and punctually obey my instructions. You intend to go to Brussels, where you will certainly find celebrated physicians; but they do not know you; they will only doctor your eyes, not suspecting that the seat of your disease is in your nerves, and that your eyes are unhealthy because your mind is suffering. And it will suffer still more when you have deserted your army, your friends—nay, I may say, your duty. The strange surroundings, the want of care, the unknown physicians, your anxiety at being ignorant of what the army is doing—all this will torture your soul, and aggravate the disease of your eyes."
"It is true, I shall be very lonely in a foreign city," said Blucher, thoughtfully; "but it is, after all, better than to stay here as a useless, blind old man. I can never again command an army or direct a battle."
"If you cannot command an army in person, you can by your words," exclaimed Gneisenau; "and if you cannot direct the battle with your arms, you can do so with your spirit; for that fires our hearts as long as you are with us, and bids defiance to the adversaries and hesitating diplomatists. If your person leaves us, your spirit does also, and with Marshal Forward we lose all prospect of marching forward. Consider this, your excellency; consider that you endanger not only the welfare of your army, but the success of the war; for when you are not present, all will go wrong."