NOSTALGIA.
The soldier is dying of home-sickness.
On a sudden an epidemic broke out amongst the Hungarian troops stationed in foreign lands.
A mysterious man wandered from place to place, visiting the wine-houses frequented by the hussars, and joining in their conversation. The words he spoke, repeated from mouth to mouth, spread far and wide amongst the light-hearted soldiers, whose light-heartedness then suddenly left them. The stranger told them of things which had happened in their native land; and, when he departed, he left behind him printed verses and proclamations. These the privates took to their serjeants to have read to them. When they heard them read they wept and cursed, and learned by heart both verse and prose, from the first word to the last, and repeated them from morning till night.
Then many took to their beds, and neither ate nor drank; and when the doctors asked what ailed them, they pointed to their hearts, and said, "Home! home!—let us go home!"
Many died, and no one could say what had killed them. The rough uneducated soldiers were pining away in home-sickness, like flowers transplanted to a foreign and ungenial soil.
An experiment was tried. Some of the sick men received leave to go home. The next day—they were well and hearty.
It became known that some one was at work secretly inoculating the soldier with this strange malady; but it was impossible to detect the person.
The soldiers!—oh, not one of them would betray him; and all snares were laid in vain. With the officers he never meddled. The private soldiers were his men. With them he felt himself secure from treachery. And the seed he scattered abroad produced an abundant harvest.
The dejection of the troops became daily more striking. The soldiers grew wild and intractable. No longer, when riding their horses to water, did they sing, as had been their wont, joyous ditties in praise of wine and women. Their songs were now sad and strange-sounding; mournful words to yet more dismal tunes. They sang of their country, of their dear native land, and of strife and bloodshed, in dirge-like strains; and the burden of every couplet was "Eljen Magyar!" Like the last accents of a dying man were the tones they uttered, sinking deeper and deeper, and ending in piteous long-protracted cadences.