I knew, afterward, that those students were members of the Tugend-Bund. No wonder they hated Frenchmen!
On returning to the hospital, we learned that we were to go, that same evening, to the barracks of Rosenthal—a sort of depot for wounded, near Lutzen, where the roll was called morning and evening, but where, at all other times, we were at liberty to do as we pleased. We often strolled through the town; but the citizens now slammed their doors in our faces, and the tavern-keepers not only refused to give us credit, but attempted to charge double and triple for what we got. But my comrade could not be cheated. He knew the price of everything as well as any Saxon among them. Often we stood on the bridge and gazed at the thousand branches of the Pleisse and the Elster, glowing red in the light of the setting sun, little thinking that we should one day cross those rivers after losing the bloodiest of battles, and that whole regiments would be submerged in the glittering waters beneath us.
But the ill-feeling of the people toward us was shown in a thousand forms. The day after the conclusion of the armistice, we went together to bathe in the Elster, and Zunnier, seeing a peasant approaching, cried:
"Holloa! comrade! Is there any danger here?"
"No. Go in boldly," replied the man.
Zunnier, mistrusting nothing, walked fifteen or eighteen feet out. He was a good swimmer, but his left arm was yet weak, and the strength of the current carried him away so quickly that he could not even catch the branches of the willows which hung over him; and were it not that he was carried to a ford, where he gained a footing, he would have been swept between two muddy islands, and certainly lost.
The peasant stood to see the effect of his advice. I rushed at him, but he laughed, and ran, quicker than I could follow him, to the city. Zunnier was wild with wrath, and wished to pursue him to Counewitz; but how could we find him among four or five hundred houses?
Returning to Leipsic, we saw joy painted on the countenances of the inhabitants. It did not display itself openly; but the citizens, meeting, would shake hands with an air of huge satisfaction, and the general rejoicing glistened even in the eyes of servants and the poorest workmen.
Zunnier said: "These Germans seem to be merry about something. They do not always look so good-natured."