and none was manifested on the surface. To everyone else
he was the same; but for some little time past, a complete and unaltered
serenity, accompanied by a visible and cheerful return of inclination
towards life, had been noticed in him. He had made no charge in the
hours or the duration of his studies; but he had begun to attend the
anatomical classes very assiduously. One day he was seen to give even
more than his customary attention to a lesson in which the professor was
demonstrating the various functions of the heart; he examined with the
greatest care the place occupied by it in the chest, asking to have some
of the demonstrations repeated two or three times, and when he went
out, questioning some of the young men who were following the medical
courses, about the susceptibility of the organ, which cannot receive
ever so slight a blow without death ensuing from that blow: all this
with so perfect an indifference and calmness that no one about him
conceived any suspicion.

Another day, A. S., one of his friends, came into his room. Sand, who
had heard him coming up, was standing by the table, with a paper-knife
in his hand, waiting for him; directly the visitor came in, Sand flung
himself upon him, struck him lightly on the forehead; and then, as he
put up his hands to ward off the blow, struck him rather more violently
in the chest; then, satisfied with this experiment, said:--

"You see, when you want to kill a man, that is the way to do it; you
threaten the face, he puts up his hands, and while he does so you thrust
a dagger into his heart."

The two young men laughed heartily over this murderous demonstration,
and A. S. related it that evening at the wine-shop as one of the
peculiarities of character that were common in his friend. After the
event, the pantomime explained itself.

The month of March arrived. Sand became day by day calmer, more
affectionate, and kinder; it might be thought that in the moment of
leaving his friends for ever he wished to leave them an ineffaceable
remembrance of him. At last he announced that on account of several
family affairs he was about to undertake a little journey, and set about
all his preparations with his usual care, but with a serenity never
previously seen in him. Up to that time he had continued to work as
usual, not relaxing for an instant; for there was a possibility that
Kotzebue might die or be killed by somebody else before the term that
Sand had fixed to him