course of things. Try to look on me as a patient, afflicted
with an illness with which you are still unfamiliar--and then your
curiosity will be aroused in the highest degree. You can now make a few
important physiological observations upon me... Is not the expectation
of a violent death itself a real illness?"

The doctor was struck by that idea, and he brightened up.

We mounted our horses. Werner clung on to his bridle with both hands,
and we set off. In a trice we had galloped past the fortress, through
the village, and had ridden into the gorge. Our winding road was
half-overgrown with tall grass and was intersected every moment by a
noisy brook, which we had to ford, to the great despair of the doctor,
because each time his horse would stop in the water.

A morning more fresh and blue I cannot remember! The sun had scarce
shown his face from behind the green summits, and the blending of the
first warmth of his rays with the dying coolness of the night produced
on all my feelings a sort of sweet languor. The joyous beam of the young
day had not yet penetrated the gorge; it gilded only the tops of the
cliffs which overhung us on both sides. The tufted shrubs, growing in
the deep crevices of the cliffs, besprinkled us with a silver shower
at the least breath of wind. I remember that on that occasion I loved
Nature more than ever before. With what curiosity did I examine every
dewdrop trembling upon the broad vine leaf and reflecting millions of
rainbowhued rays! How eagerly did my glance endeavour to penetrate the
smoky distance! There the road grew narrower and narrower, the cliffs
bluer and more dreadful, and at last they met, it seemed, in an
impenetrable wall.

We rode in silence.

"Have you made your will?" Werner suddenly inquired.

"No."

"And if you are killed?"

"My heirs will be found of themselves."

"Is it possible that you have no friends, to whom you would like to send
a last farewell?"...

I shook my head.

"Is there, really, not one woman in the world to whom you would like to
leave some token in remembrance?"...

"Do you want me to reveal my soul to you, doctor?" I answered... "You
see, I have outlived the years when people die with the name of the
beloved on their lips and bequeathing to a friend a lock of pomaded--or
unpomaded--hair. When I think that death may be near, I think of myself
alone; others do not even do as much. The friends who to-morrow will
forget me or, worse, will