sand. I had to pass through that part, to get at the other. My
memory is circumstantial and unshaken. I try it with these details,
and I see them all, in this my cell in the Bastille, near the close of
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
the tenth year of my captivity, as I saw them all that night.
“On some hay on the ground, with a cushion thrown under his
head, lay a handsome peasant boya boy of not more than
seventeen at the most. He lay on his back, with his teeth set, his
right hand clenched on his breast, and his glaring eyes looking
straight upward. I could not see where his wound was, as I
kneeled on one knee over him; but, I could see that he was dying
of a wound from a sharp point.
“‘I am a doctor, my poor fellow,’ said I. ‘Let me examine it.’
“‘I do not want it examined,’ he answered; ‘let it be.’ “It was
under his hand, and I soothed him to let me move his hand away.
The wound was a sword-thrust, received from twenty to twentyfour
hours before, but no skill could have saved him if it had been
looked to without delay. He was then dying fast. As I turned my
eyes to the elder brother, I saw him looking down at this
handsome boy whose life was ebbing out, as if he were a wounded
bird, or hare, or rabbit; not at all as if he were a fellow-creature.
“‘How has this been done, monsieur?’ said I.
“‘A crazed young common dog! A serf! Forced my brother to
draw upon him, and has fallen by my brother’s swordlike a
gentleman.’
“There was no touch of pity, sorrow, or kindred humanity in
this answer. The speaker seemed to acknowledge that it was
inconvenient to have that different order