invincible taciturnity had hitherto prevented
any free and amicable communion with his fellow-students. His name was
that of a Swiss, or of a Strasburger; and, although he spoke German with
facility, there were certain peculiarities of accent and idiom in his
language which betrayed a longer familiarity with French: he shunned,
however, all intercourse with the Swiss and French students at the
university, and his country and connections were still a matter of
conjecture. His engaging person and address, and the dejection so
legibly written in his countenance, had excited on his arrival an
immediate and general impression in his favour, but he shunned alike
exclusive intimacy and general intercourse; his replies were either
commonplaces or monosyllables; and as the unhappy and reserved find
little sympathy from the young and joyous, his fellow-students dubbed
him the Harpocrates of the university, and left him to solitude and
self-communion.

The kind-hearted Professor, desirous to lead this interesting youth into
habits of social ease and intimacy with the students present, exerted
his colloquial powers, and endeavoured to lead them into general
conversation; but his benevolent endeavours were baffled by the
ineradicable impression which the approaching execution had made upon
the mind of every student of good feeling in the university; and the
successive attempts of the Professor were succeeded by long intervals of
brooding and melancholy silence. At length, one of the young men,
notwithstanding his host's prohibition, could no longer refrain from
adverting to this all-absorbing subject. "Excuse me, Professor," he
began, "but I find it impossible to withdraw my thoughts, even for a
moment, from the present situation of the poor wretch who is so soon to
bend his neck to the executioner. It appears to me, that the intervening
hours of deadly and rising terror, are the real and atoning punishment,
and not the friendly blow which releases him from the fear of death.
Even the reprieve, sometimes granted on the scaffold, is no compensation
for terrors so intense. The criminal has already died many deaths, and
the new existence, thus tardily bestowed, can be compared only with the
revival of the seeming dead in his coffin. Gracious Heaven!" he
continued, with shuddering emotion, "how dreadfully bitter must be the
sensations of the poor fellow at this moment!"

"In all probability," replied another student, "he has either ma