come to the fire. If you remain
here, you run the risk of catching the fever."

I arose, sick with fatigue and suffering. A fine rain filled the air.
My comrade drew me toward the fire, which smoked in the drizzling
atmosphere; it seemed to give out no heat; but Zebede having made me
drink a draught of brandy I felt at least less cold, and gazed at the
bivouac fires on the other side of the Partha.

"The Prussians are warming themselves in our wood," said Zebede.

"Yes," I replied; "and poor Klipfel is there too, but he no longer
feels the cold."

My teeth chattered. These words saddened us both. A few moments after
Zebede resumed:

"Do you remember, Joseph, the black ribbon he wore the day of the
conscription, and how he cried, 'we are all condemned to death, like
those gone to Russia? I want a black ribbon. We must wear our own
mourning!' And his little brother said: 'No, no, Jacob, I do not want
it!' and wept! but Klipfel put on the black ribbon notwithstanding; he
saw the hussars in his dreams."

As Zebede spoke, I recalled those things, and I saw too that wretch
Pinacle on the Town Hall Square, calling me and shaking a black ribbon
over his head: "Ha, cripple! you must have a fine ribbon; the ribbon of
those who win!"

This remembrance, together with the cold, which seemed to freeze the
very marrow in our bones, made me shudder. I thought Pinacle was
right; that I had seen the last of home. I thought of Catharine, of
Aunt Gredel, of good Monsieur Goulden, and I cursed those who had
forced me from them.

At daybreak, wagons arrived with food and brandy for us; the rain had
ceased; we made soup, but nothing could warm me; I had caught the
fever; within I was cold while my body burned. I was not the only one
in the battalion in that condition; three-fourths of the men were
suffering from it: and, for a month before, those who could no longer
march had lain down by the roadside weeping and calling upon their
mothers like little children. Hunger, forced marches, the rain, and
grief had done their work, and happy was it for the parents that they
could not see their cherished sons perishing along the road; it would
be too fearful; many would think there was no mercy in earth or heaven.

As the light increased, we saw to the left, on the other side of the
river--and of a great ravine filled with willows and aspens--burnt
villages, heaps of dead, abandoned wagons, broken caissons, dismounted
cannon an