tibility 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 himself, and in that case he did not wish to have lost
time. On the 7th of March he invited all his friends to spend the
evening with him, and announced his departure for the next day but one,
the 9th. All of them then proposed to him to escort him for some
leagues, but Sand refused; he feared lest this demonstration, innocent
though it were, might compromise them later on. He set forth alone,
therefore, after having hired his lodgings for another half-year, in
order to obviate any suspicion, and went by way of Erfurt and Eisenach,
in order to visit the Wartburg. From that place he went to Frankfort,
where he slept on the 17th, and on the morrow he continued his journey by
way of Darmstadt. At last, on the 23rd, at nine in the morning, he
arrived at the top of the littl