was, and who, guessing the cause that drew
me thither, was looking at me with curiosity. I determined to make a last
effort, and going up to him, I said, "Oh, sir, I am a stranger; I am
travelling to collect all the rich and poetic traditions of your Germany.
By the way in which you look at me, I guess that you know which of them
attracts me to this meadow. Could you give me any information about the
life and death of Sand?"

"With what object, sir?" the person to whom I spoke asked me in almost
unintelligible French.

"With a very German object, be assured, sir," I replied. "From the
little I have learned, Sand seems to me to be one of those ghosts that
appear only the greater and the more poetic for being wrapped in a shroud
stained with blood. But he is not known in France; he might be put on
the same level there with a Fieschi or a Meunier, and I wish, to the best
of my ability, to enlighten the minds of my countrymen about him."

"It would be a great pleasure to me, sir, to assist in such an
undertaking; but you see that I can scarcely speak French; you do not
speak German at all; so that we shall find it difficult to understand
each other."

"If that is all," I returned, "I have in my carriage yonder an
interpreter, or rather an interpretress, with whom you will, I hope, be
quite satisfied, who speaks German like Goethe, and to whom, when you
have once begun to speak to her, I defy you not to tell everything."

"Let us go, then, sir," answered the pedestrian. "I ask no better than
to be agreeable to you."

We walked toward the carriage, which was still waiting on the highroad,
and I presented to my travelling companion the new recruit whom I had
just gained. The usual greetings were exchanged, and the dialogue began
in the purest Saxon. Though I did not understand a word that was said,
it was easy for me to see, by the rapidity of the questions and the
length of the answers, that the conversation was most interesting. At
last, at the end of half an hours growing desirous of knowing to what
point they had come, I said, "Well?"

"Well," answered my interpreter, "you are in luck's way, and you could
not have asked a better person."

"The gentleman knew Sand, then?"

"The gentleman is the governor of the prison in which Sand was confined."

"Indeed?"

"For nine months--that is to say, from the day he left the hospital--
this gentleman saw him every day."

"Excellent!"

"But that is not all: this