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1"I made the patient swallow, with great difficulty, and after many efforts, the dose that I desired to give. As I
2intended to repeat it after a while, and as it was necessary to watch its influence, I then sat down by the side of the
3bed. There was a timid and suppressed woman in attendance (wife of the man down-stairs), who had retreated into a
4corner. The house was damp and decayed, indifferently furnished--evidently, recently occupied and temporarily used. Some
5thick old hangings had been nailed up before the windows, to deaden the sound of the shrieks. They continued to be
6uttered in their regular succession, with the cry, 'My husband, my father, and my brother!' the counting up to twelve,
7and 'Hush!' The frenzy was so violent, that I had not unfastened the bandages restraining the arms; but, I had looked to
8them, to see that they were not painful. The only spark of encouragement in the case, was, that my hand upon the
9sufferer's breast had this much soothing influence, that for minutes at a time it tranquillised the figure. It had no
10effect upon the cries; no pendulum could be more regular. "For the reason that my hand had this effect (I assume), I had
11sat by the side of the bed for half an hour, with the two brothers looking on, before the elder said: "'There is another
12patient.' "I was startled, and asked, 'Is it a pressing case?' "'You had better see,' he carelessly answered; and took
13up a light. **** "The other patient lay in a back room across a second staircase, which was a species of loft over a
14stable. There was a low plastered ceiling to a part of it; the rest was open, to the ridge of the tiled roof, and there
15were beams across. Hay and straw were stored in that portion of the place, fagots for firing, and a heap of apples in
16sand. I had to pass through that part, to get at the other. My memory is circumstantial and unshaken. I try it with
17these details, and I see them all, in this my cell in the Bastille, near the close of the tenth year of my captivity, as
18I saw them all that night. "On some hay on the ground, with a cushion thrown under his head, lay a handsome peasant
19boy--a boy of not more than seventeen at the most. He lay on his back, with his teeth set, his right hand clenched on
20his breast, and his glaring eyes looking straight upward. I could not see where his wound was, as I kneeled on one knee
21over 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.
22'Let me examine it.' "'I do not want it examined,' he answered; 'let it be.' "It was under his hand, and I soothed him
23to let me move his hand away. The wound was a sword-thrust, received from twenty to twenty-four hours before, but no
24skill could have saved him if it had been looked to without delay. He was then dying fast. As I turned my eyes to the
25elder brother, I saw him looking down at this handsome boy whose life was ebbing out, as if he were a wounded bird, or
26hare, or rabbit; not at all as if he were a fellow-creature. "'How has this been done, monsieur?' said I. "'A crazed
27young common dog! A serf! Forced my brother to draw upon him, and has fallen by my brother's sword--like a gentleman.'
28"There was no touch of pity, sorrow, or kindred humanity, in this answer. The speaker seemed to acknowledge that it was
29inconvenient to have that different order of creature dying there, and that it would have been better if he had died in
30the usual obscure routine of his vermin kind. He was quite incapable of any compassionate feeling about the boy, or
31about his fate. "The boy's eyes had slowly moved to him as he had spoken, and they now slowly moved to me. "'Doctor,
32they are very proud, these Nobles; but we common dogs are proud too, sometimes. They plunder us, outrage us, beat us,
33kill us; but we have a little pride left, sometimes. She--have you seen her, Doctor?' "The shrieks and the cries were
34audible there, though subdued by the distance. He referred to them, as if she were lying in our presence. "I said, 'I
35have seen her.' "'She is my sister, Doctor. They have had their shameful rights, these Nobles, in the modesty and virtue
36of our sisters, many years, but we have had good girls among us. I know it, and have heard my father say so. She was a
37good girl. She was betrothed to a good young man, too: a tenant of his. We were all tenants of his--that man's who
38stands there. The other is his brother, the worst of a bad race.' "It was with the greatest difficulty that the boy
39gathered bodily force to speak; but, his spirit spoke with a dreadful emphasis. "'We were so robbed by that man who
40stands there, as all we common dogs are by those superior Beings--taxed by him without mercy, obliged to work for him
41without pay, obliged to grind our corn at his mill, obliged to feed scores of his tame birds on our wretched crops, and
42forbidden for our lives to keep a single tame bird of our own, pillaged and plundered to that degree that when we
43chanced to have a bit of meat, we ate it in fear, with the door barred and the shutters closed, that his people should
44not see it and take it from us--I say, we were so robbed, and hunted, and were made so poor, that our father told us it
45was a dreadful thing to bring a child into the world, and that what we should most pray for, was, that our women might
46be barren and our miserable race die out!' "I had never before seen the sense of being oppressed, bursting forth like a
47fire. I had supposed that it must be latent in the people somewhere; but, I had never seen it break out, until I saw it
48in the dying boy. "'Nevertheless, Doctor, my sister married. He was ailing at that time, poor fellow, and she married
49her lover, that she might tend and comfort him in our cottage--our dog-hut, as that man would call it. She had not been
50married many weeks, when that man's brother saw her and admired her, and asked that man to lend her to him--for what are
51husbands among us! He was willing enough, but my sister was good and virtuous, and hated his brother with a hatred as
52strong as mine. What did the two then, to persuade her husband to use his influence with her, to make her willing?' "The
53boy's eyes, which had been fixed on mine, slowly turned to the looker-on, and I saw in the two faces that all he said
54was true. The two opposing kinds of pride confronting one another, I can see, even in this Bastille; the gentleman's,
55all negligent indifference; the peasant's, all trodden-down sentiment, and passionate revenge. "'You know, Doctor, that
56it is among the Rights of these Nobles to harness us common dogs to carts, and drive us. They so harnessed him and drove
57him. You know that it is among their Rights to keep us in their grounds all night, quieting the frogs, in order that
58their noble sleep may not be disturbed. They kept him out in the unwholesome mists at night, and ordered him back into
59his harness in the day. But he was not persuaded. No! Taken out of harness one day at noon, to feed--if he could find
60food--he sobbed twelve times, once for every stroke of the bell, and died on her bosom.' "Nothing human could have held
61life in the boy but his determination to tell all his wrong. He forced back the gathering shadows of death, as he forced
62his clenched right hand to remain clenched, and to cover his wound.
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