When the body was opened, the spleen was in its normal state, with the veins8 a little livid only, the lungs yellowish in places, and the brain one-sixth larger than is usual in persons of the same age and sex; thus everything promised a long life to her whose end had just been so cruelly hastened.
A report having been made of the above, the body was embalmed9 after a fashion, put in a leaden coffin10 and that in another of wood, which was left on the table till the first day of August—that is, for nearly five months—before anyone was allowed to come near it; and not only that, but the English having noticed that Mary Stuart's unhappy servants, who were still detained as prisoners, went to look at it through the keyhole, stopped that up in such a way that they could not even gaze at the coffin enclosing the body of her whom they had so greatly loved.
However, one hour after Mary Stuart's death, Henry Talbot, who had been present at it, set out at full speed for London, carrying to Elizabeth the account of her rival's death; but at the very first lines she read, Elizabeth, true to her character, cried out in grief and indignation, saying that her orders had been misunderstood, that there had been too great haste, and that all this was the fault of Davison the Secretary of State, to whom she had given the warrant to keep till she had made up her mind, but not to send to Fotheringay. Accordingly, Davison was sent to the Tower and condemned11 to pay a fine of ten thousand pounds sterling13, for having deceived the queen. Meanwhile, amid all this grief, an embargo14 was laid on all vessels15 in all the ports of the realm, so that the news of the death should not reach abroad, especially France, except through skilful16 emissaries who could place the execution in the least unfavourable light for Elizabeth. At the same time the scandalous popular festivities which had marked the announcement of the sentence again celebrated17 the tidings of the execution. London was illuminated18, bonfires lit, and the enthusiasm was such that the French Embassy was broken into and wood taken to revive the fires when they began to die down.
Crestfallen19 at this event, M. de Chateauneuf was still shut up at the Embassy, when, a fortnight later, he received an invitation from Elizabeth to visit her at the country house of the Archbishop of Canterbury. M. de Chateauneuf went thither21 with the firm resolve to say no word to her on what had happened; but as soon as she saw him, Elizabeth, dressed in black, rose, went to him, and, overwhelming him with kind attentions, told him that she was ready to place all the strength of her kingdom at Henry III's disposal to help him put down the League. Chateauneuf received all these offers with a cold and severe expression, without saying, as he had promised himself, a single word about the event which had put both the queen and himself into mourning. But, taking him by the hand, she drew him aside, and there, with deep sighs, said—
"Ah! sir, since I saw you the greatest misfortune which could befall me has happened: I mean the death of my good sister, the Queen of Scotland, of which I swear by God Himself, my soul and my salvation22, that I am perfectly23 innocent. I had signed the order, it is true; but my counsellors have played me a trick for which I cannot calm myself; and I swear to God that if it were not for their long service I would have them beheaded. I have a woman's frame, sir, but in this woman's frame beats a man's heart."
Chateauneuf bowed without a response; but his letter to Henry III and Henry's answer prove that neither the one nor the other was the dupe of this female Tiberius.
Meanwhile, as we have said, the unfortunate servants were prisoners, and the poor body was in that great hall waiting for a royal interment. Things remained thus, Elizabeth said, to give her time to order a splendid funeral for her good sister Mary, but in reality because the queen dared not place in juxtaposition24 the secret and infamous25 death and the public and royal burial; then, was not time needed for the first reports which it pleased Elizabeth to spread to be credited before the truth should be known by the mouths of the servants? For the queen hoped that once this careless world had made up its mind about the death of the Queen of Scots, it would not take any further trouble to change it. Finally, it was only when the warders were as tired as the prisoners, that Elizabeth, having received a report stating that the ill-embalmed body could no longer be kept, at last ordered the funeral to take place.
Accordingly, after the 1st of August, tailors and dressmakers arrived at Fotheringay Castle, sent by Elizabeth, with cloth and black silk stuffs, to clothe in mourning all Mary's servants. But they refused, not having waited for the Queen of England's bounty27, but having made their funeral garments at their own expense, immediately after their mistress's death. The tailors and dressmakers, however, none the less set so actively28 to work that on the 7th everything was finished.
Next day, at eight o'clock in the evening, a large chariot, drawn29 by four horses in mourning trappings, and covered with black velvet30 like the chariot, which was, besides, adorned31 with little streamers on which were embroidered32 the arms of Scotland, those of the queen, and the arms of Aragon, those of Darnley, stopped at the gate of Fotheringay Castle. It was followed by the herald33 king, accompanied by twenty gentlemen on horseback, with their servants and lackeys34, all dressed in mourning, who, having alighted, mounted with his whole train into the room where the body lay, and had it brought down and put into the chariot with all possible respect, each of the spectators standing35 with bared head and in profound silence.
This visit caused a great stir among the prisoners, who debated a while whether they ought not to implore36 the favour of being allowed to follow their mistress's body, which they could not and should not let go alone thus; but just as they were about to ask permission to speak to the herald king, he entered the room where they were assembled, and told them that he was charged by his mistress, the august Queen of England, to give the Queen of Scotland the most honourable37 funeral he could; that, not wishing to fail in such a high undertaking38, he had already made most of the preparations for the ceremony, which was to take place on the 10th of August, that is to say, two days later,—but that the leaden shell in which the body was enclosed being very heavy, it was better to move it beforehand, and that night, to where the grave was dug, than to await the day of the interment itself; that thus they might be easy, this burial of the shell being only a preparatory ceremony; but that if some of them would like to accompany the corpse, to see what was done with it, they were at liberty, and that those who stayed behind could follow the funeral pageant39, Elizabeth's positive desire being that all, from first to last, should be present in the funeral procession. This assurance calmed the unfortunate prisoners, who deputed Bourgoin, Gervais, and six others to follow their mistress's body: these were Andrew Melville, Stewart, Gorjon, Howard, Lauder, and Nicholas Delamarre.
At ten o'clock at night they set out, walking behind the chariot, preceded by the herald, accompanied by men on foot, who carried torches to light the way, and followed by twenty gentlemen and their servants. In this manner, at two o'clock in the morning, they reached Peterborough, where there is a splendid cathedral built by an ancient Saxon king, and in which, on the left of the choir41, was already interred42 good Queen Catharine of Aragon, wife of Henry VIII, and where was her tomb, still decked with a canopy43 bearing her arms.
On arriving, they found the cathedral all hung with black, with a dome44 erected46 in the middle of the choir, much in the way in which 'chapelles ardentes' are set up in France, except that there were no lighted candles round it. This dome was covered with black velvet, and overlaid with the arms of Scotland and Aragon, with streamers like those on the chariot yet again repeated. The state coffin was already set up under this dome: it was a bier, covered like the rest in black velvet fringed with silver, on which was a pillow of the same supporting a royal crown.
To the right of this dome, and in front of the burial-place of Queen Catharine of Aragon, Mary of Scotland's sepulchre had been dug: it was a grave of brick, arranged to be covered later with a slab48 or a marble tomb, and in which was to be deposited the coffin, which the Bishop20 of Peterborough, in his episcopal robes, but without his mitre, cross, or cope, was awaiting at the door, accompanied by his dean and several other clergy49. The body was brought into the cathedral, without chant or prayer, and was let down into the tomb amid a profound silence. Directly it was placed there, the masons, who had stayed their hands, set to work again, closing the grave level with the floor, and only leaving an opening of about a foot and a half, through which could be seen what was within, and through which could be thrown on the coffin, as is customary at the obsequies of kings, the broken staves of the officers and the ensigns and banners with their arms. This nocturnal ceremony ended, Melville, Bourgoin, and the other deputies were taken to the bishop's palace, where the persons appointed to take part in the funeral procession were to assemble, in number more than three hundred and fifty, all chosen, with the exception of the servants, from among the authorities, the nobility, and Protestant clergy.
The day following, Thursday, August the 9th, they began to hang the banqueting halls with rich and sumptuous51 stuffs, and that in the sight of Melville, Bourgoin, and the others, whom they had brought thither, less to be present at the interment of Queen Mary than to bear witness to the magnificence of Queen Elizabeth. But, as one may suppose, the unhappy prisoners were indifferent to this splendour, great and extraordinary as it was.
On Friday, August 10th, all the chosen persons assembled at the bishop's palace: they ranged themselves in the appointed order, and turned their steps to the cathedral, which was close by. When they arrived there, they took the places assigned them in the choir, and the choristers immediately began to chant a funeral service in English and according to Protestant rites52. At the first words of this service, when he saw it was not conducted by Catholic priests, Bourgoin left the cathedral, declaring that he would not be present at such sacrilege, and he was followed by all Mary's servants, men and women, except Melville and Barbe Mowbray, who thought that whatever the tongue in which one prayed, that tongue was heard by the Lord. This exit created great scandal; but the bishop preached none the less.
The sermon ended, the herald king went to seek Bourgoin and his companions, who were walking in the cloisters54, and told them that the almsgiving was about to begin, inviting55 them to take part in this ceremony; but they replied that being Catholics they could not make offerings at an altar of which they disapproved56. So the herald king returned, much put out at the harmony of the assembly being disturbed by this dissent57; but the alms-offering took place no less than the sermon. Then, as a last attempt, he sent to them again, to tell them that the service was quite over, and that accordingly they might return for the royal ceremonies, which belonged only to the religion of the dead; and this time they consented; but when they arrived, the staves were broken, and the banners thrown into the grave through the opening that the workmen had already closed.
Then, in the same order in which it had come, the procession returned to the palace, where a splendid funeral repast had been prepared. By a strange contradiction, Elizabeth, who, having punished the living woman as a criminal, had just treated the dead woman as a queen, had also wished that the honours of the funeral banquet should be for the servants, so long forgotten by her. But, as one can imagine, these ill accommodated themselves to that intention, did not seem astonished at this luxury nor rejoiced at this good cheer, but, on the contrary, drowned their bread and wine in tears, without otherwise responding to the questions put to them or the honours granted them. And as soon as the repast was ended, the poor servants left Peterborough and took the road back to Fotheringay, where they heard that they were free at last to withdraw whither they would. They did not need to be told twice; for they lived in perpetual fear, not considering their lives safe so long as they remained in England. They therefore immediately collected all their belongings58, each taking his own, and thus went out of Fotheringay Castle on foot, Monday, 13th August, 1587.
Bourgoin went last: having reached the farther side of the drawbridge, he turned, and, Christian60 as he was, unable to forgive Elizabeth, not for his own sufferings, but for his mistress's, he faced about to those regicide walls, and, with hands outstretched to them, said in a loud and threatening voice, those words of David: "Let vengeance61 for the blood of Thy servants, which has been shed, O Lord God, be acceptable in Thy sight". The old man's curse was heard, and inflexible62 history is burdened with Elizabeth's punishment.
We said that the executioner's axe63, in striking Mary Stuart's head, had caused the crucifix and the book of Hours which she was holding to fly from her hands. We also said that the two relics64 had been picked up by people in her following. We are not aware of what became of the crucifix, but the book of Hours is in the royal library, where those curious about these kinds of historical souvenirs can see it: two certificates inscribed66 on one of the blank leaves of the volume demonstrate its authenticity67. These are they:
FIRST CERTIFICATE
"We the undersigned Vicar Superior of the strict observance of the Order of Cluny, certify68 that this book has been entrusted69 to us by order of the defunct70 Dom Michel Nardin, a professed71 religious priest of our said observance, deceased in our college of Saint-Martial of Avignon, March 28th, 1723, aged72 about eighty years, of which he has spent about thirty among us, having lived very religiously: he was a German by birth, and had served as an officer in the army a long time.
"He entered Cluny, and made his profession there, much detached from all this world's goods and honours; he only kept, with his superior's permission, this book, which he knew had been in use with Mary Stuart, Queen of England and Scotland, to the end of her life.
"Before dying and being parted from his brethren, he requested that, to be safely remitted73 to us, it should be sent us by mail, sealed. Just as we have received it, we have begged M. L'abbe Bignon, councillor of state and king's librarian, to accept this precious relic65 of the piety74 of a Queen of England, and of a German officer of her religion as well as of ours.
"(Signed)BROTHER GERARD PONCET, "Vicar-General Superior."
SECOND CERTIFICATE
"We, Jean-Paul Bignon, king's librarian, are very happy to have an opportunity of exhibiting our zeal76, in placing the said manuscript in His Majesty's library.
"8th July, 1724."
"(Signed) JEAN-PAUL BIGNAN."
This manuscript, on which was fixed77 the last gaze of the Queen of Scotland, is a duodecimo, written in the Gothic character and containing Latin prayers; it is adorned with miniatures set off with gold, representing devotional subjects, stories from sacred history, or from the lives of saints and martyrs79. Every page is encircled with arabesques80 mingled81 with garlands of fruit and flowers, amid which spring up grotesque82 figures of men and animals.
As to the binding83, worn now, or perhaps even then, to the woof, it is in black velvet, of which the flat covers are adorned in the centre with an enamelled pansy, in a silver setting surrounded by a wreath, to which are diagonally attached from one corner of the cover to the other, two twisted silver-gilt knotted cords, finished by a tuft at the two ends.
KARL-LUDWIG SAND—1819
On the 22nd of March, 1819, about nine o'clock in the morning, a young man, some twenty-three or twenty-four years old, wearing the dress of a German student, which consists of a short frock-coat with silk braiding, tight trousers, and high boots, paused upon a little eminence84 that stands upon the road between Kaiserthal and Mannheim, at about three-quarters of the distance from the former town, and commands a view of the latter. Mannheim is seen rising calm and smiling amid gardens which once were ramparts, and which now surround and embrace it like a girdle of foliage85 and flowers. Having reached this spot, he lifted his cap, above the peak of which were embroidered three interlaced oak leaves in silver, and uncovering his brow, stood bareheaded for a moment to feel the fresh air that rose from the valley of the Neckar. At first sight his irregular features produced a strange impression; but before long the pallor of his face, deeply marked by smallpox86, the infinite gentleness of his eyes, and the elegant framework of his long and flowing black hair, which grew in an admirable curve around a broad, high forehead, attracted towards him that emotion of sad sympathy to which we yield without inquiring its reason or dreaming of resistance. Though it was still early, he seemed already to have come some distance, for his boots were covered with dust; but no doubt he was nearing his destination, for, letting his cap drop, and hooking into his belt his long pipe, that inseparable companion of the German Borsch, he drew from his pocket a little note-book, and wrote in it with a pencil: "Left Wanheim at five in the morning, came in sight of Mannheim at a quarter-past nine." Then putting his note-book back into his pocket, he stood motionless for a moment, his lips moving as though in mental prayer, picked up his hat, and walked on again with a firm step towards Mannheim.
This young Student was Karl-Ludwig Sand, who was coming from Jena, by way of Frankfort aid Darmstadt, in order to assassinate88 Kotzebue.
Now, as we are about to set before our readers one of those terrible actions for the true appreciation89 of which the conscience is the sole judge, they must allow us to make them fully90 acquainted with him whom kings regarded as an assassin, judges as a fanatic91, and the youth of Germany as a hero. Charles Louis Sand was born on the 5th of October, 1795, at Wonsiedel, in the Fichtel Wald; he was the youngest son of Godfrey Christopher Sand, first president and councillor of justice to the King of Prussia, and of Dorothea Jane Wilheltmina Schapf, his wife. Besides two elder brothers, George, who entered upon a commercial career at St, Gall92, and Fritz, who was an advocate in the Berlin court of appeal, he had an elder sister named Caroline, and a younger sister called Julia.
While still in the cradle he had been attacked by smallpox of the most malignant93 type. The virus having spread through all his body, laid bare his ribs94, and almost ate away his skull95. For several months he lay between life and death; but life at last gained the upper hand. He remained weak and sickly, however, up to his seventh year, at which time a brain fever attacked him; and again put his life in danger. As a compensation, however, this fever, when it left him, seemed to carry away with it all vestiges96 of his former illness. From that moment his health and strength came into existence; but during these two long illnesses his education had remained very backward, and it was not until the age of eight that he could begin his elementary studies; moreover, his physical sufferings having retarded97 his intellectual development, he needed to work twice as hard as others to reach the same result.
Seeing the efforts that young Sand made, even while still quite a child, to conquer the defects of his organisation98, Professor Salfranck, a learned and distinguished99 man, rector of the Hof gymnasium [college], conceived such an affection for him, that when, at a later time, he was appointed director of the gymnasium at Ratisbon, he could not part from his pupil, and took him with him. In this town, and at the age of eleven years, he gave the first proof of his courage and humanity. One day, when he was walking with some young friends, he heard cries for help, and ran in that direction: a little boy, eight or nine years old, had just fallen into a pond. Sand immediately, without regarding his best clothes, of which, however, he was very proud, sprang into the water, and, after unheard-of efforts for a child of his age, succeeded in bringing the drowning boy to land.
At the age of twelve or thirteen, Sand, who had become more active, skilful, and determined100 than many of his elders, often amused himself by giving battle to the lads of the town and of the neighbouring villages. The theatre of these childish conflicts, which in their pale innocence102 reflected the great battles that were at that time steeping Germany in blood, was generally a plain extending from the town of Wonsiedel to the mountain of St. Catherine, which had ruins at its top, and amid the ruins a tower in excellent preservation103. Sand, who was one of the most eager fighters, seeing that his side had several times been defeated on account of its numerical inferiority, resolved, in order to make up for this drawback, to fortify104 the tower of St. Catherine, and to retire into it at the next battle if its issue proved unfavourable to him. He communicated this plan to his companions, who received it with enthusiasm. A week was spent, accordingly, in collecting all possible weapons of defence in the tower and in repairing its doors and stairs. These preparations were made so secretly that the army of the enemy had no knowledge of them.
Sunday came: the holidays were the days of battle. Whether because the boys were ashamed of having been beaten last time, or for some other reason, the band to which Sand belonged was even weaker than usual. Sure, however, of a means of retreat, he accepted battle, notwithstanding. The struggle was not a long one; the one party was too weak in numbers to make a prolonged resistance, and began to retire in the best order that could be maintained to St. Catherine's tower, which was reached before much damage had been felt. Having arrived there, some of the combatants ascended105 to the ramparts, and while the others defended themselves at the foot of the wall, began to shower stones and pebbles106 upon the conquerors107. The latter, surprised at the new method of defence which was now for the first time adopted, retreated a little; the rest of the defenders108 took advantage of the moment to retire into the fortress109 and shut the door. Great was the astonishment110 an the part of the besiegers: they had always seen that door broken down, and lo! all at once it was presenting to them a barrier which preserved the besieged111 from their blows. Three or four went off to find instruments with which to break it down and meanwhile the rest of the attacking farce112 kept the garrison113 blockaded.
At the end of half an hour the messengers returned not only with levers and picks, but also with a considerable reinforcement composed of lads from, the village to which they had been to fetch tools.
Then began the assault: Sand and his companions defended themselves desperately114; but it was soon evident that, unless help came, the garrison would be forced to capitulate. It was proposed that they should draw lots, and that one of the besieged should be chosen, who in spite of the danger should leave the tower, make his way as best he might through the enemy's army, and go to summon the other lads of Wonsiedel, who had faint-heartedly remained at home. The tale of the peril115 in which their Comrades actually were, the disgrace of a surrender, which would fall upon all of them, would no doubt overcome their indolence and induce them to make a diversion that would allow the garrison to attempt sortie. This suggestion was adopted; but instead of leaving the decision to chance, Sand proposed himself as the messenger. As everybody knew his courage, his skill, and his lightness of foot, the proposition was unanimously accepted, and the new Decius prepared to execute his act of devotion. The deed was not free from danger: there were but two means of egress116, one by way of the door, which would lead to the fugitive117's falling immediately into the hands of the enemy; the other by jumping from a rampart so high that the enemy had not set a guard there. Sand without a moment's hesitation118 went to the rampart, where, always religious, even in his childish pleasures, he made a short prayer; then, without fear, without hesitation, with a confidence that was almost superhuman, he sprang to the ground: the distance was twenty-two feet. Sand flew instantly to Wonsiedel, and reached it, although the enemy had despatched their best runners in pursuit. Then the garrison, seeing the success of their enterprise, took fresh courage, and united their efforts against the besiegers, hoping everything from Sand's eloquence120, which gave him a great influence over his young companions. And, indeed, in half an hour he was seen reappearing at the head of some thirty boys of his own age, armed with slings121 and crossbows. The besiegers, on the point of being attacked before and behind, recognised the disadvantage of their position and retreated. The victory remained with Sand's party, and all the honours of the day were his.
We have related this anecdote122 in detail, that our readers may understand from the character of the child what was that of the man. Besides, we shall see him develop, always calm and superior amid small events as amid large ones.
About the same time Sand escaped almost miraculously123 from two dangers. One day a hod full of plaster fell from a scaffold and broke at his feet. Another day the Price of Coburg, who during the King of Prussia's stay at the baths of Alexander, was living in the house of Sand's parents, was galloping124 home with four horses when he came suddenly upon young Karl in a gateway125; he could not escape either on the right or the left, without running the risk of being crushed between the wall and the wheels, and the coachman could not, when going at such a pace, hold in his horses: Sand flung himself on his face, and the carriage passed over him without his receiving so much as a single scratch either from the horses or the wheels. From that moment many people regarded him as predestined, and said that the hand of God was upon him.
Meanwhile political events were developing themselves around the boy, and their seriousness made him a man before the age of manhood. Napoleon weighed upon Germany like another Sennacherib. Staps had tried to play the part of Mutius Scaevola, and had died a martyr78. Sand was at Hof at that time, and was a student of the gymnasium of which his good tutor Salfranck was the head. He learned that the man whom he regarded as the antichrist was to come and review the troops in that town; he left it at once and went home to his parents, who asked him for what reason he had left the gymnasium.
"Because I could not have been in the same town with Napoleon," he answered, "without trying to kill him, and I do not feel my hand strong enough for that yet."
This happened in 1809; Sand was fourteen years old. Peace, which was signed an the 15th of October, gave Germany some respite127, and allowed the young fanatic to resume his studies without being distracted by political considerations; but in 1811 he was occupied by them again, when he learned that the gymnasium was to be dissolved and its place taken by a primary school. To this the rector Salfranck was appointed as a teacher, but instead of the thousand florins which his former appointment brought him, the new one was worth only five hundred. Karl could not remain in a primary school where he could not continue his education; he wrote to his mother to announce this event and to tell her with what equanimity128 the old German philosopher had borne it. Here is the answer of Sand's mother; it will serve to show the character of the woman whose mighty129 heart never belied130 itself in the midst of the severest suffering; the answer bears the stamp of that German mysticism of which we have no idea in France:—
"MY DEAR KARL,—You could not have given me a more grievous piece of news than that of the event which has just fallen upon your tutor and father by adoption131; nevertheless, terrible though it may be, do not doubt that he will resign himself to it, in order to give to the virtue132 of his pupils a great example of that submission133 which every subject owes to the king wham God has set over him. Furthermore, be well assured that in this world there is no other upright and well calculated policy than that which grows out of the old precept134, 'Honour God, be just and fear not.' And reflect also that when injustice135 against the worthy136 becomes crying, the public voice makes itself heard, and uplifts those who are cast down.
"But if, contrary to all probability, this did not happen,—if God should impose this sublime137 probation138 upon the virtue of our friend, if the world were to disown him and Providence139 were to became to that, degree his debtor,—yet in that case there are, believe me, supreme140 compensations: all the things and all the events that occur around us and that act upon us are but machines set in motion by a Higher Hand, so as to complete our education for a higher world, in which alone we shall take our true place. Apply yourself, therefore, my dear child, to watch over yourself unceasingly and always, so that you may not take great and fine isolated141 actions for real virtue, and may be ready every moment to do all that your duty may require of you. Fundamentally nothing is great, you see, and nothing small, when things are, looked at apart from one another, and it is only the putting of things together that produces the unity75 of evil or of good.
"Moreover, God only sends the trial to the heart where He has put strength, and the manner in which you tell me that your master has borne the misfortune that has befallen him is a fresh proof of this great and eternal truth. You must form yourself upon him, my dear child, and if you are obliged to leave Hof for Bamberg you must resign yourself to it courageously142. Man has three educations: that which he receives from his parents, that which circumstances impose upon him, and lastly that which he gives himself; if that misfortune should occur, pray to God that you may yourself worthily144 complete that last education, the most important of all.
"I will give you as an example the life and conduct of my father, of whom you have not heard very much, for he died before you were born, but whose mind and likeness145 are reproduced in you only among all your brothers and sisters. The disastrous146 fire which reduced his native town to ashes destroyed his fortune and that of his relatives; grief at having lost everything—for the fire broke out in the next house to his—cost his father his life; and while his mother, who for six years had been stretched an a bed of pain, where horrible convulsions held her fast, supported her three little girls by the needlework that she did in the intervals147 of suffering, he went as a mere148 clerk into one of the leading mercantile houses of Augsburg, where his lively and yet even temper made him welcome; there he learned a calling, for which, however, he was not naturally adapted, and came back to the home of his birth with a pure and stainless149 heart, in order to be the support of his mother and his sisters.
"A man can do much when he wishes to do much: join your efforts to my prayers, and leave the rest in the hands of God."
The prediction of this Puritan woman was fulfilled: a little time afterwards rector Salfranck was appointed professor at Richembourg, whither Sand followed him; it was there that the events of 1813 found him. In the month of March he wrote to his mother:—
"I can scarcely, dear mother, express to you how calm and happy I begin to feel since I am permitted to believe in the enfranchisement150 of my country, of which I hear on every side as being so near at hand,—of that country which, in my faith in God, I see beforehand free and mighty, that country for whose happiness I would undergo the greatest sufferings, and even death. Take strength for this crisis. If by chance it should reach our good province, lift your eyes to the Almighty151, then carry them back to beautiful rich nature. The goodness of God which preserved and protected so many men during the disastrous Thirty Years' War can do and will do now what it could and did then. As for me, I believe and hope."
Leipzig came to justify152 Sand's presentiments153; then the year 1814 arrived, and he thought Germany free.
On the 10th of December in the same year he left Richembourg with this certificate from his master:—
"Karl Sand belongs to the small number of those elect young men who are distinguished at once by the gifts of the mind and the faculties155 of the soul; in application and work he surpasses all his fellow-students, and this fact explains his rapid progress in all the philosophical156 and philological157 sciences; in mathematics only there are still some further studies which he might pursue. The most affectionate wishes of his teacher follow him on his departure.
"J. A. KEYN, "Rector, and master of the first class. "Richembourg, Sept. 15, 1814"
But it was really the parents of Sand, and in particular his mother, who had prepared the fertile soil in which his teachers had sowed the seeds of learning; Sand knew this well, for at the moment of setting out for the university of Tubingen, where he was about to complete the theological studies necessary for becoming a pastor158, as he desired to do, he wrote to them:—
"I confess that, like all my brothers and sisters, I owe to you that beautiful and great part of my education which I have seen to be lacking to most of those around me. Heaven alone can reward you by a conviction of having so nobly and grandly fulfilled your parental159 duties, amid many others."
After having paid a visit to his brother at St. Gall, Sand reached Tubingen, to which he had been principally attracted by the reputation of Eschenmayer; he spent that winter quietly, and no other incident befell than his admission into an association of Burschen, called the Teutonic; then came tester of 1815, and with it the terrible news that Napoleon had landed in the Gulf160 of Juan. Immediately all the youth of Germany able to bear arms gathered once more around the banners of 1813 and 1814. Sand followed the general example; but the action, which in others was an effect of enthusiasm, was in him the result of calm and deliberate resolution. He wrote to Wonsiedel on this occasion:—
"April 22, 1813
"MY DEAR PARENTS,—Until now you have found me submissive to your parental lessons and to the advice of my excellent masters; until now I have made efforts to render myself worthy of the education that God has sent me through you, and have applied161 myself to become capable of spreading the word of the Lord through my native land; and for this reason I can to-day declare to you sincerely the decision that I lave taken, assured that as tender and affectionate parents you will calm yourselves, and as German parents and patriots162 you will rather praise my resolution than seek to turn me from it.
"The country calls once more for help, and this time the call is addressed to me, too, for now I have courage and strength. It cast me a great in ward26 struggle, believe me, to abstain163 when in 1813 she gave her first cry, and only the conviction held me back that thousands of others were then fighting and conquering for Germany, while I had to live far the peaceful calling to which I was destined126. Now it is a question of preserving our newly re-established liberty, which in so many places has already brought in so rich a harvest. The all-powerful and merciful Lord reserves for us this great trial, which will certainly be the last; it is for us, therefore, to show that we are worthy of the supreme gift which He has given us, and capable of upholding it with strength and firmness.
"The danger of the country has never been so great as it is now, that is why, among the youth of Germany, the strong should support the wavering, that all may rise together. Our brave brothers in the north are already assembling from all parts under their banners; the State of Wurtemburg is, proclaiming a general levy165, and volunteers are coming in from every quarter, asking to die for their country. I consider it my duty, too, to fight for my country and for all the dear ones whom I love. If I were not profoundly convinced of this truth, I should not communicate my resolution to you; but my family is one that has a really German heart, and that would consider me as a coward and an unworthy son if I did not follow this impulse. I certainly feel the greatness of the sacrifice; it costs me something, believe me, to leave my beautiful studies and go to put myself under the orders of vulgar, uneducated people, but this only increases my courage in going to secure the liberty of my brothers; moreover, when once that liberty is secured, if God deigns167 to allow, I will return to carry them His word.
"I take leave, therefore, for a time of you, my most worthy parents, of my brothers, my sisters, and all who are dear to me. As, after mature deliberation, it seems the most suitable thing for me to serve with the Bavarians. I shall get myself enrolled168, for as long as the war may last, with a company of that nation. Farewell, then; live happily; far away from you as I shall be, I shall follow your pious169 exhortations170. In this new track I shall still I hope, remain pure before God, and I shall always try to walk in the path that rises above the things of earth and leads to those of heaven, and perhaps in this career the bliss171 of saving some souls from their fall may be reserved for me.
"Your dear image will always be about me; I will always have the Lord before my eyes and in my heart, so that I may endure joyfully172 the pains and fatigues174 of this holy war. Include me in your Prayers; God will send you the hope of better times to help you in bearing the unhappy time in which we now are. We cannot see one another again soon, unless we conquer; and if we should be conquered (which God forbid!), then my last wish, which I pray you, I conjure175 you, to fulfil, my last and supreme wish would be that you, my dear and deserving German relatives, should leave an enslaved country for some other not yet under the yoke176.
"But why should we thus sadden one another's hearts? Is not our cause just and holy, and is not God just and holy? How then should we not be victors? You see that sometimes I doubt, so, in your letters, which I am impatiently expecting, have pity on me and do not alarm my soul, far in any case we shall meet again in another country, and that one will always be free and happy.
"I am, until death, your dutiful and grateful son, "KARL SAND."
These two lines of Korner's were written as a postscript177:
"Perchance above our foeman lying dead
With this farewell to his parents, and with Korner's poems on his lips, Sand gave up his books, and on the 10th of May we find him in arms among the volunteer chasseurs enrolled under the command of Major Falkenhausen, who was at that time at Mannheim; here he found his second brother, who had preceded him, and they underwent all their drill together.
Though Sand was not accustomed to great bodily fatigues, he endured those of the campaign with surprising strength, refusing all the alleviations that his superiors tried to offer him; for he would allow no one to outdo him in the trouble that he took for the good of the country. On the march he invariably shared: anything that he possessed179 fraternally with his comrades, helping180 those who were weaker than himself to carry their burdens, and, at once priest and soldier, sustaining them by his words when he was powerless to do anything more.
On the 18th of June, at eight o'clock in the evening, he arrived upon the field of battle at Waterloo, On the 14th of July he entered Paris.
On the 18th of December, 1815, Karl Sand and his brother were back at Wonsiedel, to the great joy of their family. He spent the Christmas holidays and the end of the year with them, but his ardour for his new vacation did not allow him to remain longer, and an the 7th of January he reached Erlangen. Then, to make up for lost time, he resolved to subject his day to fixed and uniform rules, and to write down every evening what he had done since the morning. It is by the help of this journal that we are able to follow the young enthusiast181, not only in all the actions of his life, but also in all the thoughts of his mind and all the hesitations182 of his conscience. In it we find his whole self, simple to naivete, enthusiastic to madness, gentle even to weakness towards others, severe even to asceticism183 towards himself. One of his great griefs was the expense that his education occasioned to his parents, and every useless and costly184 pleasure left a remorse185 in his heart. Thus, on the 9th of February 1816, he wrote:—
"I meant to go and visit my parents. Accordingly I went to the 'Commers-haus', and there I was much amused. N. and T. began upon me with the everlasting186 jokes about Wonsiedel; that went on until eleven o'clock. But afterwards N. and T. began to torment187 me to go to the wine-shop; I refused as long as I could. But as, at last, they seemed to think that it was from contempt of them that I would not go and drink a glass of Rhine wine with them, I did not dare resist longer. Unfortunately, they did not stop at Braunberger; and while my glass was still half full, N. ordered a bottle of champagne188. When the first had disappeared, T. ordered a second; then, even before this second battle was drunk, both of them ordered a third in my name and in spite of me. I returned home quite giddy, and threw myself on the sofa, where I slept for about an hour, and only went to bed afterwards.
"Thus passed this shameful189 day, in which I have not thought enough of my kind and worthy parents, who are leading a poor and hard life, and in which I suffered myself to be led away by the example of people who have money into spending four florins—an expenditure190 which was useless, and which would have kept the whole family for two days. Pardon me, my God, pardon me, I beseech191 Thee, and receive the vow192 that I make never to fall into the same fault again. In future I will live even more abstemiously193 than I usually do, so as to repair the fatal traces in my poor cash-box of my extravagance, and not to be obliged to ask money of my mother before the day when she thinks of sending me some herself."
Then, at the very time when the poor young man reproaches himself as if with a crime with having spent four florins, one of his cousins, a widow, dies and leaves three orphan194 children. He runs immediately to carry the first consolations196 to the unhappy little creatures, entreats197 his mother to take charge of the youngest, and overjoyed at her answer, thanks her thus:—
"Far the very keen joy that you have given me by your letter, and for the very dear tone in which your soul speaks to me, bless you, O my mother! As I might have hoped and been sure, you have taken little Julius, and that fills me afresh with the deepest gratitude198 towards you, the rather that, in my constant trust in your goodness, I had already in her lifetime given our good little cousin the promise that you are fulfilling for me after her death."
About March, Sand, though he did not fall ill, had an indisposition that obliged him to go and take the waters; his mother happened at the time to be at the ironworks of Redwitz, same twelve or fifteen miles from Wonsiedel, where the mineral springs are found. Sand established himself there with his mother, and notwithstanding his desire to avoid interrupting his work, the time taken up by baths, by invitations to dinners, and even by the walks which his health required, disturbed the regularity199 of his usual existence and awakened201 his remorse. Thus we find these lines written in his journal for April 13th:
"Life, without some high aim towards which all thoughts and actions tend, is an empty desert: my day yesterday is a proof of this; I spent it with my own people, and that, of course, was a great pleasure to me; but how did I spend it? In continual eating, so that when I wanted to work I could do nothing worth doing. Full of indolence and slackness, I dragged myself into the company of two or three sets of people, and came from them in the same state of mind as I went to them."
Far these expeditions Sand made use of a little chestnut202 horse which belonged to his brother, and of which he was very fond. This little horse had been bought with great difficulty; for, as we have said, the whole family was poor. The following note, in relation to the animal, will give an idea of Sand's simplicity203 of heart:—
"19th April "To-day I have been very happy at the ironworks, and very industrious204 beside my kind mother. In the evening I came home on the little chestnut. Since the day before yesterday, when he got a strain and hurt his foot, he has been very restive205 and very touchy206, and when he got home he refused his food. I thought at first that he did not fancy his fodder207, and gave him some pieces of sugar and sticks of cinnamon, which he likes very much; he tasted them, but would not eat them. The poor little beast seems to have same other internal indisposition besides his injured foot. If by ill luck he were to become foundered208 or ill, everybody, even my parents, would throw the blame on me, and yet I have been very careful and considerate of him. My God, my Lord, Thou who canst do things both great and small, remove from me this misfortune, and let him recover as quickly as possible. If, however, Thou host willed otherwise, and if this fresh trouble is to fall upon us, I will try to bear it with courage, and as the expiation209 of same sin. Meanwhile, O my Gad210, I leave this matter in Thy hands, as I leave my life and my soul."
On the 20th of April he wrote:—"The little horse is well; God has helped me."
German manners and customs are so different from ours, and contrasts occur so frequently in the same man, on the other side of the Rhine, that anything less than all the quotations211 which we have given would have been insufficient212 to place before our readers a true idea of that character made up of artlessness and reason, childishness and strength, depression and enthusiasm, material details and poetic213 ideas, which renders Sand a man incomprehensible to us. We will now continue the portrait, which still wants a few finishing touches.
When he returned to Erlangen, after the completion of his "cure," Sand read Faust far the first time. At first he was amazed at that work, which seemed to him an orgy of genius; then, when he had entirely214 finished it, he reconsidered his first impression, and wrote:—
"4th May
"Oh, horrible struggle of man and devil! What Mephistopheles is in me I feel far the first time in this hour, and I feel it, O God, with consternation215!
"About eleven at night I finished reading the tragedy, and I felt and saw the fiend in myself, so that by midnight, amid my tears and despair, I was at last frightened at myself."
Sand was falling by degrees into a deep melancholy216, from which nothing could rouse him except his desire to purify and preach morality to the students around him. To anyone who knows university life such a task will seem superhuman. Sand, however, was not discouraged, and if he could not gain an influence over everyone, he at least succeeded in forming around him a considerable circle of the most intelligent and the best; nevertheless, in the midst of these apostolic labours strange longings59 for death would overcome him; he seemed to recall heaven and want to return to it; he called these temptations "homesickness for the soul's country."
His favourite authors were Lessing, Schiller, Herder, and Goethe; after re-reading the two last for the twentieth time, this is what he wrote:
"Good and evil touch each other; the woes217 of the young Werther and Weisslingen's seduction, are almost the same story; no matter, we must not judge between what is good and what is evil in others; for that is what God will do. I have just been spending much time over this thought, and have become convinced that in no circumstances ought we to allow ourselves to seek for the devil in others, and that we have no right to judge; the only creature over wham we have received the power to judge and condemn12 is ourself, and that gives us enough constant care, business, and trouble.
"I have again to-day felt a profound desire to quit this world and enter a higher world; but this desire is rather dejection than strength, a lassitude than an upsoaring."
The year 1816 was spent by Sand in these pious attempts upon his young comrades, in this ceaseless self-examination, and in the perpetual battle which he waged with the desire for death that pursued him; every day he had deeper doubts of himself; and on the 1st of January, 1817, he wrote this prayer in his diary:—
"Grant to me, O Lord, to me whom Thou halt endowed, in sending me on earth, with free will, the grace that in this year which we are now beginning I may never relax this constant attention, and not shamefully218 give up the examination of my conscience which I have hitherto made. Give me strength to increase the attention which I turn upon my own life, and to diminish that which I turn upon the life of others; strengthen my will that it may become powerful to command the desires of the body and the waverings of the soul; give me a pious conscience entirely devoted219 to Thy celestial220 kingdom, that I may always belong to Thee, or after failing, may be able to return to Thee."
Sand was right in praying to God for the year 1817, and his fears were a presentiment154: the skies of Germany, lightened by Leipzig and Waterloo, were once more darkened; to the colossal221 and universal despotism of Napoleon succeeded the individual oppression of those little princes who made up the Germanic Diet, and all that the nations had gained by overthrowing222 the giant was to be governed by dwarfs223. This was the time when secret societies were organised throughout Germany; let us say a few words about them, for the history that we are writing is not only that of individuals, but also that of nations, and every time that occasion presents itself we will give our little picture a wide horizon.
The secret societies of Germany, of which, without knowing them, we have all heard, seem, when we follow them up, like rivers, to originate in some sort of affiliation224 to those famous clubs of the 'illumines' and the freemasons which made so much stir in France at the close of the eighteenth century. At the time of the revolution of '89 these different philosophical, political, and religious sects225 enthusiastically accepted the republican doctrines226, and the successes of our first generals have often been attributed to the secret efforts of the members. When Bonaparte, who was acquainted with these groups, and was even said to have belonged to them, exchanged his general's uniform for an emperor's cloak, all of them, considering him as a renegade and traitor227, not only rose against him at home, but tried to raise enemies against him abroad; as they addressed themselves to noble and generous passions, they found a response, and princes to whom their results might be profitable seemed for a moment to encourage them. Among others, Prince Louis of Prussia was grandmaster of one of these societies.
The attempted murder by Stops, to which we have already referred, was one of the thunderclaps of the storm; but its morrow brought the peace of Vienna, and the degradation228 of Austria was the death-blow of the old Germanic organisation. These societies, which had received a mortal wound in 1806 and were now controlled by the French police, instead of continuing to meet in public, were forced to seek new members in the dark. In 1811 several agents of these societies were arrested in Berlin, but the Prussian authorities, following secret orders of Queen Louisa, actually protected them, so that they were easily able to deceive the French police about their intentions. About February 1815 the disasters of the French army revived the courage of these societies, for it was seen that God was helping their cause: the students in particular joined enthusiastically in the new attempts that were now begun; many colleges enrolled themselves almost entire, anal chose their principals and professors as captains; the poet, Korner, killed on the 18th of October at Liegzig, was the hero of this campaign.
The triumph of this national movement, which twice carried the Prussian army—largely composed of volunteers—to Paris, was followed, when the treaties of 1815 and the new Germanic constitution were made known, by a terrible reaction in Germany. All these young men who, exiled by their princes, had risen in the name of liberty, soon perceived that they had been used as tools to establish European despotism; they wished to claim the promises that had been made, but the policy of Talleyrand and Metternich weighed on them, and repressing them at the first words they uttered, compelled them to shelter their discontent and their hopes in the universities, which, enjoying a kind of constitution of their own, more easily escaped the investigations229 made by the spies of the Holy Alliance; but, repressed as they were, these societies continued nevertheless to exist, and kept up communications by means of travelling students, who, bearing verbal messages, traversed Germany under the pretence231 of botanising, and, passing from mountain to mountain, sowed broadcast those luminous232 and hopeful words of which peoples are always greedy and kings always fear.
We have seen that Sand, carried away by the general movement, had gone through the campaign of 1815 as a volunteer, although he was then only nineteen years old. On his return, he, like others, had found his golden hopes deceived, and it is from this period that we find his journal assuming the tone of mysticism and sadness which our readers must have remarked in it. He soon entered one of these associations, the Teutonia; and from that moment, regarding the great cause which he had taken up as a religious one, he attempted to make the conspirators233 worthy of their enterprise, and thus arose his attempts to inculcate moral doctrines, in which he succeeded with some, but failed with the majority. Sand had succeeded, however, in forming around him a certain circle of Puritans, composed of about sixty to eighty students, all belonging to the group of the 'Burschenschaft' which continued its political and religious course despite all the jeers234 of the opposing group—the 'Landmannschaft'. One of his friends called Dittmar and he were pretty much the chiefs, and although no election had given them their authority, they exercised so much influence upon what was decided235 that in any particular case their fellow-adepts were sure spontaneously to obey any impulse that they might choose to impart. The meetings of the Burschen took place upon a little hill crowned by a ruined castle, which was situated236 at some distance from Erlangen, and which Sand and Dittmar had called the Ruttli, in memory of the spot where Walter Furst, Melchthal, and Stauffacher had made their vow to deliver their country; there, under the pretence of students' games, while they built up a new house with the ruined fragments, they passed alternately from symbol to action and from action to symbol.
Meanwhile the association was making such advances throughout Germany that not only the princes and kings of the German confederation, but also the great European powers, began to be uneasy. France sent agents to bring home reports, Russia paid agents on the spot, and the persecutions that touched a professor and exasperated237 a whole university often arose from a note sent by the Cabinet of the Tuileries or of St. Petersburg.
It was amid the events that began thus that Sand, after commending himself to the protection of God, began the year 1817, in the sad mood in which we have just seen him, and in which he was kept rather by a disgust for things as they were than by a disgust for life. On the 8th of May, preyed238 upon by this melancholy, which he cannot conquer, and which comes from the disappointment of all his political hopes, he writes in his diary:
"I shall find it impassible to set seriously to work, and this idle temper, this humour of hypochondria which casts its black veil over everything in life,—continues and grows in spite of the moral activity which I imposed on myself yesterday."
In the holidays, fearing to burden his parents with any additional expense, he will not go home, and prefers to make a walking tour with his friends. No doubt this tour, in addition to its recreative side, had a political aim. Be that as it may, Sand's diary, during the period of his journey, shows nothing but the names of the towns through which he passed. That we may have a notion of Sand's dutifulness to his parents, it should be said that he did not set out until he had obtained his mother's permission. On their return, Sand, Dittmar, and their friends the Burschen, found their Ruttli sacked by their enemies of the Landmannschaft; the house that they had built was demolished240 and its fragments dispersed241. Sand took this event for an omen53, and was greatly depressed242 by it.
"It seems to me, O my God!" he says in his journal, "that everything swims and turns around me. My soul grows darker and darker; my moral strength grows less instead of greater; I work and cannot achieve; walk towards my aim and do not reach it; exhaust myself, and do nothing great. The days of life flee one after another; cares and uneasiness increase; I see no haven243 anywhere for our sacred German cause. The end will be that we shall fall, for I myself waver. O Lord and Father! protect me, save me, and lead me to that land from which we are for ever driven back by the indifference244 of wavering spirits."
About this time a terrible event struck Sand to the heart; his friend Dittmar was drowned. This is what he wrote in his diary on the very morning of the occurrence:
"Oh, almighty God! What is going to become of me? For the last fortnight I have been drawn into disorder245, and have not been able to compel myself to look fixedly246 either backward or forward in my life, so that from the 4th of June up to the present hour my journal has remained empty. Yet every day I might have had occasion to praise Thee, O my God, but my soul is in anguish247. Lord, do not turn from me; the more are the obstacles the more need is there of strength."
In the evening he added these few words to the lines that he had written in the morning:—
"Desolation, despair, and death over my friend, over my very deeply loved Dittmar."
"You know that when my best friends, A., C., and Z., were gone, I became particularly intimate with my well-beloved Dittmar of Anspach; Dittmar, that is to say a true and worthy German, an evangelical Christian, something more, in short, than a man! An angelic soul, always turned toward the good, serene249, pious, and ready for action; he had come to live in a room next to mine in Professor Grunler's house; we loved each other, upheld each other in our efforts, and, well or ill, bare our good or evil fortune in common. On this last spring evening, after having worked in his room and having strengthened ourselves anew to resist all the torments250 of life and to advance towards the aim that we desired to attain251; we went, about seven in the evening, to the baths of Redwitz. A very black storm was rising in the sky, but only as yet appeared on the horizon. E., who was with us, proposed to go home, but Dittmar persisted, saying that the canal was but a few steps away. God permitted that it should not be I who replied with these fatal words. So he went on. The sunset was splendid: I see it still; its violet clouds all fringed with gold, for I remember the smallest details of that evening.
"Dittmar went down first; he was the only one of us who knew how to swim; so he walked before us to show us the depth. The water was about up to our chests, and he, who preceded us, was up to his shoulders, when he warned us not to go farther, because he was ceasing to feel the bottom. He immediately gave up his footing and began to swim, but scarcely had he made ten strokes when, having reached the place where the river separates into two branches, he uttered a cry, and as he was trying to get a foothold, disappeared. We ran at once to the bank, hoping to be able to help him more easily; but we had neither poles nor ropes within reach, and, as I have told you, neither of us could swim. Then we called for help with all our might. At that moment Dittmar reappeared, and by an unheard-of effort seized the end of a willow252 branch that was hanging over the water; but the branch was not strong enough to resist, and our friend sank again, as though he had been struck by apoplexy. Can you imagine the state in which we were, we his friends, bending over the river, our fixed and haggard eyes trying to pierce its depth? My God, my God! how was it we did not go mad?
"A great crowd, however, had run at our cries. For two hours they sought far him with boats and drag-hooks; and at last they succeeded in drawing his body from the gulf. Yesterday we bore it solemnly to the field of rest.
"Thus with the end of this spring has begun the serious summer of my life. I greeted it in a grave and melancholy mood, and you behold me now, if not consoled, at least strengthened by religion, which, thanks to the merits of Christ, gives me the assurance of meeting my friend in heaven, from the heights of which he will inspire me with strength to support the trials of this life; and now I do not desire anything more except to know you free from all anxiety in regard to me."
Instead of serving to unite the two groups of students in a common grief, this accident, on the contrary, did but intensify253 their hatred254 of each other. Among the first persons who ran up at the cries of Sand and his companion was a member of the Landmannschaft who could swim, but instead of going to Dittmar's assistance he exclaimed, "It seems that we shall get rid of one of these dogs of Burschen; thank God!" Notwithstanding this manifestation255 of hatred, which, indeed, might be that of an individual and not of the whole body, the Burschen invited their enemies to be present at Dittmar's funeral. A brutal256 refusal, and a threat to disturb the ceremony by insults to the corpse, formed their sole reply. The Burschen then warned the authorities, who took suitable measures, and all Dittmar's friends followed his coffin sword in hand. Beholding257 this calm but resolute258 demonstration259, the Landmannschaft did not dare to carry out their threat, and contented260 themselves with insulting the procession by laughs and songs.
Sand wrote in his journal:
"Dittmar is a great loss to all of us, and particularly to me; he gave me the overflow261 of his strength and life; he stopped, as it were, with an embankment, the part of my character that is irresolute262 and undecided. From him it is that I have learned not to dread263 the approaching storm, and to know how to fight and die."
Some days after the funeral Sand had a quarrel about Dittmar with one of his former friends, who had passed over from the Burschen to the Landmannschaft, and who had made himself conspicuous264 at the time of the funeral by his indecent hilarity265. It was decided that they should fight the next day, and on the same day Sand wrote in his journal.
"To-morrow I am to fight with P. G.; yet Thou knowest, O my God, what great friends we formerly266 were, except for a certain mistrust with which his coldness always inspired me; but on this occasion his odious267 conduct has caused me to descend268 from the tenderest pity to the profoundest hatred.
"My God, do not withdraw Thy hand either from him or from me, since we are both fighting like men! Judge only by our two causes, and give the victory to that which is the more just. If Thou shouldst call me before Thy supreme tribunal, I know very well that I should appear burdened with an eternal malediction269; and indeed it is not upon myself that I reckon but upon the merits of our Saviour270 Jesus Christ.
"Come what may, be praised and blessed, O my God!
"My dear parents, brothers, and friends, I commend you to the protection of God."
The loss of Dittmar, however, by no means produced the result upon Sand that might have been expected, and that he himself seems to indicate in the regrets he expressed for him. Deprived of that strong soul upon which he rested, Sand understood that it was his task by redoubled energy to make the death of Dittmar less fatal to his party. And indeed he continued singly the work of drawing in recruits which they had been carrying on together, and the patriotic272 conspiracy273 was not for a moment impeded274.
The holidays came, and Sand left Erlangen to return no more. From Wonsiedel he was to proceed to Jena, in order to complete his theological studies there. After some days spent with his family, and indicated in his journal as happy, Sand went to his new place of abode275, where he arrived some time before the festival of the Wartburg. This festival, established to celebrate the anniversary of the battle of Leipzig, was regarded as a solemnity throughout Germany, and although the princes well knew that it was a centre for the annual renewal276 of affiliation to the various societies, they dared not forbid it. Indeed, the manifesto277 of the Teutonic Association was exhibited at this festival and signed by more than two thousand deputies from different universities in Germany. This was a day of joy for Sand; for he found in the midst of new friends a great number of old ones.
The Government, however, which had not 'dared to attack the Association by force, resolved to undermine it by opinion. M. de Stauren published a terrible document, attacking the societies, and founded, it was said, upon information furnished by Kotzebue. This publication made a great stir, not only at Jena, but throughout all Germany. Here is the trace of this event that we find in Sand's journal:—
24th November "Today, after working with much ease and assiduity, I went out about four with E. As we crossed the market-place we heard Kotzebue's new and venomous insult read. By what a fury that man is possessed against the Burschen and against all who love Germany!"
Thus far the first time and in these terms Sand's journal presents the name of the man who, eighteen months later, he was to slay278.
The Government, however, which had not 'dared to attack the Association by force, resolved to undermine it by opinion. M. de Stauren published a terrible document, attacking the societies, and founded, it was said, upon information furnished by Kotzebue. This publication made a great stir, not only at Jena, but throughout all Germany. Here is the trace of this event that we find in Sand's journal:
24th November
"To-day, after working with much ease and assiduity, I went out about four with E. As we crossed the market-place we heard Kotzebue's new and venomous insult read. By what a fury that man is possessed against the Burschen and against all who love Germany!"
Thus for the first time and in these terms Sand's journal presents the name of the man who, eighteen months later, he was to slay.
On the 29th, in the evening, Sand writes again:
"To-morrow I shall set out courageously and joyfully from this place for a pilgrimage to Wonsiedel; there I shall find my large-hearted mother and my tender sister Julia; there I shall cool my head and warm my heart. Probably I shall be present at my good Fritz's marriage with Louisa, and at the baptism of my very dear Durchmith's first-born. God, O my Father, as Thou hast been with me during my sad course, be with me still on my happy road."
This journey did in fact greatly cheer Sand. Since Dittmar's death his attacks of hypochondria had disappeared. While Dittmar lived he might die; Dittmar being dead, it was his part to live.
On the 11th of December he left Wonsiedel, to return to Jena, and on the 31st of the same month he wrote this prayer in his journal.
"O merciful Saviour! I began this year with prayer, and in these last days I have been subject to distraction279 and ill-disposed. When I look backward, I find, alas280! that I have not become better; but I have entered more profoundly into life, and, should occasion present, I now feel strength to act.
"It is because Thou hast always been with me, Lord, even when I was not with Thee."
If our readers have followed with some attention the different extracts from the journal that we have placed before them, they must have seen Sand's resolution gradually growing stronger and his brain becoming excited. From the beginning of the year 1818, one feels his view, which long was timid and wandering, taking in a wider horizon and fixing itself on a nobler aim. He is no longer ambitious of the pastor's simple life or of the narrow influence which he might gain in a little community, and which, in his juvenile281 modesty282, had seemed the height of good fortune and happiness; it is now his native land, his German people, nay283, all humanity, which he embraces in his gigantic plans of political regeneration. Thus, on the flyleaf of his journal for the year 1818, he writes:
"Lord, let me strengthen myself in the idea that I have conceived of the deliverance of humanity by the holy sacrifice of Thy Son. Grant that I may be a Christ of Germany, and that, like and through Jesus, I may be strong and patient in suffering."
But the anti-republican pamphlets of Kotzebue increased in number and gained a fatal influence upon the minds of rulers. Nearly all the persons who were attacked in these pamphlets were known and esteemed285 at Jena; and it may easily be comprehended what effects were produced by such insults upon these young heads and noble hearts, which carried conviction to the paint of blindness and enthusiasm to that of fanaticism286.
Thus, here is what Sand wrote in his diary on the 5th of May.
"Lord, what causes this melancholy anguish which has again taken possession of me? But a firm and constant will surmounts287 everything, and the idea of the country gives joy and courage to the saddest and the weakest. When I think of that, I am always amazed that there is none among us found courageous143 enough to drive a knife into the breast of Kotzebue or of any other traitor."
Still dominated by the same thought, he continues thus on the 18th of May:—
"A man is nothing in comparison with a nation; he is a unity compared with millions, a minute compared with a century. A man, whom nothing precedes and nothing follows, is born, lives, and dies in a longer or shorter time, which, relatively288 to eternity289, hardly equals the duration of a lightning flash. A nation, on the contrary, is immortal290."
From time to time, however, amid these thoughts that bear the impress of that political fatality291 which was driving him towards the deed of bloodshed, the kindly292 and joyous293 youth reappears. On the 24th of June he writes to his mother:—
"I have received your long and beautiful letter, accompanied by the very complete and well-chosen outfit294 which you send me. The sight of this fine linen295 gave me back one of the joys of my childhood. These are fresh benefits. My prayers never remain unfulfilled, and I have continual cause to thank you and God. I receive, all at once, shirts, two pairs of fine sheets, a present of your work, and of Julia's and Caroline's work, dainties and sweetmeats, so that I am still jumping with joy and I turned three times on my heels when I opened the little parcel. Receive the thanks of my heart, and share, as giver, in the joy of him who has received.
"Today, however, is a very serious day, the last day of spring and the anniversary of that on which I lost my noble and good Dittmar. I am a prey239 to a thousand different and confused feelings; but I have only two passions left in me which remain upright and like two pillars of brass296 support this whole chaos—the thought of God and the love of my country."
During all this time Sand's life remains297 apparently298 calm and equal; the inward storm is calmed; he rejoices in his application to work and his cheerful temper. However, from time to time, he makes great complaints to himself of his propensity299 to love dainty food, which he does not always find it possible to conquer. Then, in his self-contempt, he calls himself "fig-stomach" or "cake-stomach." But amid all this the religious and political exaltation and visits all the battlefields near to the road that he follows. On the 18th of October he is back at Jena, where he resumes his studies with more application than ever. It is among such university studies that the year 1818 closes far him, and we should hardly suspect the terrible resolution which he has taken, were it not that we find in his journal this last note, dated the 31st of December:
"I finish the last day of this year 1818, then, in a serious and solemn mood, and I have decided that the Christmas feast which has just gone by will be the last Christmas feast that I shall celebrate. If anything is to come of our efforts, if the cause of humanity is to assume the upper hand in our country, if in this faithless epoch300 any noble feelings can spring up afresh and make way, it can only happen if the wretch301, the traitor, the seducer302 of youth, the infamous Kotzebue, falls! I am fully convinced of this, and until I have accomplished303 the work upon which I have resolved, I shall have no rest. Lord, Thou who knowest that I have devoted my life to this great action, I only need, now that it is fixed in my mind, to beg of Thee true firmness and courage of soul."
Here Sand's diary ends; he had begun it to strengthen himself; he had reached his aim; he needed nothing more. From this moment he was occupied by nothing but this single idea, and he continued slowly to mature the plan in his head in order to familiarise himself with its execution; but all the impressions arising from this thought remained in his own mind, and none was manifested on the surface. To everyone else he was the same; but for some little time past, a complete and unaltered serenity304, accompanied by a visible and cheerful return of inclination305 towards life, had been noticed in him. He had made no charge in the hours or the duration of his studies; but he had begun to attend the anatomical classes very assiduously. One day he was seen to give even more than his customary attention to a lesson in which the professor was demonstrating the various functions of the heart; he examined with the greatest care the place occupied by it in the chest, asking to have some of the demonstrations306 repeated two or three times, and when he went out, questioning some of the young men who were following the medical courses, about the susceptibility 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 dagger307 into his heart."
The two young men laughed heartily308 over this murderous demonstration, and A. S. related it that evening at the wine-shop as one of the peculiarities309 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 previously310 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 forth311 alone, therefore, after having hired his lodgings312 for another half-year, in order to obviate313 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 little hill where we found him at the beginning of this narrative314. Throughout the journey he had been the amiable315 and happy young man whom no one could see without liking316.
Having reached Mannheim, he took a room at the Weinberg, and wrote his name as "Henry" in the visitors' list. He immediately inquired where Kotzebue lived. The councillor dwelt near the church of the Jesuits; his house was at the corner of a street, and though Sand's informants could not tell him exactly the letter, they assured him it was not possible to mistake the house. [At Mannheim houses are marked by letters, not by numbers.]
Sand went at once to Kotzebue's house: it was about ten o'clock; he was told that the councillor went to walk for an hour or two every morning in the park of Mannheim. Sand inquired about the path in which he generally walked, and about the clothes he wore, for never having seen him he could only recognise him by the description. Kotzebue chanced to take another path. Sand walked about the park for an hour, but seeing no one who corresponded to the description given him, went back to the house.
Kotzebue had come in, but was at breakfast and could not see him.
Sand went back to the Weinberg, and sat down to the midday table d'hote, where he dined with an appearance of such calmness, and even of such happiness, that his conversation, which was now lively, now simple, and now dignified317, was remarked by everybody. At five in the afternoon he returned a third time to the house of Kotzebue, who was giving a great dinner that day; but orders had been given to admit Sand. He was shown into a little room opening out of the anteroom, and a moment after, Kotzebue came in.
Sand then performed the drama which he had rehearsed upon his friend A. S. Kotzebue, finding his face threatened, put his hands up to it, and left his breast exposed; Sand at once stabbed him to the heart; Kotzebue gave one cry, staggered, and fell back into an arm-chair: he was dead.
At the cry a little girl of six years old ran in, one of those charming German children, with the faces of cherubs318, blue-eyed, with long flowing hair. She flung herself upon the body of Kotzebue, calling her father with piercing cries. Sand, standing at the door, could not endure this sight, and without going farther, he thrust the dagger, still covered with Kotzebue's blood, up to the hilt into his own breast. Then, seeing to his surprise that notwithstanding the terrible wound—he had just given himself he did not feel the approach of death, and not wishing to fall alive into the hands of the servants who were running in, he rushed to the staircase. The persons who were invited were just coming in; they, seeing a young man, pale and bleeding with a knife in his breast, uttered loud cries, and stood aside, instead of stopping him. Sand therefore passed down the staircase and reached the street below; ten paces off, a patrol was passing, on the way to relieve the sentinels at the castle; Sand thought these men had been summoned by the cries that followed him; he threw himself on his knees in the middle of the street, and said, "Father, receive my soul!"
Then, drawing the knife from the wound, he gave himself a second blow below the former, and fell insensible.
Sand was carried to the hospital and guarded with the utmost strictness; the wounds were serious, but, thanks to the skill of the physicians who were called in, were not mortal; one of them even healed eventually; but as to the second, the blade having gone between the costal pleura and the pulmonary pleura, an effusion of blood occurred between the two layers, so that, instead of closing the wound, it was kept carefully open, in order that the blood extravasated during the night might be drawn off every morning by means of a pump, as is done in the operation for empyaemia.
Notwithstanding these cares, Sand was for three months between life and death.
When, on the 26th of March, the news of Kotzebue's assassination319 came from Mannheim to Jena, the academic senate caused Sand's room to be opened, and found two letters—one addressed to his friends of the Burschenschaft, in which he declared that he no longer belonged to their society, since he did not wish that their brotherhood320 should include a man about to die an the scaffold. The other letter, which bore this superscription, "To my nearest and dearest," was an exact account of what he meant to do, and the motives321 which had made him determine upon this act. Though the letter is a little long, it is so solemn and so antique in spirit, that we do not hesitate to present it in its entirety to our readers:—
"To all my own "Loyal and eternally cherished souls
"Why add still further to your sadness? I asked myself, and I hesitated to write to you; but my silence would have wounded the religion of the heart; and the deeper a grief the more it needs, before it can be blotted322 out, to drain to the dregs its cup of bitterness. Forth from my agonised breast, then; forth, long and cruel torment of a last conversation, which alone, however, when sincere, can alleviate323 the pain of parting.
"This letter brings you the last farewell of your son and your brother.
"The greatest misfortune of life far any generous heart is to see the cause of God stopped short in its developments by our fault; and the most dishonouring324 infamy325 would be to suffer that the fine things acquired bravely by thousands of men, and far which thousands of men have joyfully sacrificed themselves, should be no more than a transient dream, without real and positive consequences. The resurrection of our German life was begun in these last twenty years, and particularly in the sacred year 1813, with a courage inspired by God. But now the house of our fathers is shaken from the summit to the base. Forward! let us raise it, new and fair, and such as the true temple of the true God should be.
"Small is the number of those who resist, and who wish to oppose themselves as a dyke326 against the torrent327 of the progress of higher humanity among the German people. Why should vast whole masses bow beneath the yoke of a perverse328 minority? And why, scarcely healed, should we fall back into a worse disease than that which we are leaving behind?
"Many of these seducers, and those are the most infamous, are playing the game of corruption329 with us; among them is Kotzebue, the most cunning and the worst of all, a real talking machine emitting all sorts of detestable speech and pernicious advice. His voice is skillful in removing from us all anger and bitterness against the most unjust measures, and is just such as kings require to put us to sleep again in that old hazy330 slumber331 which is the death of nations. Every day he odiously332 betrays his country, and nevertheless, despite his treason, remains an idol333 for half Germany, which, dazzled by him, accepts unresisting the poison poured out by him in his periodic pamphlets, wrapped up and protected as he is by the seductive mantle334 of a great poetic reputation. Incited335 by him, the princes of Germany, who have forgotten their promises, will allow nothing free or good to be accomplished; or if anything of the kind is accomplished in spite of them, they will league themselves with the French to annihilate336 it. That the history of our time may not be covered with eternal ignominy, it is necessary that he should fall.
"I have always said that if we wish to find a great and supreme remedy for the state of abasement337 in which we are, none must shrink from combat nor from suffering; and the real liberty of the German people will only be assured when the good citizen sets himself or some other stake upon the game, and when every true son of the country, prepared for the struggle for justice, despises the good things of this world, and only desires those celestial good things which death holds in charge.
"I have long been waiting in fear, in prayer, and in tears—I who am not born for murder—for some other to be beforehand with me, to set me free, and suffer me to continue my way along the sweet and peaceful path that I had chosen for myself. Well, despite my prayers and my tears, he who should strike does not present himself; indeed, every man, like myself, has a right to count upon some other, and everyone thus counting, every hour's delay, but makes our state worse; far at any moment—and how deep a shame would that be for us! Kotzebue may leave Germany, unpunished, and go to devour340 in Russia the treasures for which he has exchanged his honour, his conscience, and his German name. Who can preserve us from this shame, if every man, if I myself, do not feel strength to make myself the chosen instrument of God's justice? Therefore, forward! It shall be I who will courageously rush upon him (do not be alarmed), on him, the loathsome341 seducer; it shall be I who will kill the traitor, so that his misguiding voice, being extinguished, shall cease to lead us astray from the lessons of history and from the Spirit of God. An irresistible342 and solemn duty impels344 me to this deed, ever since I have recognised to what high destinies the German; nation may attain during this century, and ever since I have come to know the dastard345 and hypocrite who alone prevents it from reaching them; for me, as for every German who seeks the public good, this desire has became a strict and binding necessity. May I, by this national vengeance, indicate to all upright and loyal consciences where the true danger lies, and save our vilified346 and calumniated347 societies from the imminent348 danger that threatens them! May I, in short, spread terror among the cowardly and wicked, and courage and faith among the good! Speeches and writings lead to nothing; only actions work.
"I will act, therefore; and though driven violently away from my fair dreams of the future, I am none the less full of trust in God; I even experience a celestial joy, now that, like the Hebrews when they sought the promised land, I see traced before me, through darkness and death, that road at the end of which I shall have paid my debt to my country.
"Farewell, then, faithful hearts: true, this early separation is hard; true, your hopes, like my wishes, are disappointed; but let us be consoled by the primary thought that we have done what the voice of our country called upon us to do; that, you knew, is the principle according to which I have always lived. You will doubtless say among yourselves, 'Yes, thanks to our sacrifices, he had learned to know life and to taste the joys of earth, and he seemed: deeply to love his native country and the humble349 estate to which he was called'. Alas, yes, that is true! Under your protection, and amid your numberless sacrifices, my native land and life had become profoundly dear to me. Yes, thanks to you, I have penetrated350 into the Eden of knowledge, and have lived the free life of thought; thanks to you, I have looked into history, and have then returned to my own conscience to attach myself to the solid pillars of faith in the Eternal.
"Yes, I was to pass gently through this life as a preacher of the gospel; yes, in my constancy to my calling I was to be sheltered from the storms of this existence. But would that suffice to avert351 the danger that threatens Germany? And you yourselves, in your infinite lave, should you not rather push me on to risk my life for the good of all? So many modern Greeks have fallen already to free their country from the yoke of the Turks, and have died almost without any result and without any hope; and yet thousands of fresh martyrs keep up their courage and are ready to fall in their turn; and should I, then, hesitate to die?
"That I do not recognise your love, or that your love is but a trifling352 consideration with me, you will not believe. What else should impel343 me to die if not my devotion to you and to Germany, and the need of proving this devotion to my family and my country?
"You, mother, will say, 'Why have I brought up a son whom I loved and who loved me, for whom I have undergone a thousand cares and toils353, who, thanks to my prayers and my example, was impressionable to good influences, and from whom, after my long and weary course, I hoped to receive attentions like those which I have given him? Why does he now abandon me?'
"Oh, my kind and tender mother! Yes, you will perhaps say that; but could not the mother of anyone else say the same, and everything go off thus in words when there is need to act for the country? And if no one would act, what would become of that mother of us all who is called Germany?
"But no; such complaints are far from you, you noble woman! I understood your appeal once before, and at this present hour, if no one came forward in the German cause, you yourself would urge me to the fight. I have two brothers and two sisters before me, all noble and loyal. They will remain to you, mother; and besides you will have for sons all the children of Germany who love their country.
"Every man has a destiny which he has to accomplish: mine is devoted to the action that I am about to undertake; if I were to live another fifty years, I could not live more happily than I have done lately. Farewell, mother: I commend you to the protection of God; may He raise you to that joy which misfortunes can no longer trouble! Take your grandchildren, to whom I should so much have liked to be a loving friend, to the top of our beautiful mountains soon. There, on that altar raised by the Lord Himself in the midst of Germany, let them devote themselves, swearing to take up the sword as soon as they have strength to lift it, and to lay it down only when our brethren are all united in liberty, when all Germans, having a liberal constitution; are great before the Lord, powerful against their neighbours, and united among themselves.
"May my country ever raise her happy gaze to Thee, Almighty Father! May Thy blessing354 fall abundantly upon her harvests ready to be cut and her armies ready for battle, and recognising the blessings355 that Thou host showered upon us, may the German nation ever be first among nations to rise and uphold the cause of humanity, which is Thy image upon earth!
"Your eternally attached son, brother and friend, "KARL-LUDWIG SAND. "JENA, the beginning of March, 1819."
Sand, who, as we have said, had at first been taken to the hospital, was removed at the end of three months to the prison at Mannheim, where the governor, Mr. G——, had caused a room to be prepared for him. There he remained two months longer in a state of extreme weakness: his left arm was completely paralysed; his voice was very weak; every movement gave him horrible pain, and thus it was not until the 11th of August—that is to say, five months after the event that we have narrated356—that he was able to write to his family the following letter:—
"MY VERY DEAR PARENTS:—The grand-duke's commission of inquiry357 informed me yesterday that it might be possible I should have the intense joy of a visit from you, and that I might perhaps see you here and embrace you—you, mother, and some of my brothers and sisters.
"Without being surprised at this fresh proof of your motherly love, I have felt an ardent47 remembrance reawaken of the happy life that we spent gently together. Joy and grief, desire and sacrifice, agitate358 my heart violently, and I have had to weigh these various impulses one against the other, and with the force of reason, in order to resume mastery of myself and to take a decision in regard to my wishes.
"The balance has inclined in the direction of sacrifice.
"You know, mother, how much joy and courage a look from your eyes, daily intercourse359 with you, and your pious and high-minded conversation, might bring me during my very short time. But you also know my position, and you are too well acquainted with the natural course of all these painful inquiries360, not to feel as I do, that such annoyance361, continually recurring362, would greatly trouble the pleasure of our companionship, if it did not indeed succeed in entirely destroying it. Then, mother, after the long and fatiguing363 journey that you would be obliged to make in order to see me, think of the terrible sorrow of the farewell when the moment came to part in this world. Let us therefore abide364 by the sacrifice, according to God's will, and let us yield ourselves only to that sweet community of thought which distance cannot interrupt, in which I find my only joys, and which, in spite of men, will always be granted us by the Lord, our Father.
"As for my physical state, I knew nothing about it. You see, however, since at last I am writing to you myself, that I have come past my first uncertainties365. As for the rest, I know too little of the structure of my own body to give any opinion as to what my wounds may determine for it. Except that a little strength has returned to me, its state is still the same, and I endure it calmly and patiently; for God comes to my help, and gives me courage and firmness. He will help me, believe me, to find all the joys of the soul and to be strong in mind. Amen.
"May you live happy!—Your deeply respectful son, "KARL-LUDWIG SAND."
A month after this letter came tender answers from all the family. We will quote only that of Sand's mother, because it completes the idea which the reader may have formed already of this great-hearted woman, as her son always calls her.
"DEAR, INEXPRESSIBLY DEAR KARL,—How Sweet it was to me to see the writing of your beloved hand after so long a time! No journey would have been so painful and no road so long as to prevent me from coming to you, and I would go, in deep and infinite love, to any end of the earth in the mere hope of catching366 sight of you.
"But, as I well know both your tender affection and your profound anxiety for me, and as you give me, so firmly and upon such manly367 reflection, reasons against which I can say nothing, and which I can but honour, it shall be, my well-beloved Karl, as you have wished and decided. We will continue, without speech, to communicate our thoughts; but be satisfied, nothing can separate us; I enfold you in my soul, and my material thoughts watch over you.
"May this infinite love which upholds us, strengthens us, and leads us all to a better life, preserve, dear Karl, your courage and firmness.
"Farewell, and be invariably assured that I shall never cease to love you strongly and deeply.
"Your faithful mother, who loves you to eternity."
Sand replied:—
"In the middle of the month of September last year I received, through the grand-duke's special commission of inquiry, whose humanity you have already appreciated, your dear letters of the end of August and the beginning of September, which had such magical influence that they inundated369 me with joy by transporting me into the inmost circle of your hearts.
"You, my tender father, you write to me on the sixty-seventh anniversary of your birth, and you bless me by the outpouring of your most tender love.
"You, my well-beloved mother, you deign166 to promise the continuance of your maternal370 affection, in which I have at all times constantly believed; and thus I have received the blessings of both of you, which, in my present position, will exercise a more beneficent influence upon me than any of the things that all the kings of the earth, united together, could grant me. Yes, you strengthen me abundantly by your blessed love, and I render thanks to you, my beloved parents, with that respectful submission that my heart will always inculcate as the first duty of a son.
"But the greater your love and the more affectionate your letters, the more do I suffer, I must acknowledge, from the voluntary sacrifice that we have imposed upon ourselves in not seeing one another; and the only reason, my dear parents, why I have delayed to reply to you, was to give myself time to recover the strength which I have lost.
"You too, dear brother-in-law and dear sister, assure me of your sincere and uninterrupted attachment371. And yet, after the fright that I have spread among you all, you seem not to know exactly what to think of me; but my heart, full of gratitude for your past kindness, comforts itself; for your actions speak and tell me that, even if you wished no longer to love me as I love you, you would not be able to do otherwise. These actions mean more to me at this hour than any possible protestations, nay, than even the tenderest words.
"And you also, my kind brother, you would have consented to hurry with our beloved mother to the shores of the Rhine, to this place where the real links of the soul were welded between us, where we were doubly brothers; but tell me, are you not really here, in thought and in spirit, when I consider the rich fountain of consolation195 brought me by your cordial and tender letter?
"And, you, kind sister-in-law, as you showed yourself from the first, in your delicate tenderness, a true sister, so I find you again at present. There are still the same tender relations, still the same sisterly affection; your consolations, which emanate372 from a deep and submissive piety, have fallen refreshingly373 into the depths of my heart. But, dear sister-in-law, I must tell you, as well as the others, that you are too liberal towards me in dispensing374 your esteem284 and praises, and your exaggeration has cast me back face to face with my inmost judge, who has shown me in the mirror of my conscience the image of my every weakness.
"You, kind Julia, you desire nothing else but to save me from the fate that awaits me; and you assure me in your own name and in that of you all, that you, like the others, would rejoice to endure it in my place; in that I recognise you fully, and I recognise, too, those sweet and tender relations in which we have been brought up from childhood. Oh, be comforted, dear Julia; thanks to the protection of God, I promise you: that it will be easy for me, much easier than I should have thought, to bear what falls to my lot. Receive, then, all of you, my warm and sincere thanks for having thus rejoiced my heart.
"Now that I know from these strengthening letters that, like the prodigal375 son, the love and goodness of my family are greater on my return than at my departure, I will, as carefully as possible, paint for you my physical and moral state, and I pray God to supplement my words by His strength, so that my letter may contain an equivalent of what yours brought to me, and may help you to reach that state of calm and serenity to which I have myself attained376.
"Hardened, by having gained power over myself, against the good and ill of this earth, you knew already that of late years I have lived only for moral joys, and I must say that, touched by my efforts, doubtless, the Lord, who is the sacred fount of all that is good, has rendered me apt in seeking them and in tasting them to the full. God is ever near me, as formerly, and I find in Him the sovereign principle of the creation of all things; in Him, our holy Father, not only consolation and strength, but an unalterable Friend, full of the holiest love, who will accompany me in all places where I may need His consolations. Assuredly, if He had turned from me, or if I had turned away my eyes from Him, I should now find myself very unfortunate and wretched; but by His grace, on the contrary, lowly and weak creature as I am, He makes me strong and powerful against whatever can befall me.
"What I have hitherto revered377 as sacred, what I have desired as good what I have aspired378 to as heavenly, has in no respect changed now. And I thank God for it, for I should now be in great despair if I were compelled to recognise that my heart had adored deceptive379 images and enwrapped itself in fugitive chimeras380. Thus my faith in these ideas and my pure love far them, guardian381 angels of my spirit as they are, increase moment by moment, and will go on increasing to my end, and I hope that I may pass all the more easily from this world into eternity. I pass my silent life in Christian exaltation and humility382, and I sometimes have those visions from above through which I have, from my birth, adored heaven upon earth, and which give me power to raise myself to the Lord upon the eager wings of my prayers. My illness, though long, painful, and cruel, has always been sufficiently383 mastered by my will to let me busy myself to some result with history, positive sciences, and the finer parts of religious education, and when my suffering became more violent and for a time interrupted these occupations, I struggled successfully, nevertheless, against ennui384; for the memories of the past, my resignation to the present, and my faith in the future were rich enough and strong enough in me and round me to prevent my falling from my terrestrial paradise. According to my principles, I would never, in the position in which I am and in which I have placed myself, have been willing to ask anything for my own comfort; but so much kindness and care have been lavished385 upon me, with so much delicacy386 and humanity,—which alas! I am unable to return—by every person with whom I have been brought into contact, that wishes which I should not have dared to frame in the mast private recesses387 of my heart have been more than exceeded. I have never been so much overcome by bodily pains that I could not say within myself, while I lifted my thoughts to heaven, 'Come what may of this ray.' And great as these gains have been, I could not dream of comparing them with those sufferings of the soul that we feel so profoundly and poignantly388 in the recognition of our weaknesses and faults.
"Moreover, these pains seldom now cause me to lose consciousness; the swelling389 and inflammation never made great headway, and the fever has always been moderate, though for nearly ten months I have been forced to remain lying on my back, unable to raise myself, and although more than forty pints390 of matter have come from my chest at the place where the heart is. No, an the contrary, the wound, though still open, is in a good state; and I owe that not only to the excellent nursing around me, but also to the pure blood that I received from you, my mother. Thus I have lacked neither earthly assistance nor heavenly encouragement. Thus, on the anniversary of my birth, I had every reason—oh, not to curse the hour in which I was born, but, on the contrary, after serious contemplation of the world, to thank God and you, my dear parents, for the life that you have given me! I celebrated it, on the 18th of October, by a peaceful and ardent submission to the holy will of God. On Christmas Day I tried to put myself into the temper of children who are devoted to the Lord; and with God's help the new year will pass like its predecessor391, in bodily pain, perhaps, but certainly in spiritual joy. And with this wish, the only one that I form, I address myself to you, my dear parents, and to you and yours, my dear brothers and sisters.
"I cannot hope to see a twenty-fifth new year; so may the prayer that I have just made be granted! May this picture of my present state afford you some tranquillity392, and may this letter that I write to you from the depths of my heart not only prove to you that I am not unworthy of the inexpressible love that you all display, but, on the contrary, ensure this love to me for eternity.
"Within the last few days I have also received your dear letter of the 2nd of December, my kind mother, and the grind-duke's commission has deigned393 to let me also read my kind brother's letter which accompanied yours. You give me the best of news in regard to the health of all of you, and send me preserved fruits from our dear home. I thank you for them from the bottom of my heart. What causes me most joy in the matter is that you have been solicitously394 busy about me in summer as in winter, and that you and my dear Julia gathered them and prepared them for me at home, and I abandon my whole soul to that sweet enjoyment395.
"I rejoice sincerely at my little cousin's coming into the world; I joyfully congratulate the good parents and the grandparents; I transport myself, for his baptism, into that beloved parish, where I offer him my affection as his Christian brother, and call down on him all the blessings of heaven.
"We shall be obliged, I think, to give up this correspondence, so as not to inconvenience the grand-duke's commission. I finish, therefore, by assuring you, once more, but for the last time, perhaps, of my profound filial submission and of my fraternal affection.—Your most tenderly attached "KARL-LUDWIG SAND."
Indeed, from that moment all correspondence between Karl and his family ceased, and he only wrote to them, when he knew his fate, one more letter, which we shall see later on.
We have seen by what attentions Sand was surrounded; their humanity never flagged for an instant. It is the truth, too, that no one saw in him an ordinary murderer, that many pitied him under their breath, and that some excused him aloud. The very commission appointed by the grand-duke prolonged the affair as much as possible; for the severity of Sand's wounds had at first given rise to the belief that there would be no need of calling in the executioner, and the commission was well pleased that God should have undertaken the execution of the judgment396. But these expectations were deceived: the skill of the doctor defeated, not indeed the wound, but death: Sand did not recover, but he remained alive; and it began to be evident that it would be needful to kill him.
Indeed, the Emperor Alexander, who had appointed Kotzebue his councillor, and who was under no misapprehension as to the cause of the murder, urgently demanded that justice should take its course. The commission of inquiry was therefore obliged to set to work; but as its members were sincerely desirous of having some pretext397 to delay their proceedings398, they ordered that a physician from Heidelberg should visit Sand and make an exact report upon his case; as Sand was kept lying down and as he could not be executed in his bed, they hoped that the physician's report, by declaring it impossible for the prisoner to rise, would come to their assistance and necessitate399 a further respite.
The chosen doctor came accordingly to Mannheim, and introducing himself to Sand as though attracted by the interest that he inspired, asked him whether he did not feel somewhat better, and whether it would be impossible to rise. Sand looked at him for an instant, and then said, with a smile—
"I understand, sir; they wish to know whether I am strong enough to mount a scaffold: I know nothing about it myself, but we will make the experiment together."
With these words he rose, and accomplishing, with superhuman courage, what he had not attempted for fourteen months, walked twice round the room, came back to his bed, upon which he seated himself, and said:
"You see, sir, I am strong enough; it would therefore be wasting precious time to keep my judges longer about my affair; so let them deliver their judgment, for nothing now prevents its execution."
The doctor made his report; there was no way of retreat; Russia was becoming more and more pressing, and an the 5th of May 1820 the high court of justice delivered the following judgment, which was confirmed on the 12th by His Royal Highness the Grand-Duke of Baden:
"In the matters under investigation230 and after administration of the interrogatory and hearing the defences, and considering the united opinions of the court of justice at Mannheim and the further consultations400 of the court of justice which declare the accused, Karl Sand of Wonsiedel, guilty of murder, even on his own confession401, upon the person of the Russian imperial Councillor of State, Kotzebue; it is ordered accordingly, for his just punishment and for an example that may deter101 other people, that he is to be put from life to death by the sword.
"All the costs of these investigations, including these occasioned by his public execution, will be defrayed from the funds of the law department, on account of his want of means."
We see that, though it condemned the accused to death, which indeed could hardly be avoided, the sentence was both in form and substance as mild as possible, since, though Sand was convicted, his poor family was not reduced by the expenses of a long and costly trial to complete ruin.
Five days were still allowed to elapse, and the verdict was not announced until the 17th. When Sand was informed that two councillors of justice were at the door, he guessed that they were coming to read his sentence to him; he asked a moment to rise, which he had done but once before, in the instance already narrated, during fourteen months. And indeed he was so weak that he could not stand to hear the sentence, and after having greeted the deputation that death sent to him, he asked to sit down, saying that he did so not from cowardice402 of soul but from weakness of body; then he added, "You are welcome, gentlemen; far I have suffered so much for fourteen months past that you come to me as angels of deliverance."
He heard the sentence quite unaffectedly and with a gentle smile upon his lips; then, when the reading was finished, he said—
"I look for no better fate, gentlemen, and when, more than a year ago, I paused on the little hill that overlooks the town, I saw beforehand the place where my grave would be; and so I ought to thank God and man far having prolonged my existence up to to-day."
The councillors withdrew; Sand stood up a second time to greet them on their departure, as he had done on their entrance; then he sat down again pensively403 in his chair, by which Mr. G, the governor of the prison, was standing. After a moment of silence, a tear appeared at each of the condemned man's eyelids404, and ran down his cheeks; then, turning suddenly to Mr. G——, whom he liked very much, he said, "I hope that my parents would rather see me die by this violent death than of some slow and shameful disease. As for me, I am glad that I shall soon hear the hour strike in which my death will satisfy those who hate me, and those wham, according to my principles, I ought to hate."
Then he wrote to his family.
"MANNHEIM
"17th of the month of spring, 1820
"DEAR PARENTS, BROTHERS, AND SISTERS,—You should have received my last letters through the grand-duke's commission; in them I answered yours, and tried to console you for my position by describing the state of my soul as it is, the contempt to which I have attained for everything fragile and earthly, and by which one must necessarily be overcome when such matters are weighed against the fulfilment of an idea, or that intellectual liberty which alone can nourish the soul; in a word, I tried to console you by the assurance that the feelings, principles, and convictions of which I formerly spoke405 are faithfully preserved in me and have remained exactly the same; but I am sure all this was an unnecessary precaution on my part, for there was never a time when you asked anything else of me than to have God before my eyes and in my heart; and you have seen how, under your guidance, this precept so passed into my soul that it became my sole object of happiness for this world and the next; no doubt, as He was in and near me, God will be in and near you at the moment when this letter brings you the news of my sentence. I die willingly, and the Lord will give me strength to die as one ought to die.
"I write to you perfectly quiet and calm about all things, and I hope that your lives too will pass calmly and tranquilly406 until the moment when our souls meet again full of fresh force to love one another and to share eternal happiness together.
"As for me, such as I have lived as long as I have known myself—that is to say, in a serenity full of celestial desires and a courageous and indefatigable407 love of liberty, such I am about to die.
"May God be with you and with me!—Your son, brother, and friend, "KARL-LUDWIG SAND."
From that moment his serenity remained un troubled; during the whole day he talked more gaily408 than usual, slept well, did not awake until half-past seven, said that he felt stronger, and thanked God for visiting him thus.
The nature of the verdict had been known since the day before, and it had been learned that the execution was fixed for the 20th of May—that is to say, three full days after the sentence had been read to the accused.
Henceforward, with Sand's permission, persons who wished to speak to him and whom he was not reluctant to see, were admitted: three among these paid him long and noteworthy visits.
One was Major Holzungen, of the Baden army, who was in command of the patrol that had arrested him, or rather picked him up, dying, and carried him to the hospital. He asked him whether he recognised him, and Sand's head was so clear when he stabbed himself, that although he saw the major only for a moment and had never seen him again since, he remembered the minutest details of the costume which he had been wearing fourteen months previously, and which was the full-dress uniform. When the talk fell upon the death to which Sand was to submit at so early an age, the major pitied him; but Sand answered, with a smile, "There is only one difference between you and me, major; it is that I shall die far my convictions, and you will die for someone else's convictions."
After the major came a young student from Jena whom Sand had known at the university. He happened to be in the duchy of Baden and wished to visit him. Their recognition was touching409, and the student wept much; but Sand consoled him with his usual calmness and serenity.
Then a workman asked to be admitted to see Sand, on the plea that he had been his schoolfellow at Wonsiedel, and although he did not remember his name, he ordered him to be let in: the workman reminded him that he had been one of the little army that Sand had commanded on the day of the assault of St. Catherine's tower. This indication guided Sand, who recognised him perfectly, and then spoke with tender affection of his native place and his dear mountains. He further charged him to greet his family, and to beg his mother, father, brothers, and sisters once more not to be grieved on his account, since the messenger who undertook to deliver his last wards87 could testify in how calm and joyful173 a temper he was awaiting death.
To this workman succeeded one of the guests whom Sand had met on the staircase directly after Kotzebue's death. He asked him whether he acknowledged his crime and whether he felt any repentance410. Sand replied, "I had thought about it during a whole year. I have been thinking of it for fourteen months, and my opinion has never varied411 in any respect: I did what I should have done."
After the departure of this last visitor, Sand sent for Mr. G——, the governor of the prison, and told him that he should like to talk to the executioner before the execution, since he wished to ask for instructions as to how he should hold himself so as to render the operation most certain and easy. Mr. G——made some objections, but Sand insisted with his usual gentleness, and Mr. G——at last promised that the man in question should be asked to call at the prison as soon as he arrived from Heidelberg, where he lived.
The rest of the day was spent in seeing more visitors and in philosophical and moral talks, in which Sand developed his social and religious theories with a lucidity412 of expression and an elevation413 of thought such as he had, perhaps, never before shown. The governor of the prison from whom I heard these details, told me that he should all his life regret that he did not know shorthand, so that he might have noted414 all these thoughts, which would have formed a pendant to the Phaedo.
Night came. Sand spent part of the evening writing; it is thought that he was composing a poem; but no doubt he burned it, for no trace of it was found. At eleven he went to bed, and slept until six in the morning. Next day he bore the dressing415 of his wound, which was always very painful, with extraordinary courage, without fainting, as he sometimes did, and without suffering a single complaint to escape him: he had spoken the truth; in the presence of death God gave him the grace of allowing his strength to return. The operation was over; Sand was lying down as usual, and Mr. G——was sitting on the foot of his bed, when the door opened and a man came in and bowed to Sand and to Mr. G——. The governor of the prison immediately stood up, and said to Sand in a voice the emotion of which he could not conceal416, "The person who is bowing to you is Mr. Widemann of Heidelberg, to whom you wished to speak."
Then Sand's face was lighted up by a strange joy; he sat up and said, "Sir, you are welcome." Then, making his visitor sit down by his bed, and taking his hand, he began to thank him for being so obliging, and spoke in so intense a tone and so gentle a voice, that Mr. Widemann, deeply moved, could not answer. Sand encouraged him to speak and to give him the details for which he wished, and in order to reassure417 him, said, "Be firm, sir; for I, on my part, will not fail you: I will not move; and even if you should need two or three strokes to separate my head from my body, as I am told is sometimes the case, do not be troubled on that account."
Then Sand rose, leaning on Mr. G——, to go through with the executioner the strange and terrible rehearsal418 of the drama in which he was to play the leading part on the morrow. Mr. Widemann made him sit in a chair and take the required position, and went into all the details of the execution with him. Then Sand, perfectly instructed, begged him not to hurry and to take his time. Then he thanked him beforehand; "for," added he, "afterwards I shall not be able." Then Sand returned to his bed, leaving the executioner paler and more trembling than himself. All these details have been preserved by Mr. G——; for as to the executioner, his emotion was so great that he could remember nothing.
After Mr. Widemann, three clergymen were introduced, with whom Sand conversed419 upon religious matters: one of them stayed six hours with him, and on leaving him told him that he was commissioned to obtain from him a promise of not speaking to the people at the place of execution. Sand gave the promise, and added, "Even if I desired to do so, my voice has become so weak that people could not hear it."
Meanwhile the scaffold was being erected in the meadow that extends on the left of the road to Heidelberg. It was a platform five to six feet high and ten feet wide each way. As it was expected that, thanks to the interest inspired by the prisoner and to the nearness to Whitsuntide, the crowd would be immense, and as some movement from the universities was apprehended420, the prison guards had been trebled, and General Neustein had been ordered to Mannheim from Carlsruhe, with twelve hundred infantry421, three hundred and fifty cavalry422, and a company of artillery423 with guns.
On, the afternoon of the 19th there arrived, as had been foreseen, so many students, who took up their abode in the neighbouring villages, that it was decided to put forward the hour of the execution, and to let it take place at five in the morning instead of at eleven, as had been arranged. But Sand's consent was necessary for this; for he could not be executed until three full days after the reading of his sentence, and as the sentence had not been read to him till half-past ten Sand had a right to live till eleven o'clock.
Before four in the morning the officials went into the condemned man's room; he was sleeping so soundly that they were obliged to awaken200 him. He opened his eyes with a smile, as was his custom, and guessing why they came, asked, "Can I have slept so well that it is already eleven in the morning?" They told him that it was not, but that they had come to ask his permission to put forward the time; for, they told him, same collision between the students and the soldiers was feared, and as the military preparations were very thorough, such a collision could not be otherwise than fatal to his friends. Sand answered that he was ready that very moment, and only asked time enough to take a bath, as the ancients were accustomed to do before going into battle. But as the verbal authorisation which he had given was not sufficient, a pen and paper were given to Sand, and he wrote, with a steady hand and in his usual writing:
"I thank the authorities of Mannheim for anticipating my most eager wishes by making my execution six hours earlier.
"Sit nomen Domini benedictum.
"From the prison room, May 20th, day of my deliverance. "KARL-LUDWIG SAND."
When Sand had given these two lines to the recorder, the physician came to him to dress his wound, as usual. Sand looked at him with a smile, and then asked, "Is it really worth the trouble?"
"You will be stronger for it," answered the physician.
"Then do it," said Sand.
A bath was brought. Sand lay down in it, and had his long and beautiful hair arranged with the greatest care; then his toilet being completed, he put on a frock-coat of the German shape—that is to say, short and with the shirt collar turned back aver164 the shoulders, close white trousers, and high boots. Then Sand seated himself on his bed and prayed some time in a low voice with the clergy; then, when he had finished, he said these two lines of Korner's:
"All that is earthly is ended,
And the life of heaven begins."
He next took leave of the physician and the priests, saying to them, "Do not attribute the emotion of my voice to weakness but to gratitude." Then, upon these gentlemen offering to accompany him to the scaffold, he said, "There is no need; I am perfectly prepared, at peace with God and with my conscience. Besides, am I not almost a Churchman myself?" And when one of them asked whether he was not going out of life in a spirit of hatred, he returned, "Why, good heavens! have I ever felt any?"
An increasing noise was audible from the street, and Sand said again that he was at their disposal and that he was ready. At this moment the executioner came in with his two assistants; he was dressed in a long wadded black coat, beneath which he hid his sword. Sand offered him his hand affectionately; and as Mr. Widemann, embarrassed by the sword which he wished to keep Sand from seeing, did not venture to come forward, Sand said to him, "Come along and show me your sword; I have never seen one of the kind, and am curious to know what it is like."
Mr. Widemann, pale and trembling, presented the weapon to him; Sand examined it attentively424, and tried the edge with his finger.
"Come," said he, "the blade is good; do not tremble, and all will go well." Then, turning to Mr. G——, who was weeping, he said to him, "You will be good enough, will you not, to do me the service of leading me to the scaffold?"
Mr. G——made a sign of assent425 with his head, for he could not answer. Sand took his arm, and spoke for the third time, saying once more, "Well, what are you waiting for, gentlemen? I am ready."
When they reached the courtyard, Sand saw all the prisoners weeping at their windows. Although he had never seen them, they were old friends of his; for every time they passed his door, knowing that the student who had killed Kotzebue lay within, they used to lift their chain, that he might not be disturbed by the noise.
All Mannheim was in the streets that led to the place of execution, and many patrols were passing up and down. On the day when the sentence was announced the whole town had been sought through for a chaise in which to convey Sand to the scaffold, but no one, not even the coach-builders, would either let one out or sell one; and it had been necessary, therefore, to buy one at Heidelberg without saying for what purpose.
Sand found this chaise in the courtyard, and got into it with Mr. G——. Turning to him, he whispered in his ear, "Sir, if you see me turn pale, speak my name to me, my name only, do you hear? That will be enough."
The prison gate was opened, and Sand was seen; then every voice cried with one impulse, "Farewell, Sand, farewell!"
And at the same time flowers, some of which fell into the carriage, were thrown by the crowd that thronged427 the street, and from the windows. At these friendly cries and at this spectacle, Sand, who until then had shown no moment of weakness, felt tears rising in spite of himself, and while he returned the greetings made to him on all sides, he murmured in a low voice, "O my God, give me courage!"
This first outburst over, the procession set out amid deep silence; only now and again same single voice would call out, "Farewell, Sand!" and a handkerchief waved by some hand that rose out of the crowd would show from what paint the last call came. On each side of the chaise walked two of the prison officials, and behind the chaise came a second conveyance428 with the municipal authorities.
The air was very cold: it had rained all night, and the dark and cloudy sky seemed to share in the general sadness. Sand, too weak to remain sitting up, was half lying upon the shoulder of Mr. G——-, his companion; his face was gentle, calm and full of pain; his brow free and open, his features, interesting though without regular beauty, seemed to have aged by several years during the fourteen months of suffering that had just elapsed. The chaise at last reached the place of execution, which was surrounded by a battalion429 of infantry; Sand lowered his eyes from heaven to earth and saw the scaffold. At this sight he smiled gently, and as he left the carriage he said, "Well, God has given me strength so far."
The governor of the prison and the chief officials lifted him that he might go up the steps. During that short ascent430 pain kept him bowed, but when he had reached the top he stood erect45 again, saying, "Here then is the place where I am to die!"
Then before he came to the chair on which he was to be seated for the execution, he turned his eyes towards Mannheim, and his gaze travelled over all the throng426 that surrounded him; at that moment a ray of sunshine broke through the clouds. Sand greeted it with a smile and sat down.
Then, as, according to the orders given, his sentence was to be read to him a second time, he was asked whether he felt strong enough to hear it standing. Sand answered that he would try, and that if his physical strength failed him, his moral strength would uphold him. He rose immediately from the fatal chair, begging Mr. G——to stand near enough to support him if he should chance to stagger. The precaution was unnecessary, Sand did not stagger.
After the judgment had been read, he sat down again and said in a laud40 voice, "I die trusting in God."
But at these words Mr. G———interrupted him.
"Sand," said he, "what did you promise?"
"True," he answered; "I had forgotten." He was silent, therefore, to the crowd; but, raising his right hand and extending it solemnly in the air, he said in a low voice, so that he might be heard only by those who were around him, "I take God to witness that I die for the freedom of Germany."
Then, with these words, he did as Conradin did with his glove; he threw his rolled-up handkerchief over the line of soldiers around him, into the midst of the people.
Then the executioner came to cut off his hair; but Sand at first objected.
"It is for your mother," said Mr. Widemann.
"On your honour, sir?" asked Sand.
"On my honour."
"Then do it," said Sand, offering his hair to the executioner.
Only a few curls were cut off, those only which fell at the back, the others were tied with a ribbon on the top of the head. The executioner then tied his hands on his breast, but as that position was oppressive to him and compelled him an account of his wound to bend his head, his hands were laid flat on his thighs431 and fixed in that position with ropes. Then, when his eyes were about to be bound, he begged Mr. Widemann to place the bandage in such a manner that he could see the light to his last moment. His wish was fulfilled.
Then a profound and mortal stillness hovered432 over the whole crowd and surrounded the scaffold. The executioner drew his sword, which flashed like lightning and fell. Instantly a terrible cry rose at once from twenty thousand bosoms434; the head had not fallen, and though it had sunk towards the breast still held to the neck. The executioner struck a second time, and struck off at the same blow the head and a part of the hand.
In the same moment, notwithstanding the efforts of the soldiers, their line was broken through; men and women rushed upon the scaffold, the blood was wiped up to the last drop with handkerchiefs; the chair upon which Sand had sat was broken and divided into pieces, and those who could not obtain one, cut fragments of bloodstained wood from the scaffold itself.
The head and body were placed in a coffin draped with black, and carried back, with a large military escort, to the prison. At midnight the body was borne silently, without torches or lights, to the Protestant cemetery435, in which Kotzebue had been buried fourteen months previously. A grave had been mysteriously dug; the coffin was lowered into it, and those who were present at the burial were sworn upon the New Testament436 not to reveal the spot where Sand was buried until such time as they were freed from their oath. Then the grave was covered again with the turf, that had been skilfully437 taken off, and that was relaid on the same spat119, so that no new grave could be perceived; then the nocturnal gravediggers departed, leaving guards at the entrance.
There, twenty paces apart, Sand and Kotzebue rest: Kotzebue opposite the gate in the most conspicuous spot of the cemetery, and beneath a tomb upon which is engraved438 this inscription439:
"The world persecuted440 him without pity, Calumny441 was his sad portion, He found no happiness save in the arms of his wife, And no repose442 save in the bosom433 of death. Envy dogged him to cover his path with thorns, Love bade his roses blossom; May Heaven pardon him As he pardons earth!"
In contrast with this tall and showy monument, standing, as we have said, in the most conspicuous spot of the cemetery, Sand's grave must be looked far in the corner to the extreme left of the entrance gate; and a wild plum tree, some leaves of which every passing traveller carries away, rises alone upon the grave, which is devoid443 of any inscription.
As far the meadow in which Sand was executed, it is still called by the people "Sand's Himmelsfartsweise," which signifies "The manner of Sand's ascension."
Toward the end of September, 1838, we were at Mannheim, where I had stayed three days in order to collect all the details I could find about the life and death of Karl-Ludwig Sand. But at the end of these three days, in spite of my active investigations, these details still remained extremely incomplete, either because I applied in the wrong quarters, or because, being a foreigner, I inspired same distrust in those to whom I applied. I was leaving Mannheim, therefore, somewhat disappointed, and after having visited the little Protestant cemetery where Sand and Kotzebue are buried at twenty paces from each other, I had ordered my driver to take the road to Heidelberg, when, after going a few yards, he, who knew the object of my inquiries, stopped of himself and asked me whether I should not like to see the place where Sand was executed. At the same time he pointed50 to a little mound444 situated in the middle of a meadow and a few steps from a brook445. I assented446 eagerly, and although the driver remained on the highroad with my travelling companions, I soon recognised the spot indicated, by means of some relics of cypress447 branches, immortelles, and forget-me-nots scattered448 upon the earth. It will readily be understood that this sight, instead of diminishing my desire for information, increased it. I was feeling, then, more than ever dissatisfied at going away, knowing so little, when I saw a man of some five-and-forty to fifty years old, who was walking a little distance from the place where I myself 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 unintelligible449 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 shroud450 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 gentleman was with him in the carriage that took him to execution; this gentleman was with him on the scaffold; there's only one portrait of Sand in all Mannheim, and this gentleman has it."
I was devouring451 every word; a mental alchemist, I was opening my crucible452 and finding gold in it.
"Just ask," I resumed eagerly, "whether the gentleman will allow us to take down in writing the particulars that he can give me."
My interpreter put another question, then, turning towards me, said, "Granted."
Mr. G——got into the carriage with us, and instead of going on to Heidelberg, we returned to Mannheim, and alighted at the prison.
Mr. G—-did not once depart from the ready kindness that he had shown. In the most obliging manner, patient over the minutest trifles, and remembering most happily, he went over every circumstance, putting himself at my disposal like a professional guide. At last, when every particular about Sand had been sucked dry, I began to ask him about the manner in which executions were performed. "As to that," said he, "I can offer you an introduction to someone at Heidelberg who can give you all the information you can wish for upon the subject."
I accepted gratefully, and as I was taking leave of Mr. G——, after thanking him a thousand times, he handed me the offered letter. It bore this superscription: "To Herr-doctor Widemann, No. III High Street, Heidelberg."
I turned to Mr. G——once more.
"Is he, by chance, a relation of the man who executed Sand?" I asked.
"He is his son, and was standing by when the head fell.".
"What is his calling, then?"
"The same as that of his father, whom he succeeded."
"But you call him 'doctor'?"
"Certainly; with us, executioners have that title."
"But, then, doctors of what?"
"Of surgery."
"Really?" said I. "With us it is just the contrary; surgeons are called executioners."
"You will find him, moreover," added Mr. G——, "a very distinguished young man, who, although he was very young at that time, has retained a vivid recollection of that event. As for his poor father, I think he would as willingly have cut off his own right hand as have executed Sand; but if he had refused, someone else would have been found. So he had to do what he was ordered to do, and he did his best."
I thanked Mr. G——, fully resolving to make use of his letter, and we left for Heidelberg, where we arrived at eleven in the evening.
My first visit next day was to Dr. Widernann. It was not without some emotion, which, moreover, I saw reflected upon, the faces of my travelling companions, that I rang at the door of the last judge, as the Germans call him. An old woman opened the door to us, and ushered453 us into a pretty little study, on the left of a passage and at the foot of a staircase, where we waited while Mr. Widemann finished dressing. This little room was full of curiosities, madrepores, shells, stuffed birds, and dried plants; a double-barrelled gun, a powder-flask, and a game-bag showed that Mr. Widemann was a hunter.
After a moment we heard his footstep, and the door opened. Mr. Widemann was a very handsome young man, of thirty or thirty-two, with black whiskers entirely surrounding his manly and expressive454 face; his morning dress showed a certain rural elegance455. He seemed at first not only embarrassed but pained by our visit. The aimless curiosity of which he seemed to be the object was indeed odd. I hastened to give him Mr. G——'s letter and to tell him what reason brought me. Then he gradually recovered himself, and at last showed himself no less hospitable456 and obliging towards us than he to whom we owed the introduction had been, the day before.
Mr. Widemann then gathered together all his remembrances; he, too, had retained a vivid recollection of Sand, and he told us among other things that his father, at the risk of bringing himself into ill odour, had asked leave to have a new scaffold made at his own expense, so that no other criminal might be executed upon the altar of the martyr's death. Permission had been given, and Mr. Widemann had used the wood of the scaffold for the doors and windows of a little country house standing in a vineyard. Then for three or four years this cottage became a shrine457 for pilgrims; but after a time, little by little, the crowd grew less, and at the present day, when some of those who wiped the blood from the scaffold with their handkerchiefs have became public functionaries458, receiving salaries from Government, only foreigners ask, now and again, to see these strange relics.
Mr. Widemann gave me a guide; for, after hearing everything, I wanted to see everything. The house stands half a league away from Heidelberg, on the left of the road to Carlsruhe, and half-way up the mountain-side. It is perhaps the only monument of the kind that exists in the world.
Our readers will judge better from this anecdote than from anything more we could say, what sort of man he was who left such a memory in the hearts of his gaoler and his executioner.
点击收听单词发音
1 commissioners | |
n.专员( commissioner的名词复数 );长官;委员;政府部门的长官 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2 embalm | |
v.保存(尸体)不腐 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3 corpse | |
n.尸体,死尸 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4 indignity | |
n.侮辱,伤害尊严,轻蔑 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5 rumour | |
n.谣言,谣传,传闻 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6 swollen | |
adj.肿大的,水涨的;v.使变大,肿胀 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7 captivity | |
n.囚禁;被俘;束缚 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8 veins | |
n.纹理;矿脉( vein的名词复数 );静脉;叶脉;纹理 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9 embalmed | |
adj.用防腐药物保存(尸体)的v.保存(尸体)不腐( embalm的过去式和过去分词 );使不被遗忘;使充满香气 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10 coffin | |
n.棺材,灵柩 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11 condemned | |
adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12 condemn | |
vt.谴责,指责;宣判(罪犯),判刑 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13 sterling | |
adj.英币的(纯粹的,货真价实的);n.英国货币(英镑) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14 embargo | |
n.禁运(令);vt.对...实行禁运,禁止(通商) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15 vessels | |
n.血管( vessel的名词复数 );船;容器;(具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的)人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
16 skilful | |
(=skillful)adj.灵巧的,熟练的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
17 celebrated | |
adj.有名的,声誉卓著的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
18 illuminated | |
adj.被照明的;受启迪的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
19 crestfallen | |
adj. 挫败的,失望的,沮丧的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
20 bishop | |
n.主教,(国际象棋)象 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
21 thither | |
adv.向那里;adj.在那边的,对岸的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
22 salvation | |
n.(尤指基督)救世,超度,拯救,解困 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
23 perfectly | |
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
24 juxtaposition | |
n.毗邻,并置,并列 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
25 infamous | |
adj.声名狼藉的,臭名昭著的,邪恶的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
26 ward | |
n.守卫,监护,病房,行政区,由监护人或法院保护的人(尤指儿童);vt.守护,躲开 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
27 bounty | |
n.慷慨的赠予物,奖金;慷慨,大方;施与 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
28 actively | |
adv.积极地,勤奋地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
29 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
30 velvet | |
n.丝绒,天鹅绒;adj.丝绒制的,柔软的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
31 adorned | |
[计]被修饰的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
32 embroidered | |
adj.绣花的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
33 herald | |
vt.预示...的来临,预告,宣布,欢迎 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
34 lackeys | |
n.听差( lackey的名词复数 );男仆(通常穿制服);卑躬屈膝的人;被待为奴仆的人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
35 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
36 implore | |
vt.乞求,恳求,哀求 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
37 honourable | |
adj.可敬的;荣誉的,光荣的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
38 undertaking | |
n.保证,许诺,事业 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
39 pageant | |
n.壮观的游行;露天历史剧 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
40 laud | |
n.颂歌;v.赞美 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
41 choir | |
n.唱诗班,唱诗班的席位,合唱团,舞蹈团;v.合唱 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
42 interred | |
v.埋,葬( inter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
43 canopy | |
n.天篷,遮篷 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
44 dome | |
n.圆屋顶,拱顶 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
45 erect | |
n./v.树立,建立,使竖立;adj.直立的,垂直的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
46 ERECTED | |
adj. 直立的,竖立的,笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立,建立 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
47 ardent | |
adj.热情的,热烈的,强烈的,烈性的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
48 slab | |
n.平板,厚的切片;v.切成厚板,以平板盖上 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
49 clergy | |
n.[总称]牧师,神职人员 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
50 pointed | |
adj.尖的,直截了当的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
51 sumptuous | |
adj.豪华的,奢侈的,华丽的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
52 rites | |
仪式,典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
53 omen | |
n.征兆,预兆;vt.预示 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
54 cloisters | |
n.(学院、修道院、教堂等建筑的)走廊( cloister的名词复数 );回廊;修道院的生活;隐居v.隐退,使与世隔绝( cloister的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
55 inviting | |
adj.诱人的,引人注目的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
56 disapproved | |
v.不赞成( disapprove的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
57 dissent | |
n./v.不同意,持异议 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
58 belongings | |
n.私人物品,私人财物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
59 longings | |
渴望,盼望( longing的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
60 Christian | |
adj.基督教徒的;n.基督教徒 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
61 vengeance | |
n.报复,报仇,复仇 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
62 inflexible | |
adj.不可改变的,不受影响的,不屈服的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
63 axe | |
n.斧子;v.用斧头砍,削减 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
64 relics | |
[pl.]n.遗物,遗迹,遗产;遗体,尸骸 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
65 relic | |
n.神圣的遗物,遗迹,纪念物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
66 inscribed | |
v.写,刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 );内接 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
67 authenticity | |
n.真实性 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
68 certify | |
vt.证明,证实;发证书(或执照)给 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
69 entrusted | |
v.委托,托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
70 defunct | |
adj.死亡的;已倒闭的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
71 professed | |
公开声称的,伪称的,已立誓信教的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
72 aged | |
adj.年老的,陈年的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
73 remitted | |
v.免除(债务),宽恕( remit的过去式和过去分词 );使某事缓和;寄回,传送 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
74 piety | |
n.虔诚,虔敬 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
75 unity | |
n.团结,联合,统一;和睦,协调 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
76 zeal | |
n.热心,热情,热忱 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
77 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
78 martyr | |
n.烈士,殉难者;vt.杀害,折磨,牺牲 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
79 martyrs | |
n.martyr的复数形式;烈士( martyr的名词复数 );殉道者;殉教者;乞怜者(向人诉苦以博取同情) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
80 arabesques | |
n.阿拉伯式花饰( arabesque的名词复数 );错综图饰;阿拉伯图案;阿拉贝斯克芭蕾舞姿(独脚站立,手前伸,另一脚一手向后伸) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
81 mingled | |
混合,混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 ); 混进,与…交往[联系] | |
参考例句: |
|
|
82 grotesque | |
adj.怪诞的,丑陋的;n.怪诞的图案,怪人(物) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
83 binding | |
有约束力的,有效的,应遵守的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
84 eminence | |
n.卓越,显赫;高地,高处;名家 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
85 foliage | |
n.叶子,树叶,簇叶 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
86 smallpox | |
n.天花 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
87 wards | |
区( ward的名词复数 ); 病房; 受监护的未成年者; 被人照顾或控制的状态 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
88 assassinate | |
vt.暗杀,行刺,中伤 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
89 appreciation | |
n.评价;欣赏;感谢;领会,理解;价格上涨 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
90 fully | |
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
91 fanatic | |
n.狂热者,入迷者;adj.狂热入迷的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
92 gall | |
v.使烦恼,使焦躁,难堪;n.磨难 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
93 malignant | |
adj.恶性的,致命的;恶意的,恶毒的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
94 ribs | |
n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 );(船或屋顶等的)肋拱;肋骨状的东西;(织物的)凸条花纹 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
95 skull | |
n.头骨;颅骨 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
96 vestiges | |
残余部分( vestige的名词复数 ); 遗迹; 痕迹; 毫不 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
97 retarded | |
a.智力迟钝的,智力发育迟缓的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
98 organisation | |
n.组织,安排,团体,有机休 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
99 distinguished | |
adj.卓越的,杰出的,著名的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
100 determined | |
adj.坚定的;有决心的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
101 deter | |
vt.阻止,使不敢,吓住 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
102 innocence | |
n.无罪;天真;无害 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
103 preservation | |
n.保护,维护,保存,保留,保持 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
104 fortify | |
v.强化防御,为…设防;加强,强化 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
105 ascended | |
v.上升,攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
106 pebbles | |
[复数]鹅卵石; 沙砾; 卵石,小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
107 conquerors | |
征服者,占领者( conqueror的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
108 defenders | |
n.防御者( defender的名词复数 );守卫者;保护者;辩护者 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
109 fortress | |
n.堡垒,防御工事 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
110 astonishment | |
n.惊奇,惊异 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
111 besieged | |
包围,围困,围攻( besiege的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
112 farce | |
n.闹剧,笑剧,滑稽戏;胡闹 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
113 garrison | |
n.卫戍部队;驻地,卫戍区;vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
114 desperately | |
adv.极度渴望地,绝望地,孤注一掷地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
115 peril | |
n.(严重的)危险;危险的事物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
116 egress | |
n.出去;出口 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
117 fugitive | |
adj.逃亡的,易逝的;n.逃犯,逃亡者 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
118 hesitation | |
n.犹豫,踌躇 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
119 spat | |
n.口角,掌击;v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
120 eloquence | |
n.雄辩;口才,修辞 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
121 slings | |
抛( sling的第三人称单数 ); 吊挂; 遣送; 押往 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
122 anecdote | |
n.轶事,趣闻,短故事 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
123 miraculously | |
ad.奇迹般地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
124 galloping | |
adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
125 gateway | |
n.大门口,出入口,途径,方法 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
126 destined | |
adj.命中注定的;(for)以…为目的地的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
127 respite | |
n.休息,中止,暂缓 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
128 equanimity | |
n.沉着,镇定 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
129 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
130 belied | |
v.掩饰( belie的过去式和过去分词 );证明(或显示)…为虚假;辜负;就…扯谎 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
131 adoption | |
n.采用,采纳,通过;收养 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
132 virtue | |
n.德行,美德;贞操;优点;功效,效力 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
133 submission | |
n.服从,投降;温顺,谦虚;提出 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
134 precept | |
n.戒律;格言 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
135 injustice | |
n.非正义,不公正,不公平,侵犯(别人的)权利 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
136 worthy | |
adj.(of)值得的,配得上的;有价值的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
137 sublime | |
adj.崇高的,伟大的;极度的,不顾后果的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
138 probation | |
n.缓刑(期),(以观后效的)察看;试用(期) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
139 providence | |
n.深谋远虑,天道,天意;远见;节约;上帝 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
140 supreme | |
adj.极度的,最重要的;至高的,最高的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
141 isolated | |
adj.与世隔绝的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
142 courageously | |
ad.勇敢地,无畏地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
143 courageous | |
adj.勇敢的,有胆量的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
144 worthily | |
重要地,可敬地,正当地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
145 likeness | |
n.相像,相似(之处) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
146 disastrous | |
adj.灾难性的,造成灾害的;极坏的,很糟的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
147 intervals | |
n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 );间隔时间;[数学]区间;(戏剧、电影或音乐会的)幕间休息 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
148 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
149 stainless | |
adj.无瑕疵的,不锈的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
150 enfranchisement | |
选举权 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
151 almighty | |
adj.全能的,万能的;很大的,很强的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
152 justify | |
vt.证明…正当(或有理),为…辩护 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
153 presentiments | |
n.(对不祥事物的)预感( presentiment的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
154 presentiment | |
n.预感,预觉 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
155 faculties | |
n.能力( faculty的名词复数 );全体教职员;技巧;院 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
156 philosophical | |
adj.哲学家的,哲学上的,达观的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
157 philological | |
adj.语言学的,文献学的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
158 pastor | |
n.牧师,牧人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
159 parental | |
adj.父母的;父的;母的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
160 gulf | |
n.海湾;深渊,鸿沟;分歧,隔阂 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
161 applied | |
adj.应用的;v.应用,适用 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
162 patriots | |
爱国者,爱国主义者( patriot的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
163 abstain | |
v.自制,戒绝,弃权,避免 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
164 aver | |
v.极力声明;断言;确证 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
165 levy | |
n.征收税或其他款项,征收额 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
166 deign | |
v. 屈尊, 惠允 ( 做某事) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
167 deigns | |
v.屈尊,俯就( deign的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
168 enrolled | |
adj.入学登记了的v.[亦作enrol]( enroll的过去式和过去分词 );登记,招收,使入伍(或入会、入学等),参加,成为成员;记入名册;卷起,包起 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
169 pious | |
adj.虔诚的;道貌岸然的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
170 exhortations | |
n.敦促( exhortation的名词复数 );极力推荐;(正式的)演讲;(宗教仪式中的)劝诫 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
171 bliss | |
n.狂喜,福佑,天赐的福 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
172 joyfully | |
adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
173 joyful | |
adj.欢乐的,令人欢欣的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
174 fatigues | |
n.疲劳( fatigue的名词复数 );杂役;厌倦;(士兵穿的)工作服 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
175 conjure | |
v.恳求,祈求;变魔术,变戏法 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
176 yoke | |
n.轭;支配;v.给...上轭,连接,使成配偶 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
177 postscript | |
n.附言,又及;(正文后的)补充说明 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
178 behold | |
v.看,注视,看到 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
179 possessed | |
adj.疯狂的;拥有的,占有的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
180 helping | |
n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的,辅助的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
181 enthusiast | |
n.热心人,热衷者 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
182 hesitations | |
n.犹豫( hesitation的名词复数 );踌躇;犹豫(之事或行为);口吃 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
183 asceticism | |
n.禁欲主义 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
184 costly | |
adj.昂贵的,价值高的,豪华的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
185 remorse | |
n.痛恨,悔恨,自责 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
186 everlasting | |
adj.永恒的,持久的,无止境的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
187 torment | |
n.折磨;令人痛苦的东西(人);vt.折磨;纠缠 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
188 champagne | |
n.香槟酒;微黄色 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
189 shameful | |
adj.可耻的,不道德的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
190 expenditure | |
n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出;使用,消耗 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
191 beseech | |
v.祈求,恳求 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
192 vow | |
n.誓(言),誓约;v.起誓,立誓 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
193 abstemiously | |
adv.适中地;有节制地;适度地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
194 orphan | |
n.孤儿;adj.无父母的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
195 consolation | |
n.安慰,慰问 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
196 consolations | |
n.安慰,慰问( consolation的名词复数 );起安慰作用的人(或事物) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
197 entreats | |
恳求,乞求( entreat的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
198 gratitude | |
adj.感激,感谢 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
199 regularity | |
n.规律性,规则性;匀称,整齐 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
200 awaken | |
vi.醒,觉醒;vt.唤醒,使觉醒,唤起,激起 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
201 awakened | |
v.(使)醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 );(使)觉醒;弄醒;(使)意识到 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
202 chestnut | |
n.栗树,栗子 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
203 simplicity | |
n.简单,简易;朴素;直率,单纯 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
204 industrious | |
adj.勤劳的,刻苦的,奋发的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
205 restive | |
adj.不安宁的,不安静的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
206 touchy | |
adj.易怒的;棘手的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
207 fodder | |
n.草料;炮灰 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
208 foundered | |
v.创始人( founder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
209 expiation | |
n.赎罪,补偿 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
210 gad | |
n.闲逛;v.闲逛 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
211 quotations | |
n.引用( quotation的名词复数 );[商业]行情(报告);(货物或股票的)市价;时价 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
212 insufficient | |
adj.(for,of)不足的,不够的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
213 poetic | |
adj.富有诗意的,有诗人气质的,善于抒情的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
214 entirely | |
ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
215 consternation | |
n.大为吃惊,惊骇 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
216 melancholy | |
n.忧郁,愁思;adj.令人感伤(沮丧)的,忧郁的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
217 woes | |
困境( woe的名词复数 ); 悲伤; 我好苦哇; 某人就要倒霉 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
218 shamefully | |
可耻地; 丢脸地; 不体面地; 羞耻地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
219 devoted | |
adj.忠诚的,忠实的,热心的,献身于...的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
220 celestial | |
adj.天体的;天上的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
221 colossal | |
adj.异常的,庞大的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
222 overthrowing | |
v.打倒,推翻( overthrow的现在分词 );使终止 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
223 dwarfs | |
n.侏儒,矮子(dwarf的复数形式)vt.(使)显得矮小(dwarf的第三人称单数形式) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
224 affiliation | |
n.联系,联合 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
225 sects | |
n.宗派,教派( sect的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
226 doctrines | |
n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 );教义;学说;(政府政策的)正式声明 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
227 traitor | |
n.叛徒,卖国贼 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
228 degradation | |
n.降级;低落;退化;陵削;降解;衰变 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
229 investigations | |
(正式的)调查( investigation的名词复数 ); 侦查; 科学研究; 学术研究 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
230 investigation | |
n.调查,调查研究 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
231 pretence | |
n.假装,作假;借口,口实;虚伪;虚饰 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
232 luminous | |
adj.发光的,发亮的;光明的;明白易懂的;有启发的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
233 conspirators | |
n.共谋者,阴谋家( conspirator的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
234 jeers | |
n.操纵帆桁下部(使其上下的)索具;嘲讽( jeer的名词复数 )v.嘲笑( jeer的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
235 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
236 situated | |
adj.坐落在...的,处于某种境地的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
237 exasperated | |
adj.恼怒的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
238 preyed | |
v.掠食( prey的过去式和过去分词 );掠食;折磨;(人)靠欺诈为生 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
239 prey | |
n.被掠食者,牺牲者,掠食;v.捕食,掠夺,折磨 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
240 demolished | |
v.摧毁( demolish的过去式和过去分词 );推翻;拆毁(尤指大建筑物);吃光 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
241 dispersed | |
adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
242 depressed | |
adj.沮丧的,抑郁的,不景气的,萧条的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
243 haven | |
n.安全的地方,避难所,庇护所 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
244 indifference | |
n.不感兴趣,不关心,冷淡,不在乎 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
245 disorder | |
n.紊乱,混乱;骚动,骚乱;疾病,失调 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
246 fixedly | |
adv.固定地;不屈地,坚定不移地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
247 anguish | |
n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦,烦恼 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
248 tragic | |
adj.悲剧的,悲剧性的,悲惨的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
249 serene | |
adj. 安详的,宁静的,平静的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
250 torments | |
(肉体或精神上的)折磨,痛苦( torment的名词复数 ); 造成痛苦的事物[人] | |
参考例句: |
|
|
251 attain | |
vt.达到,获得,完成 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
252 willow | |
n.柳树 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
253 intensify | |
vt.加强;变强;加剧 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
254 hatred | |
n.憎恶,憎恨,仇恨 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
255 manifestation | |
n.表现形式;表明;现象 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
256 brutal | |
adj.残忍的,野蛮的,不讲理的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
257 beholding | |
v.看,注视( behold的现在分词 );瞧;看呀;(叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现)哎哟 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
258 resolute | |
adj.坚决的,果敢的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
259 demonstration | |
n.表明,示范,论证,示威 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
260 contented | |
adj.满意的,安心的,知足的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
261 overflow | |
v.(使)外溢,(使)溢出;溢出,流出,漫出 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
262 irresolute | |
adj.无决断的,优柔寡断的,踌躇不定的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
263 dread | |
vt.担忧,忧虑;惧怕,不敢;n.担忧,畏惧 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
264 conspicuous | |
adj.明眼的,惹人注目的;炫耀的,摆阔气的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
265 hilarity | |
n.欢乐;热闹 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
266 formerly | |
adv.从前,以前 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
267 odious | |
adj.可憎的,讨厌的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
268 descend | |
vt./vi.传下来,下来,下降 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
269 malediction | |
n.诅咒 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
270 saviour | |
n.拯救者,救星 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
271 adversary | |
adj.敌手,对手 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
272 patriotic | |
adj.爱国的,有爱国心的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
273 conspiracy | |
n.阴谋,密谋,共谋 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
274 impeded | |
阻碍,妨碍,阻止( impede的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
275 abode | |
n.住处,住所 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
276 renewal | |
adj.(契约)延期,续订,更新,复活,重来 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
277 manifesto | |
n.宣言,声明 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
278 slay | |
v.杀死,宰杀,杀戮 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
279 distraction | |
n.精神涣散,精神不集中,消遣,娱乐 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
280 alas | |
int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
281 juvenile | |
n.青少年,少年读物;adj.青少年的,幼稚的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
282 modesty | |
n.谦逊,虚心,端庄,稳重,羞怯,朴素 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
283 nay | |
adv.不;n.反对票,投反对票者 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
284 esteem | |
n.尊敬,尊重;vt.尊重,敬重;把…看作 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
285 esteemed | |
adj.受人尊敬的v.尊敬( esteem的过去式和过去分词 );敬重;认为;以为 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
286 fanaticism | |
n.狂热,盲信 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
287 surmounts | |
战胜( surmount的第三人称单数 ); 克服(困难); 居于…之上; 在…顶上 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
288 relatively | |
adv.比较...地,相对地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
289 eternity | |
n.不朽,来世;永恒,无穷 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
290 immortal | |
adj.不朽的;永生的,不死的;神的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
291 fatality | |
n.不幸,灾祸,天命 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
292 kindly | |
adj.和蔼的,温和的,爽快的;adv.温和地,亲切地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
293 joyous | |
adj.充满快乐的;令人高兴的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
294 outfit | |
n.(为特殊用途的)全套装备,全套服装 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
295 linen | |
n.亚麻布,亚麻线,亚麻制品;adj.亚麻布制的,亚麻的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
296 brass | |
n.黄铜;黄铜器,铜管乐器 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
297 remains | |
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
298 apparently | |
adv.显然地;表面上,似乎 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
299 propensity | |
n.倾向;习性 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
300 epoch | |
n.(新)时代;历元 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
301 wretch | |
n.可怜的人,不幸的人;卑鄙的人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
302 seducer | |
n.诱惑者,骗子,玩弄女性的人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
303 accomplished | |
adj.有才艺的;有造诣的;达到了的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
304 serenity | |
n.宁静,沉着,晴朗 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
305 inclination | |
n.倾斜;点头;弯腰;斜坡;倾度;倾向;爱好 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
306 demonstrations | |
证明( demonstration的名词复数 ); 表明; 表达; 游行示威 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
307 dagger | |
n.匕首,短剑,剑号 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
308 heartily | |
adv.衷心地,诚恳地,十分,很 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
309 peculiarities | |
n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
310 previously | |
adv.以前,先前(地) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
311 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
312 lodgings | |
n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
313 obviate | |
v.除去,排除,避免,预防 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
314 narrative | |
n.叙述,故事;adj.叙事的,故事体的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
315 amiable | |
adj.和蔼可亲的,友善的,亲切的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
316 liking | |
n.爱好;嗜好;喜欢 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
317 dignified | |
a.可敬的,高贵的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
318 cherubs | |
小天使,胖娃娃( cherub的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
319 assassination | |
n.暗杀;暗杀事件 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
320 brotherhood | |
n.兄弟般的关系,手中情谊 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
321 motives | |
n.动机,目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
322 blotted | |
涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 ); (用吸墨纸)吸干 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
323 alleviate | |
v.减轻,缓和,缓解(痛苦等) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
324 dishonouring | |
使(人、家族等)丧失名誉(dishonour的现在分词形式) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
325 infamy | |
n.声名狼藉,出丑,恶行 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
326 dyke | |
n.堤,水坝,排水沟 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
327 torrent | |
n.激流,洪流;爆发,(话语等的)连发 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
328 perverse | |
adj.刚愎的;坚持错误的,行为反常的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
329 corruption | |
n.腐败,堕落,贪污 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
330 hazy | |
adj.有薄雾的,朦胧的;不肯定的,模糊的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
331 slumber | |
n.睡眠,沉睡状态 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
332 odiously | |
Odiously | |
参考例句: |
|
|
333 idol | |
n.偶像,红人,宠儿 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
334 mantle | |
n.斗篷,覆罩之物,罩子;v.罩住,覆盖,脸红 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
335 incited | |
刺激,激励,煽动( incite的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
336 annihilate | |
v.使无效;毁灭;取消 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
337 abasement | |
n.滥用 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
338 miserable | |
adj.悲惨的,痛苦的;可怜的,糟糕的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
339 venal | |
adj.唯利是图的,贪脏枉法的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
340 devour | |
v.吞没;贪婪地注视或谛听,贪读;使着迷 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
341 loathsome | |
adj.讨厌的,令人厌恶的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
342 irresistible | |
adj.非常诱人的,无法拒绝的,无法抗拒的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
343 impel | |
v.推动;激励,迫使 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
344 impels | |
v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
345 dastard | |
n.卑怯之人,懦夫;adj.怯懦的,畏缩的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
346 vilified | |
v.中伤,诽谤( vilify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
347 calumniated | |
v.诽谤,中伤( calumniate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
348 imminent | |
adj.即将发生的,临近的,逼近的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
349 humble | |
adj.谦卑的,恭顺的;地位低下的;v.降低,贬低 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
350 penetrated | |
adj. 击穿的,鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
351 avert | |
v.防止,避免;转移(目光、注意力等) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
352 trifling | |
adj.微不足道的;没什么价值的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
353 toils | |
网 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
354 blessing | |
n.祈神赐福;祷告;祝福,祝愿 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
355 blessings | |
n.(上帝的)祝福( blessing的名词复数 );好事;福分;因祸得福 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
356 narrated | |
v.故事( narrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
357 inquiry | |
n.打听,询问,调查,查问 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
358 agitate | |
vi.(for,against)煽动,鼓动;vt.搅动 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
359 intercourse | |
n.性交;交流,交往,交际 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
360 inquiries | |
n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 );疑问;探究;打听 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
361 annoyance | |
n.恼怒,生气,烦恼 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
362 recurring | |
adj.往复的,再次发生的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
363 fatiguing | |
a.使人劳累的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
364 abide | |
vi.遵守;坚持;vt.忍受 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
365 uncertainties | |
无把握( uncertainty的名词复数 ); 不确定; 变化不定; 无把握、不确定的事物 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
366 catching | |
adj.易传染的,有魅力的,迷人的,接住 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
367 manly | |
adj.有男子气概的;adv.男子般地,果断地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
368 isle | |
n.小岛,岛 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
369 inundated | |
v.淹没( inundate的过去式和过去分词 );(洪水般地)涌来;充满;给予或交予(太多事物)使难以应付 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
370 maternal | |
adj.母亲的,母亲般的,母系的,母方的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
371 attachment | |
n.附属物,附件;依恋;依附 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
372 emanate | |
v.发自,来自,出自 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
373 refreshingly | |
adv.清爽地,有精神地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
374 dispensing | |
v.分配( dispense的现在分词 );施与;配(药) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
375 prodigal | |
adj.浪费的,挥霍的,放荡的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
376 attained | |
(通常经过努力)实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 ); 达到; 获得; 达到(某年龄、水平、状况) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
377 revered | |
v.崇敬,尊崇,敬畏( revere的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
378 aspired | |
v.渴望,追求( aspire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
379 deceptive | |
adj.骗人的,造成假象的,靠不住的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
380 chimeras | |
n.(由几种动物的各部分构成的)假想的怪兽( chimera的名词复数 );不可能实现的想法;幻想;妄想 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
381 guardian | |
n.监护人;守卫者,保护者 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
382 humility | |
n.谦逊,谦恭 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
383 sufficiently | |
adv.足够地,充分地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
384 ennui | |
n.怠倦,无聊 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
385 lavished | |
v.过分给予,滥施( lavish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
386 delicacy | |
n.精致,细微,微妙,精良;美味,佳肴 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
387 recesses | |
n.壁凹( recess的名词复数 );(工作或业务活动的)中止或暂停期间;学校的课间休息;某物内部的凹形空间v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的第三人称单数 );将(墙)做成凹形,在(墙)上做壁龛;休息,休会,休庭 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
388 poignantly | |
参考例句: |
|
|
389 swelling | |
n.肿胀 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
390 pints | |
n.品脱( pint的名词复数 );一品脱啤酒 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
391 predecessor | |
n.前辈,前任 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
392 tranquillity | |
n. 平静, 安静 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
393 deigned | |
v.屈尊,俯就( deign的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
394 solicitously | |
adv.热心地,热切地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
395 enjoyment | |
n.乐趣;享有;享用 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
396 judgment | |
n.审判;判断力,识别力,看法,意见 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
397 pretext | |
n.借口,托词 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
398 proceedings | |
n.进程,过程,议程;诉讼(程序);公报 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
399 necessitate | |
v.使成为必要,需要 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
400 consultations | |
n.磋商(会议)( consultation的名词复数 );商讨会;协商会;查找 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
401 confession | |
n.自白,供认,承认 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
402 cowardice | |
n.胆小,怯懦 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
403 pensively | |
adv.沉思地,焦虑地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
404 eyelids | |
n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 );眼睛也不眨一下;不露声色;面不改色 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
405 spoke | |
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
406 tranquilly | |
adv. 宁静地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
407 indefatigable | |
adj.不知疲倦的,不屈不挠的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
408 gaily | |
adv.欢乐地,高兴地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
409 touching | |
adj.动人的,使人感伤的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
410 repentance | |
n.懊悔 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
411 varied | |
adj.多样的,多变化的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
412 lucidity | |
n.明朗,清晰,透明 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
413 elevation | |
n.高度;海拔;高地;上升;提高 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
414 noted | |
adj.著名的,知名的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
415 dressing | |
n.(食物)调料;包扎伤口的用品,敷料 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
416 conceal | |
v.隐藏,隐瞒,隐蔽 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
417 reassure | |
v.使放心,使消除疑虑 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
418 rehearsal | |
n.排练,排演;练习 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
419 conversed | |
v.交谈,谈话( converse的过去式 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
420 apprehended | |
逮捕,拘押( apprehend的过去式和过去分词 ); 理解 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
421 infantry | |
n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
422 cavalry | |
n.骑兵;轻装甲部队 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
423 artillery | |
n.(军)火炮,大炮;炮兵(部队) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
424 attentively | |
adv.聚精会神地;周到地;谛;凝神 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
425 assent | |
v.批准,认可;n.批准,认可 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
426 throng | |
n.人群,群众;v.拥挤,群集 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
427 thronged | |
v.成群,挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
428 conveyance | |
n.(不动产等的)转让,让与;转让证书;传送;运送;表达;(正)运输工具 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
429 battalion | |
n.营;部队;大队(的人) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
430 ascent | |
n.(声望或地位)提高;上升,升高;登高 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
431 thighs | |
n.股,大腿( thigh的名词复数 );食用的鸡(等的)腿 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
432 hovered | |
鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 ); 靠近(某事物); (人)徘徊; 犹豫 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
433 bosom | |
n.胸,胸部;胸怀;内心;adj.亲密的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
434 bosoms | |
胸部( bosom的名词复数 ); 胸怀; 女衣胸部(或胸襟); 和爱护自己的人在一起的情形 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
435 cemetery | |
n.坟墓,墓地,坟场 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
436 testament | |
n.遗嘱;证明 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
437 skilfully | |
adv. (美skillfully)熟练地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
438 engraved | |
v.在(硬物)上雕刻(字,画等)( engrave的过去式和过去分词 );将某事物深深印在(记忆或头脑中) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
439 inscription | |
n.(尤指石块上的)刻印文字,铭文,碑文 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
440 persecuted | |
(尤指宗教或政治信仰的)迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 ); 烦扰,困扰或骚扰某人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
441 calumny | |
n.诽谤,污蔑,中伤 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
442 repose | |
v.(使)休息;n.安息 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
443 devoid | |
adj.全无的,缺乏的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
444 mound | |
n.土墩,堤,小山;v.筑堤,用土堆防卫 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
445 brook | |
n.小河,溪;v.忍受,容让 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
446 assented | |
同意,赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
447 cypress | |
n.柏树 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
448 scattered | |
adj.分散的,稀疏的;散步的;疏疏落落的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
449 unintelligible | |
adj.无法了解的,难解的,莫明其妙的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
450 shroud | |
n.裹尸布,寿衣;罩,幕;vt.覆盖,隐藏 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
451 devouring | |
吞没( devour的现在分词 ); 耗尽; 津津有味地看; 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
452 crucible | |
n.坩锅,严酷的考验 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
453 ushered | |
v.引,领,陪同( usher的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
454 expressive | |
adj.表现的,表达…的,富于表情的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
455 elegance | |
n.优雅;优美,雅致;精致,巧妙 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
456 hospitable | |
adj.好客的;宽容的;有利的,适宜的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
457 shrine | |
n.圣地,神龛,庙;v.将...置于神龛内,把...奉为神圣 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
458 functionaries | |
n.公职人员,官员( functionary的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
欢迎访问英文小说网 |