“And ‘Poor boy,’ how is he getting on to-day?”

This was a little soldier, a private in the 5th of the line, not yet twenty years old, who had doubtless enlisted as a volunteer.  The by-name:  “Poor boy” had been given him and had stuck because he always used the words in speaking of himself, and when one day he was asked the reason he replied that that was the name by which his mother had always called him.  Poor boy he was, in truth, for he was dying of pleurisy brought on by a wound in his left side.

“Ah, poor fellow,” replied Henriette, who had conceived a special fondness for this one of her charges, “he is no better; he coughed all the afternoon.  It pained my heart to hear him.”

“And your bear, Gutman, how about him?” pursued Jean, with a faint smile.  “Is the doctor’s report more favorable?”

“Yes, he thinks he may be able to save his life.  But the poor man suffers dreadfully.”

Although they both felt the deepest compassion for him, they never spoke of Gutman but a smile of gentle amusement came to their lips.  Almost immediately upon entering on her duties at the hospital the young woman had been shocked to recognize in that Bavarian soldier the features:  big blue eyes, red hair and beard and massive nose, of the man who had carried her away in his arms the day they shot her husband at Bazeilles.  He recognized her as well, but could not speak; a musket ball, entering at the back of the neck, had carried away half his tongue.  For two days she recoiled with horror, an involuntary shudder passed through her frame, each time she had to approach his bed, but presently her heart began to melt under the imploring, very gentle looks with which he followed her movements in the room.  Was he not the blood-splashed monster, with eyes ablaze with furious rage, whose memory was ever present to her mind?  It cost her an effort to recognize him now in that submissive, uncomplaining creature, who bore his terrible suffering with such cheerful resignation.  The nature of his affliction, which is not of frequent occurrence, enlisted for him the sympathies of the entire hospital.  It was not even certain that his name was Gutman; he was called so because the only sound he succeeded in articulating was a word of two syllables that resembled that more than it did anything else.  As regarded all other particulars concerning him everyone was in the dark; it was generally believed, however, that he was married and had children.  He seemed to understand a few words of French, for he would answer questions that were put to him with an emphatic motion of the head:  “Married?” yes, yes!  “Children?” yes, yes!  The interest and excitement he displayed one day that he saw some flour induced them to believe he might have been a miller.  And that was all.  Where was the mill, whose wheel had ceased to turn?  In what distant Bavarian village were the wife and children now weeping their lost husband and father?  Was he to die, nameless, unknown, in that foreign country, and leave his dear ones forever ignorant of his fate?