Pagina 894 de 3800

The stretchers moved on. At every jolt he again felt unendurable

pain; his feverishness increased and he grew delirious. Visions

of his father, wife, sister, and future son, and the tenderness

he had felt the night before the battle, the figure of the

insignificant little Napoleon, and above all this the lofty sky,

formed the chief subjects of his delirious fancies.

The quiet home life and peaceful happiness of Bald Hills

presented itself to him. He was already enjoying that happiness

when that little Napoleon had suddenly appeared with his

unsympathizing look of shortsighted delight at the misery of

others, and doubts and torments had followed, and only the

heavens promised peace. Toward morning all these dreams melted

and merged into the chaos and darkness of unconciousness and

oblivion which in the opinion of Napoleon's doctor, Larrey, was

much more likely to end in death than in convalescence.

"He is a nervous, bilious subject," said Larrey, "and will not

recover."