Chapter XXX

"The soul, secured in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years;
But thou shall flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amid the war of elements,
The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.
--ADDISON.

The world's history went its way in the midst of thunder-bolts. "Die Wacht am Rhein," no longer stood firm and true, but the Fatherland could afford to be restful. The wheels of war had transferred themselves to France; the people who instigated the war were now to suffer its nearest proximity. Germany breathed freely. Her brave army (concerning which an English journal asserted that every single man in the invasion was a Leonidas in overalls and spectacles), led by heroes, had bloody conflicts to undergo. No pen is needed to recall them; their history is engraven in the heart of Germany. We shall only follow Wulf on his difficult way.

Yes, it was difficult--frightfully difficult. The unalloyed misery which a battle evokes, baffles all description. The hardest heart must learn to bear it for the first time. There in the front the battle raged--officers riding hither and thither; the infantry in advance, with the first company on its knees; the second bowed down; the third standing upright, ready, with murderous fire, to obey their leader's command. For their protection, the artillery is led forward, gigantic cannon awaiting the signal to pour death and destruction upon the enemy. From the sides there is already the sound of clashing arms; in the center the strange snapping of the mitrailleuse; while all around is heard the dull roar of the cannon. Wulf stands in the rear, just behind the lines, watching with breathless interest the drama unfolding around him.

But he can not long follow the course of the strife, as the regiment to which he belongs now enters the action. A frightful crashing and firing, then thick powder-smoke, and a few moments later, wounded men fall backward. Wulf casts aside the field-glass, takes up his package of bandages. The first one to be relieved is a young soldier who has lost an arm; a second follows, a third, a fourth. He can no longer count them. Beneath a great tree he has established his quarters, and luminous for a long distance floats the white flag with its red cross, pointing out the spot where love and sympathy have found their way, even in the fearful misery of the battlefield. The combat has disappeared in the distance; the earth trembles with resounding shots uninterruptedly. All is covered with powder and smoke. Wulf only sees the ambulance-wagons approaching with the wounded and dying, to lay them in his vicinity; he hears only the terrible, agonizing groans and moans of the wounded--German and French, all bleeding, and needing succor. Then came the snorting of horses galloping from the front, wounded and riderless, followed by dragoons and lancers in confusion through a repulsed assault. Just before Wulf, a dragoon on horseback flew by; he sprang aside and caught the dying one, whose blood streamed over him. "Dead! all over! Gone!" he exclaims. "If it were so with all these poor fellows around me, much suffering might be escaped."

But, mayhap at home some Sibylla weeps for them?

Although Wulf is agitated by the thought, "Is it, indeed, all over, forever passed, or is there still another life?" another needs care, and he binds up wounds, calms and succors as well as he can. His orders are short and quick in the roar around, and, so far as possible, they are promptly obeyed. The wounded who have received attention are borne to the nearest house, or laid in wagons and carried farther. But the ranks did not become less; others were constantly brought forward to receive the murderous shots, and there seemed no end to the misery.

"Have we conquered?" asked a soldier, coming out of a deep swoon under Wulf's treatment. The latter looked up; he had forgotten the war and victory. But it is unmistakably the latter, and a messenger brings tidings of a splendid victory. He has scarcely time to rejoice, but he hears the "hurra!" which comes from the lips of the poor wounded one.

A strong man writhes in dreadful agony as Wulf endeavors to extract a bullet from his breast.

"We have conquered," Wulf says to him.

The warrior opens his eyes; a smile plays on his lips; he makes an effort to rise, and folds his hands, while he says clearly: "God be thanked, who has given us the victory, through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Then he swoons away; and is gone.

Is it "all over" with him? Returns the substance back to its source?

On, on! the bloody conflict must begin anew. Evening approaches. The field hospital must be stationed at the nearest village, where every house is a Lazaret.

Wulf is steeped to the elbows in gore. The amputating-table is cleansed, while all around lie heaps of the poor soldiers' members. While the wounded are being laid in wagons, Wulf kneels beside a poor creature; he would have him transported, but discerns that it is useless. He gives him a draught of wine, and as the dying one drinks he seizes Wulf's hand, and gasps, "O, if I had only been a Christian!" Wulf would administer words of comfort; but what shall he say? He is helpless. O, how chimerical seem all the results of his scientific investigations! "My mother always told me to pray," continued the poor fellow. Then he begged piteously, "Pray! pray!"

What should Wulf do? He would tear himself away; but the strong death-grasp restrains him, and the utterance:

"O, pray for me!"

Pray? To whom? The God whom Wulf has made his own for years is without hearing--and what shall he pray? "O, pray for me!" is repeated agonizingly.

Then he recalls an old, old prayer which his mother taught him when a child, and he repeats mechanically:

"Dear Lord, I would thee love,
That I may go to heaven above."

It is "all over;" and if he had not been so wearied he would have despised such an utterance. There is no heaven, and he for whom he has just repeated this falsity--well, the machinery of life has stopped; the parts disintegrate, and it is "all over" with him: that is certain.

Expeditiously the school-house is converted into a hospital, and there Wulf establishes his head-quarters for the present. Alone, far away from other dwellings, the red-cross flag floats in the air, and soon the little place is filled with the wounded--friends and enemies.

A hospital--but void of all comforts. A little straw is spread upon the floor, and those needing attention are covered with their cloaks only. It had not been possible to provide food as yet, but a small quantity of wine is available. Messengers are hurried off for water and hospital supplies, and the fearful work begins anew. Many die during the night, and their bodies are immediately removed to make room for new occupants. Wulf's surgical knife and implements are used unremittingly. Constantly messages arrive for him to come to some other house; he would answer, "Soon! yes, soon!" but the pressing necessities around secure him to this spot.

Morning dawned when Wulf stepped forth. The sun arose in the east as clear and splendid as if it greeted only happy people and joyous harvesters. Anxiety and the harrowing scenes of the past hours had made Wulf almost faint; but the fresh air from without now revived him. The night lay in his memory like a confused, troubled dream. What an experience it had been! Through what mental struggles he had passed! "To be or not to be," was "the question" to him. Were these dead really eternally dead, or was there an everlasting life beyond? If he answered the latter affirmatively, he must accept as truth the conclusion of a revealed God. Could this be true, then also redemption through Jesus Christ were a confirmed fact. There was no intermediate view. Either his own opinions were correct and true, and it was man's highest aim here to attain a moral perfection in every thing, or God's Word was the truth, and man did not live simply for this world, but for eternal life.

Nonsense! nonsense! What need had man for God and immortality?

And yet there were thousands who had just now lost beautiful, young lives. If they must be ended, why this life at all, on which depends so much care and love? Had the love only beginning to strengthen, and the mind only begun to be cultivated, that a little piece of cold lead might destroy it forever? Infamous thought! A reconciliation between the hopes of all these hearts and their sudden extinction lay only in the idea of a continuation after death, a further, wider development in the certain confidence of an eternal life.

Was it this confidence which appeared in vision to the dying soldier when he exclaimed: "God be thanked, who has given us the victory, through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

But there was no time for Wulf to indulge in these subtile inquiries; he must attend anew to the suffering. And yet, amid all the strife and whir and din of battle, he had heard one of the field-deacons give comfort and blessing here and there amid the wounded and dying, and administer to them the hope of eternal life. This one phrase, "eternal life," with its consoling assurances, Wulf could not comprehend, and he marveled that a nursery tale, a bare idea, could exert such power among so many thousands of different people. But his work went on and on. The hard surgical instruments were devoid of feeling, and could endure the strain much longer; not so the man of flesh and blood--he was well-nigh exhausted. Wulf had worked thirty-six hours without food, only stimulated occasionally with a glass of wine, which merely undermined his nervous strength. A deacon said: "Doctor, go now; I have a bed ready for you. You can do no more."

Yes; Wulf could do no more. Without controversy he threw himself upon the couch, and closed his eyes; but he could not close his ears to the groans around him. Every thing in his mind was in chaos, and yet out of this chaos a feeling was liberated more dreadful than all else--the instinctive fear of an after life in preference to annihilation. No sleep visited his eyes, or laid her peaceful hand upon his troubled brain, where every thing whirled. Suddenly he heard a voice say quickly:

"Is there no doctor here?"

"What is wanted?" replied the deacon.

"Immediately have him come to N----, where there lies a whole church full of wounded, without a surgeon."

"He will come to-morrow, early," was the answer.

"For God's sake, why not at once?" was the entreaty.

"It is impossible," said the inexorable attendant.

Wulf had followed the conversation with breathless tension. He knew it had been promised that he would go. He would spring up, but tongue and limbs refuse their service. He lay in a severe cramp, and in spite of redoubled effort he was not master of a word or movement. When the messenger had gone the band was unloosed; he sprang up and declared he should ride at once to N----. The prudent deacon forcibly restrained him for a time; but he overcame all remonstrance at length, learned the way to N----, left requisite orders for those behind, and a few minutes later was in the saddle.

In the beginning all went well along the highway. Then the road led through a little wood, then over a field, as the most direct route. The cool, fresh air relieved Wulf's burning head, and although his pulse beat feverishly, he determined not to yield to approaching illness. Gradually his thoughts began to wander; he allowed the reins to fall, and forgot to guide the horse. It began to grow dark; but the faithful animal kept on the way. Now they were in the shade of the wood, and suddenly the horse shied before a large, white stone, which appeared unexpectedly. The lurch threw Wulf from the saddle, while the horse galloped on. Suddenly awakened, Wulf endeavored to rise, and succeeded with difficulty, as his foot had been injured by the fall. He felt the wet blood trickling through his stocking, but believed the wound to be trifling. Even if it retarded his progress he should find the way again, and he limped wearily on. On and on, but the way through the wood seemed endless; and yet at every turn he hoped to see beyond. He was undoubtedly on the wrong path, but if he should walk to the right he must get through, and soon either see a light or hear footsteps. He had scarcely left the roadway when the ground began to yield under his feet; and struggling to extricate himself from the morass, he only sank deeper and deeper. He reached out for some overhanging branch, but none was near, and even more the ground seemed to vanish. It was wet and cold, and the slimy plants around seemed to stretch out hands after the unfortunate one, as if to draw him to the depths. After many vain struggles, he finally realized that every exertion only robbed him of strength, and he determined to wait quietly until he might hear footsteps, and cry for help. But even more icy than the slippery plants lay the wild thoughts in his mind. He knew he was stricken with fever. Was it now physical weakness or mental anxiety over the end, which paralyzed this brave man? He had just witnessed dying men whose sufferings had been greater than his own, and whose consolation was the hope of eternal life. Did this hope give strength? What had rendered death so fearless to his mother and Ingeborg? Had it been this same assurance? Then there was no hope for him; for he thought: "Now I would die, and cease to be." But he did not wish his existence to end. His youthful strength, his will, the pleasure of life, rose up in contradiction; and then his thoughts centered upon Sibylla. No; he did not wish to die. He had not yet reached his goal; he was just beginning to succeed, to act. No; he did not wish to cease to be; and yet there was no help near. Could such a life as his end in the mire? Like the entrance of satanic malignity, the materialistic teaching of the origin of species came upon him; made of slime and returning to slime!

But his position became an agony. Would it not be better to close his eyes and die?

"To die--to sleep:
To sleep! perchance to dream:--ay, there's the rub!"

These words of Hamlet ran through his brain like spirit forms. O, the fear of something after death--that "undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns!" Was it this dread that stimulated Wulf to renewed effort, that impelled him to cry aloud for help? Ah! these cries were so weak from that debilitated frame, they reached no friendly ear.

It was perfectly still in the wood.

No! suddenly there came the tramp of many footsteps, and the sound of song in distance.

Wulf listened; it must be a passing regiment, singing on its way. His feeble cry would be inaudible amid that tramping of feet and full chorus. What did they sing?

"I once had a comrade,
No better ever found;"

and here lay a comrade, with death hovering near, and they knew it not, but went on their way regardlessly. Wulf braced himself to call louder. In vain. But now the words reached him clearly.

"You can not give your hand,
You're in eternal life; that blessed land,
Comrade my own!"

"_Eternal life!_" O, how could he, in this condition of weakness, consider eternal life, when he had been unable to contemplate it in the full vigor of health? Should there take place within him some gigantic transformation, superinduced by a dire necessity? ETERNAL LIFE! Yes, there is eternal life. Horrible certainty! He would not perish here in this mire, eternally. He was sure that it would not be "all over" with him; but what then?

Should he go to his mother, to Ingeborg? No; he was not worthy of such a place; they had loved God. Should he see Sibylla there? God be thanked! No; Sibylla loved God; he had felt it, witnessed it, knew it.

Like furies these thoughts flew through Wulf's mind. Then followed the terrible feeling of wavering senses; the intellect of which he had been so proud was clouded by the dark pinions of delirium's eternal night. "O God, not that; only not that!" agonized his soul.

Where was God? Who was God, that he should help him? Was he the First Great Cause? the Eternal Essence? the Substance? A little star beamed mildly and friendly down upon him, and the sight gave him new courage. It burst the bonds from his soul; and now Wulf could pray, pray as a child to his Heavenly Father and loving Savior: "Give me life, eternal life! Help me; I would believe. Let me not die here, but live!"

He became calmer, but more and more exhausted. He closed his eyes to sleep and banish thought. Then he heard footsteps again. It was a patrol running and searching among the bushes. He had heard Wulf's feeble cry and hastened to him. Strong arms lifted him tenderly; he looked upon his rescuer gratefully, then became unconscious.