whether by any chance poor Chabert is still alive.' These rascally
saw-bones, who had just seen me lying under the hoofs of the horses of
two regiments, no doubt did not trouble themselves to feel my pulse,
and reported that I was quite dead. The certificate of death was
probably made out in accordance with the rules of military
jurisprudence."

As he heard his visitor express himself with complete lucidity, and
relate a story so probable though so strange, the young lawyer ceased
fingering the papers, rested his left elbow on the table, and with his
head on his hand looked steadily at the Colonel.

"Do you know, monsieur, that I am lawyer to the Countess Ferraud," he
said, interrupting the speaker, "Colonel Chabert's widow?"

"My wife--yes monsieur. Therefore, after a hundred fruitless attempts
to interest lawyers, who have all thought me mad, I made up my mind to
come to you. I will tell you of my misfortunes afterwards; for the
present, allow me to prove the facts, explaining rather how things
must have fallen out rather than how they did occur. Certain
circumstances, known, I suppose to no one but the Almighty, compel me
to speak of some things as hypothetical. The wounds I had received
must presumably have produced tetanus, or have thrown me into a state
analogous to that of a disease called, I believe, catalepsy. Otherwise
how is it conceivable that I should have been stripped, as is the
custom in time of the war, and thrown into the common grave by the men
ordered to bury the dead?

"Allow me here to refer to a detail of which I could know nothing till
after the event, which, after all, I must speak of as my death. At