that town by the events of the war, I have wandered about like a
vagabond, begging my bread, treated as a madman when I have told my
story, without ever having found or earned a sou to enable me to
recover the deeds which would prove my statements, and restore me to
society. My sufferings have often kept me for six months at a time in
some little town, where every care was taken of the invalid Frenchman,
but where he was laughed at to his face as soon as he said he was
Colonel Chabert. For a long time that laughter, those doubts, used to
put me into rages which did me harm, and which even led to my being
locked up at Stuttgart as a madman. And indeed, as you may judge from
my story, there was ample reason for shutting a man up.

"At the end of two years' detention, which I was compelled to submit
to, after hearing my keepers say a thousand times, 'Here is a poor man
who thinks he is Colonel Chabert' to people who would reply, 'Poor
fellow!' I became convinced of the impossibility of my own adventure.
I grew melancholy, resigned, and quiet, and gave up calling myself
Colonel Chabert, in order to get out of my prison, and see France once
more. Oh, monsieur! To see Paris again was a delirium which I----"

Without finishing his sentence, Colonel Chabert fell into a deep
study, which Derville respected.

"One fine day," his visitor resumed, "one spring day, they gave me the
key of the fields, as we say, and ten thalers, admitting that I talked
quite sensibly on all subjects, and no longer called myself Colonel
Chabert. On my honor, at that time, and even to this day, sometimes I
hate my name. I wish I were not myself. The sense of my rights kills
me. If my illness had but deprived me of all memory of my past life, I
could be happy. I should have entered the service again under any