Page:Poet Lore, volume 4, 1892.djvu/652

 ing-clad landscape with a battlefield after battle. The scene extends several miles in width and. length. Nearly a hundred towns and villages are before me, and I seem to recognize some of them. But the strange image does not remain unchanged. The longer I look at it the brighter it becomes, and I see everything clearly as though I were looking down from a tower. It is a panorama of a battle, but the scenes follow one another in reversed order, from the end of the fight to its beginning. Thus I see successively images of soldiers fleeing and pursuing, then fighting, and later preparing for battle. Now there is a daring and bloody attack of a few regiments against a firm position of the enemy, then a wild combat of single regiments of horsemen, manœuvres of the infantry, movements of the artillery. At times I see only clouds of white smoke with occasional flashes of fire. The silence of a grave is spread over the entire scene. I do not hear the thunder of cannons, the rattle of drums, and the clang of trumpets, the clashing of arms, and the moans of the wounded. I see a vivid and horrible but noiseless scene. Gradually the scene of a terrible battle is changing into a milder one, until I see a peaceful region in the lustre of the golden rays of a summer sun.

How strange! It took less time to survey the whole scene than it takes to read this description. The skill with which my friend had deluded my eyes was indeed surprising, and I fully believed that his other experiments would be equally successful.

“I think I have seen an image of the battle of Königgrätz,” I said to my friend, who, standing silently by me in the triangle, was engineering the machine.

“You are right,” he replied; “now you will see all the battles of the Seven Days’ War in a reverse order. I shall assist you with short explanations, so that you can have more time to look.”

“I am satisfied,” I said, waiting quietly for what would follow. I did not have to wait long. The image of the peaceful region began to darken, and in a few seconds I had utter darkness before me again. I had hardly noticed the change, when darkness began to yield to twilight, twilight to daylight, and I saw another battle,—the battle of Königinhof. Then followed in rapid succession the