Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/252

 at the command of their superiors, to fire the deadly bullet into our breasts. And over all this there streamed down in those summer days the beautiful sunlight of heaven, so warm and so peaceably radiant, as if there were nothing but harmony and happiness in the world. All this so cruelly unnatural, and yet so cruelly true!

A strange life that was in the besieged fortress. With the exception of one sortie, there being no further fighting excitement, we soldiers did our routine service day after day with mechanical precision, and the burghers pursued what occupation there still remained to them, all in a state of strained expectation, waiting for the fate that could not be averted. The world outside lay far, far away from us in unmeasurable distance. There we sat within our ramparts, excluded from all humanity, as if we did not belong to it. Not a sound of it penetrated to us except a distant rolling of the drum or the trumpet signals of the enemy besieging us. From time to time mysterious rumors arose, of which nobody knew whence they came. Our troops, it was once said, had won a great victory in the upper country and driven the Prussians before them. Then a fresh revolution had broken out in France, and all Germany was in new commotion. Then the Hungarians had disastrously defeated the united Austrians and Russians, and were ready to send their victorious legions to the aid of the German revolutionists. Once the higher officers of the garrison rushed up to me on the observation tower because somebody had actually heard, in the direction of the upper country, a long continuing thunder of cannon, constantly approaching; and now they had come to see the clouds of dust raised by the columns advancing to our relief. But the imagined thunder of artillery was inaudible to us; all remained still, and we sank back into our dull hopelessness.