The sun rose higher, rendering the plain larger, extending the distant horizon still farther.... I felt a compassion for this man and I loved him ... yes I swear I loved him!... Well, then, how did that happen?... A detonation was suddenly heard, and at that very moment I caught sight of a boot in the air, of a torn piece of a military cloak, of a mane flying about wildly on the road ... and then nothing, I heard the noise of a blow with a sabre, the heavy fall of a body, furious beats of a gallop ... then nothing.... My rifle was warm, and smoke was coming out of it.... I let it fall to the ground.... Was I the victim of hallucination?... Clearly not. Of the large shadow which rose skyward at the middle of the road like an equestrian statue of bronze there was left but a small corpse all black, stretched out face downward, with crossed arms.... I recalled the poor cat that my father had killed, when with fascinated eyes she had been following the flight of a butterfly.... Stupidly, unconsciously, I had killed a man whom I loved, a man with whom my soul had just identified itself, a man who in the dazzling splendor of the rising sun was retracing the purest dreams of his life!... Perhaps I had killed him at the very moment that that man had said to himself: "And when I shall see her again at home...." Why? For what reason? Since I loved him, since, if soldiers had menaced him, I would have defended him! Why of all men was it he I assassinated? In two bounds I was beside this man; I called him ... he did not move. My bullet had pierced his neck under the ear, and blood was gushing from an opened vein with a gurgling sound, collecting into a red pool and sticking to his beard.... With trembling hands I raised him slowly, his head swung from side to side, fell back, inert and heavy.... I felt his chest where the heart was: it beat no longer.... Then I raised him again, supporting his head with my knees, and suddenly I saw his eyes, his two clear eyes which looked at me sadly, without hatred, without reproach, his two eyes which seemed to be alive!... I thought I was going to faint, but gathering all my strength in a supreme effort, I clasped the dead body of the Prussian, placed it right in front of me and pressing my lips against this bleeding face from which long, purple threads of congealed slaver were hanging, I desperately kissed it!...