The pursuit stopped near a little brook. Prince Louis felt as if he were awaking from a dream; he caressed his noble horse and looked about him. The enemy’s artillery was being drawn off; the survivors of the cuirassiers followed the artillery. In the distance the columns of infantry were also retreating, keeping up an irregular, ineffectual fire. “It is strange,” observed a young lieutenant near the Prince, showing him his sabre, “my sabre is covered with blood up to the hilt, and yet I have not the least idea how it happened.” The Prince was about to answer, when he felt a terrible blow on his chest, as if he had been struck by the hand of an invisible giant, or by the horn of a bull. He put his hand to his breast. It was covered with blood. He just realized that he must have been struck by a ball, when he lost consciousness. When he came to himself, he was lying on the trampled ground, his head resting against a saddle. His tunic was unfastened and his comrades were standing about him. He felt no pain, only a sensation of great fatigue, hard to describe, a little like that of a man who is drowning. “How do you feel, Prince?” asked the lieutenant-colonel, who was bending over him. “It seems to me,” he answered, in a voice that could scarcely be heard, a slight smile on his lips, “as if I must cry: ‘Long live the King, long live the Fatherland’.” These were his last words. A NEW-YEAR’S EVE CONFESSION BY HERMANN SUDERMANN [Illustration] _Sudermann, born in Prussia, in 1857, began as druggist’s clerk, then tutor, then journalist, until finally he wrote “Honor,” a social satire that now places him, with Hauptmann, leader of the German naturalistic dramatists, as “Dame Care” places him among German novelists._ _The particular merit of Sudermann, as playwright, lies in his ability to seize upon the most convincing traits of character, and in describing familiar things, with a vein of dry humor. He has surprising invention of plot, and skill in working it out, but his art is often marred by cheap theatrical devices, brutalities, and concessions to public taste. His language is flexible, clear, rich in coloring._ _The short story here given is the most satisfactory of a collection called “In Twilight,” published in 1890--familiar, colloquial, fireside monologues with a woman of the world._ _Since 1894, sickness has withdrawn Sudermann from close contact with the world, and weakened his powers of dealing with life._ [Illustration] A NEW-YEAR’S EVE CONFESSION BY HERMANN SUDERMANN Translated by Grace Isabel Colbron. Copyright, 1907, by P. F. Collier & Son.