One and another to whom I applied were so full of their own griefs that I had to listen to what they had to say before they would or could hear a word from me in return.  One had been hung up by his feet over a chimney; another had a knife held to his throat; one had seen her little infant nearly strangled; another had been dragged along the ground by her hair.  I could not help pitying them sincerely, but not so much as I should have done, but for the sad plight of my uncle.  When I, with a kind of wrench, forced the talk into the subject of what was going on at his house, they, through their great love for him, forgot for a moment their own trials in thinking of his; and those who had anything to contribute brought it out, and those who had nothing to spare made up for it in pity.  All this consumed so much time that when I got back it was nearly dark, and the house was all in a blaze with lights, for the dragoons had lighted candles all over the house; and some of them were stupid with drink, and lying in heaps; others were rendered quarrelsome by it, and fighting and abusing one another; but as for the drummers, they never ceased.  They were at it when I set forth, they were at it while I was away, they were at it when I came back again, and stared at the good things I spread out before them without once staying their drumsticks.  I was so sick of it by this time, and so unable to disguise my disgust and anger, that I persuaded myself I might as well return home, for that I could do no good where I was, and things could get no worse without me.  So I went up to my aunt, who was then sitting like a stone image, without seeming able to hear or see anything, and made signs of leave-taking.  She grasped my hand in both hers, and looked up so piteously at me, her lips moving as if with the words “do not go,” that I felt I must stay by her, come what would.  For was she not my mother’s sister-in-law? and was not my uncle my mother’s brother?  I made a sign I would remain, on which she kissed my hands; and then I patted her on the shoulder, and could not help letting fall a tear.  Then she got up, and bestirred herself for the men, hoping, no doubt, they would intermit their drumming if she could but conciliate them.  But as soon as one relay ceased drumming another took it up; and thus, shameful to relate, they continued the whole night without intermission, crowding round my uncle’s bed, making his room intolerably hot and close, and pushing in and out of the room and up and down the stairs.

My uncle now lay in a kind of torpor; the expression of his face painful to witness; his wan hands lying outside the counterpane, and now and then slightly moving, which showed me he still lived.  Towards daybreak I was so worn out that I dropped asleep as I sat beside him with my face on the edge of his pillow—­such deep sleep that I neither heard nor dreamed of the drumming.  When I woke, with a strangely confused, unrefreshed feeling, the daylight was faintly making