On recovering from his swoon, all was still around him; but he soon fell in with some of his comrades, and rejoined his regiment. The troops were shortly afterwards mustered, and the name of each individual was called. How intense were his feelings when his brother's was heard! None answered to it; and, conquering with a violent effort his emotion, he ventured to glance towards the place that his brother used to occupy, and where he almost dreaded to see a pale and threatening spectre. He heard his comrades talk of him, but his heart appeared to have become seared. He felt that he ought to write to Ellen, and evening after evening he sat down to the task; but he always abandoned it, for he fancied, that without any confession, she would discern that the hand which traced the letters on the paper to her had thrust his brother into the jaws of death. He gave up the idea of writing, but through another sent a message of kindness from himself, and the tidings of George's death.
When a cessation of hostilities for a time was agreed on, and Johan was to return home, he endeavoured and hoped to be able to shake off his deep gloom. He was to see Ellen again, but the thought of her no longer brought gladness to his soul. It was with slow and heavy steps that he approached the cottage in the valley; and when Ellen came out to meet him, and hid her tearful face on his breast, it did not anger him that she wept, for his own heart was so overcharged with misery, that it seemed to weigh him down to the earth. At length he felt somewhat easier; he tried to concentrate his thoughts upon Ellen, and he had everything that could remind him of his brother removed from sight. Yet, when in passing through the woods, he came near some large tree, on which his brother and himself, as children, had cut their names together, painful and dark remembrances would rush on him; and it was still worse when his mother wept, and spoke of George--of what he was as a little boy, and how good, and affectionate, and kind-hearted he had always been. When in the society of the neighbouring peasants, he was silent, and seemingly indifferent to all amusement; and when he heard them remark 'How Johan is changed since he went to the wars!' he felt himself compelled to leave them and fly to solitude. Ellen was kind and gentle to him; but when, of an evening, he loitered near the window of her little chamber, he could not help hearing how she sighed and sobbed.