"Ah! you'll be better bye-and-bye.

Then, you will wake up refreshed and have some nourishment; and then, too, you'll be able to tell me all about yourself and master doggie here, eh ?" But, it was many days before poor Fritz was in a condition to offer any explanation about the dog--many days, when the possibility was trembling in the balance of fate as to whether he would ever speak again, or be silent for aye in this world! When he woke up, he was delirious; and the doctor, a grave German surgeon of middle age, on coming into the room to examine him, when making the rounds of the house--a villa in the suburbs of Mezieres, which had been transformed into a sort of field hospital for the most dangerous cases in the vicinity--declared Fritz to be in a very critical state.

His life, he said, was in serious peril, a change having taken place for the worse.
He had been struck by a chassepot conical rifle bullet in the chest; and the ball, after breaking two of his ribs and slightly grazing the lungs, had lodged near the spine, where it yet remained, the wounded man being too prostrate for an operation to be performed for its extraction, although all the while it was intensifying the pain and adding to the feverish symptoms of the patient.
"You've not been allowing him to talk, have you ?" asked the surgeon, scanning the girl's face with a stern professional glance.
"No," she replied, blushing slightly under his gaze; "that is, he wanted to, an hour ago, when he became conscious, but I gave him the sleeping draught you ordered at once." "Donnerwetter!" exclaimed the other.

"The potion then has done him harm instead of good.

I thought it would have composed him and made him comfortable for the operation, as, until that bullet is taken out he can't possibly get well.