for the light of a stern last morning. Six men are to be hanged on the
morrow: comes no hammering from the _Rabenstein_?--their gallows must even
now be o' building. Upwards of five hundred thousand two-legged animals
without feathers lie round us, in horizontal position; their heads all in
nightcaps, and full of the foolishest dreams. Riot cries aloud, and
staggers and swaggers in his rank dens of shame; and the Mother, with
streaming hair, kneels over her pallid dying infant, whose cracked lips
only her tears now moisten.-- All these heaped and huddled together, with
nothing but a little carpentry and masonry between them;--crammed in, like
salted fish in their barrel;--or weltering, shall I say, like an Egyptian
pitcher of tamed vipers, each struggling to get its _head above_ the
others: _such_ work goes on under that smoke-counterpane!--But I, _mein
Werther_, sit above it all; I am alone with the stars."

We looked in his face to see whether, in the utterance of such
extraordinary Night-thoughts, no feeling might be traced there; but with
the light we had, which indeed was only a single tallow-light, and far
enough from the window, nothing save that old calmness and fixedness was
visible.

These were the Professor's talking seasons: most commonly he spoke in mere
monosyllables, or sat altogether silent and smoked; while the visitor had
liberty either to say what he listed, receiving for answer an occasional
grunt; or to look round for a space, and then take himself away. It was a
strange apartment; full of books and tattered papers, and miscellaneous
shreds of all conceivable substances, "united in a common element of dust."
Books lay on tables, and below tables; here fluttered a sheet of
manuscript, there a torn handkerchief, or nightcap hastily thrown aside;
ink-bottles alternated with bread-crusts, coffee-pots, tobacco-boxes,
Periodical Literature, and Blucher Boots. Old Lieschen (Lisekin, 'Liza),