he was only trying an experiment on Karl's nerves. He persisted that he
had never seen any footprints of the sort before. Karl informed him of his
experiences during the night; upon which Teufelsbuerst looked a little
graver still, and proceeded to tell them that the storm, whose snow was
still covering the ground, had arisen the very moment that their next door
neighbour died, and had ceased as suddenly the moment he was buried,
though it had raved furiously all the time of the funeral, so that 'it
made men's bodies quake and their teeth chatter in their heads.' Karl had
heard that the man, whose name was John Kuntz, was dead and buried. He
knew that he had been a very wealthy, and therefore most respectable,
alderman of the town; that he had been very fond of horses; and that he
had died in consequence of a kick received from one of his own, as he was
looking at his hoof. But he had not heard that, just before he died, a
black cat 'opened the casement with her nails, ran to his bed, and
violently scratched his face and the bolster, as if she endeavoured by
force to remove him out of the place where he lay. But the cat afterwards
was suddenly gone, and she was no sooner gone, but he breathed his last.'

"So said Teufelsbuerst, as the reporter of the town talk. Lilith looked
very pale and terrified; and it was perhaps owing to this that the painter
brought no more tales home with him. There were plenty to bring, but he
heard them all and said nothing. The fact was that the philosopher himself
could not resist the infection of the fear that was literally raging in
the city; and perhaps the reports that he himself had sold himself to the
devil had sufficient response from his own evil conscience to add to the
influence of the epidemic upon him. The whole place was infested with the
presence of the dead Kuntz, till scarce a man or woman would dare to be
alone. He strangled old men; insulted women; squeezed children to death;
knocked out the brains of dogs against the ground; pulled up posts; turned
milk into blood; nearly killed a worthy clergyman by breathing upon him