hearts behind the door, to be told that the Christ-Child has been. And
I, for what am I waiting? I don't know; all seems a dream; everything
vague and unsubstantial about me, as if time had ceased, nothing could
happen, my own desires and hopes were all dead, myself absorbed into I
know not what passive dreamland. Do I long for tonight? Do I dread it?
Will tonight ever come? Do I feel anything, does anything exist all
round me?

I sit and seem to see that street at Posen, the wide street with the
windows illuminated by the Christmas lights, the green fir-branches
grazing the window-panes.

_Christmas Eve, Midnight.--_

I have done it. I slipped out noiselessly. Sor Asdrubale and his
sisters were fast asleep. I feared I had waked them, for my hatchet
fell as I was passing through the principal room where my landlord
keeps his curiosities for sale; it struck against some old armor which
he has been piecing. I heard him exclaim, half in his sleep; and blew
out my light and hid in the stairs. He came out in his dressing-gown,
but finding no one, went back to bed again. "Some cat, no doubt!" he
said. I closed the house door softly behind me. The sky had become
stormy since the afternoon, luminous with the full moon, but strewn
with grey and buff-colored vapors; every now and then the moon
disappeared entirely. Not a creature abroad; the tall gaunt houses
staring in the moonlight.

I know not why, I took a roundabout way to the Corte, past one or two
church doors, whence issued the faint flicker of midnight mass. For a
moment I felt a temptation to enter one of then; but something seemed