oons, or reposes within
damask curtains; Wretchedness cowers into buckle-beds, or shivers
hunger-stricken into its lair of straw: in obscure cellars,
_Rouge-et-Noir_ languidly emits its voice-of-destiny to haggard hungry
Villains; while Councillors of State sit plotting, and playing their
high chess-game, whereof the pawns are Men. The Lover whispers his
mistress that the coach is ready; and she, full of hope and fear, glides
down, to fly with him over the borders: the Thief, still more silently,
sets to his picklocks and crowbars, or lurks in wait till the watchmen
first snore in their boxes. Gay mansions, with supper-rooms and
dancing-rooms, are full of light and music and high-swelling hearts;
but, in the Condemned Cells, the pulse of life beats tremulous and
faint, and bloodshot eyes look out through the darkness, which is around
and within, 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 conceivab