hours at my occupations, I would fling myself back on my chair, look
about the poor apartment, dimly lighted by an unsnuffed candle, or upon
the heaps of books and papers before me, and exclaim: "Do I exist? Do
these things, which I think I see about me, exist, or do they not? Is
not everything a dream--a deceitful dream? Is not this apartment a
dream--the furniture a dream? The publisher a dream--his philosophy a
dream? Am I not myself a dream--dreaming about translating a dream? I
can't see why all should not be a dream; what's the use of the reality?"
And then I would pinch myself, and snuff the burdened smoky light. "I
can't see, for the life of me, the use of all this; therefore, why should
I think that it exists? If there was a chance, a probability of all this
tending to anything, I might believe; but--" and then I would stare and
think, and after some time shake my head and return again to my
occupations for an hour or two; and then I would perhaps shake, and
shiver, and yawn, and look wistfully in the direction of my sleeping
apartment; and then, but not wistfully, at the papers and books before
me; and sometimes I would return to my papers and books; but oftener I
would arise, and, after another yawn and shiver, take my light, and
proceed to my sleeping chamber.

They say that light fare begets light dreams; my fare at that time was
light enough, but I had anything but light dreams, for at that period I
had all kind of strange and extravagant dreams, and amongst other things
I dreamt that the whole world had taken to dog-fighting; and that I,
myself, had taken to dog-fighting, and that in a vast circus I backed an
English bulldog against the bloodhound of the Pope of Rome.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

One morning I arose somewhat later that usual, having been occupied
during the greater part of the night with my literary toil. On
descending from my chamber into the sitting-room I found a person seated
by the fire, whose glance was directed sideways to the table, on which
were the usual preparations for my morning's meal. Forthwith I gave a
cry, and sprang forward to embrace the person; for the person by the
fire, whose glance was directed to the table, was no one else than my
brother.

"And how are things going on at home?" said I to my brother, after we had
kissed and embraced. "How is my mother, and how is the dog?"

"My mother, thank God, is tolerably well," said my brother, "but very
much given