per adieu, and come to a clear understanding about my debt
to the house....

I took forth my papers once more, and determined to thrust all
irrelevant impressions aside. I had left off right in the middle of a
sentence in the inquisitor's address--"Thus dictate God and the law to
me, thus dictates also the counsel of my wise men, thus dictate I and
my own conscience...." I looked out of the window to think over what
his conscience should dictate to him. A little row reached me from the
room inside. Well, it was no affair of mine anyway; it was entirely and
totally indifferent to me what noise arose. Why the devil should I sit
thinking about it? Keep quiet now! "Thus dictate I and my own
conscience...." But everything conspired against me. Outside in the
street, something was taking place that disturbed me. A little lad sat
and amused himself in the sun on the opposite side of the pavement. He
was happy and in fear of no danger--just sat and knotted together a lot
of paper streamers, and injuring no one. Suddenly he jumps up and
begins to curse; he goes backwards to the middle of the street and
catches sight of a man, a grown-up man, with a red beard, who is
leaning out of an open window in the second storey, and who spat down
on his head. The little chap cried with rage, and swore impatiently up
at the window; and the man laughed in his face. Perhaps five minutes
passed in this way. I turned aside to avoid seeing the little lad's
tears.

"Thus dictate I and my own conscience...." I found it impossible to get
any farther. At last everything began to get confused; it seemed to me
that even that which I had already written was unfit to use, ay, that
the whole idea was contemptible rubbish. How could one possibly talk of
conscience in the Middle Ages? Conscience was first invented by
Dancing-master Shakespeare, consequently my whole address was wrong.
Was there, then, nothing of value in these pages? I ran through them
anew, and solved my doubt at once. I discovered grand pieces--downright
lengthy pieces of remarkable merit--and once again the intoxicating
desire to set to work again darted through my breast--the desire to
finish my drama.

I got up and went to the door, without paying any attention to my
landlord's furious signs to go out quietly; I walked out of the room
firmly, and with my mind made up. I went upstairs to the second floor,
and entered my former room. The man was not there, and what was to
hinder me f