.

He took a light and went softly up the ladder into the loft, and, to
his great satisfaction, found the others asleep. He said his prayers,
and got into bed, but he did not put out the light; he put a box
behind it to prevent its being seen, and drew out his paper and wrote.
The ballad was done, but he must make a fair copy for the
Maerchen-Frau; and very hard work it was, in his feverish excited
state, to write out a thing that was finished. He worked resolutely,
however, and at last completed it with trembling hands, and pushed it
under his pillow.

Then he sat up in bed, and looked round him.

Time passed, and still he sat shivering and clasping his knees, and
the reason he sat so was--because he dared not lie down.

The work was done, and the overstrained mind, no longer occupied,
filled with ghastly fears and fancies. He did not dare to put out the
light, and yet its faint glimmer only made the darkness more horrible.
He did not dare to look behind him, though he knew that there was
nothing there. He trembled at the scratching sound in the wainscot,
though he knew that it was only mice. A sudden light on the window,
and a distant chorus, did not make his heart beat less wildly from
being nothing more alarming than two or three noisy students going
home with torches. Then his light took the matter into its own hands,
and first flared up with a suddenness that almost made Friedrich jump
out of his skin, and then left him in total darkness. He could endure
no longer, and, scrambling out of bed, crossed the floor to where the
warm light came up the steps of the ladder from the room beneath.
There our hero crouched without daring to move, and comforted himself
with the sounds of life below. But it was very wearying, and yet he
dared not go back. A neighbour had "dropped in," and he could see
figures passing to and fro across the kitchen.

At last his sister passed, with the light shining on her golden
plaits, and he risked a low murmur of "Marie! Marie!"

She stopped an instant, and then passed on; but after a few minutes,
she returned, and came up the ladder with her finger on her lips to
enjoin silence. He needed no caution, being instinctively aware that
if one parental duty could be more obvious than another to the
tradesman, it would be that of crushing such folly as Friedrich was
displaying by timely severity. The boy crept back to bed, and Marie
came after him.

There are unheroic moments in the lives