nose--it having hung too far down over the garret hatch,
and he having mounted the ladder too quickly. Beside them the mice are
squeaking in the corners, a couple perhaps jump out of their holes and
after executing a short dance creep back into them again; a little
shiny white weasel is visible for a moment, lifting its clever little
head and forepaws in the air, peering and sniffing; and the single
sunbeam that enters through some hidden chink is so perfectly like a
gold thread that one would like to wind it around one's finger at once.

The cottage is not provided with a cellar but the burgher-house is,
though not indeed on account of the wine but of the potatoes and
turnips. The poorer classes keep these out doors under a goodly pile of
earth, which they raise above them in the autumn, and in winter, in time
of hard frost, carefully cover over with straw or dung as well.

Now to reach the cellar is really much more difficult than to climb to
the attic, but where is the child who does not know how to satisfy this
longing too in one way or another! He can go to the neighbors and hang
on coaxingly to the maid's apron when she goes down to get something, or
can even watch for the moment when the door is left open by mistake, and
venture down on his own account. That is dangerous to be sure, for the
door may be suddenly closed, and the sixteen-legged spiders, that crawl
around the walls in the most hideous deformed shapes, as well as the
trickling greenish water that gathers in the cavities intentionally left
here and there, do not invite one to tarry long. But what does it
matter? One has one's throat after all, and whoever screams lustily will
be heard sooner or later. Now if the house itself suffices, under all
circumstances, to make such an impression upon the child, how must the
town strike him! When he is taken along by mother or father for the
first time, he surely does not start to walk through the tangle of
streets without a feeling of astonishment, and it is still less likely
that he reaches home again without experiencing a sensation of
giddiness. Nay, be perhaps brings back lasting typical conceptions of
many objects, lasting in the sense that in after life they imperceptibly
stretch and widen _ad infinitum_, but never allow themselves to be
effaced; for the primitive impressions of things are indestructible and
maintain themselves against all later ones, no matter how far these, in
themselves, may surpass th