e yearning.--

When he awoke, he saw his room filled with bright daylight. In
perplexed haste he bethought himself where he was, and got up to open
the curtains. The late summer blue of the sky, already a trifle pale,
was traversed by thin cloud strips, ragged out by the wind; but the sun
was shining above his native city.

He took more pains than usual with his toilet, washed and shaved with
great care, and made himself as fresh and neat as if he were planning
to make a call in some aristocratic, highly proper house, where it was
necessary to make a smart and irreproachable impression; and during the
manipulations of dressing he listened to the alarmed throbbing of his
heart.

How bright it was outside. He would have felt more comfortable if there
had been twilight in the streets, as when he came; but now he was to
walk through the bright sunshine under the people's eyes. Would he hit
upon acquaintances, he stopped and questioned, and have to give an
account of how he had spent these thirteen years? No, thank the Lord,
no one would know him any more, and those who remembered him would not
recognize him, for he had really altered a little in the meantime. He
regarded himself attentively in the mirror, and suddenly felt more
secure behind his mask, behind his prematurely work-lined face, which
was older than his years ... He sent for breakfast and then went out,
out through the vestibule past the appraising glances of the porter and
the elegant gentleman in black, out into the open between the two
lions.

Whither was he going! He hardly knew. It was like yesterday. Scarcely
did he again see himself surrounded by this queerly venerable and
eternally familiar mixture of gables, turrets, arcades, and fountains,
scarcely did he again feel on his face the pressure of the wind, the
strong wind that brought with it a delicate and pungent aroma from
far-away dreams, than something like a veil, a fabric of fog, enveloped
his senses ... The muscles of his face relaxed; and with quieted eyes
he contemplated men and things. Perhaps he would awake none the less on
that street corner yonder ...

Whither was he going? It seemed to him as if the direction he took had
some connection with his sad and strangely penitent dreams by night ...
To the market he went, through the vaulted arches of the city hall,
where butchers weighed their wares with blood-stained hands, and to the
market-place, where the high, pointed, and variegated Go