And he slept.
The following day—it was the third day the booth had been shut up—the snow drifted no longer, and the neighbours went to see about Anthon, who had not yet shown himself. They found him lying stiff and dead, with his old nightcap pressed between his hands. They did not put it upon him in his coffin—he had also another which was clean and white.
Where now were the tears he had wept? Where were these pearls? They remained in the nightcap. Such precious things do not pass away in the washing. They were preserved and forgotten with the nightcap. The old thoughts, the old dreams—yes, they remained still in the old bachelor's nightcap. Wish not for that. It will make your brow too hot, make your pulses beat too violently, bring dreams that seem reality. This was proved by the first person who put it on—and that was not till fifty years after—by the burgomaster himself, who was blessed with a wife and eleven children. He dreamt of unhappy love, bankruptcy, and short commons.
"How warm this nightcap is!" he exclaimed, as he dragged it off. Then pearl after pearl began to fall from it, and they jingled and glittered. "I must have got the rheumatism in my head," said the burgomaster. "Sparks seem falling from my eyes."
They were tears wept half a century before—wept by old Anthon from Eisenach.
Whoever has since worn that nightcap has sure enough had visions and dreams; his own history has been turned into Anthon's; his dream has become quite a tale, and there were many of them. Let others relate the rest. We have now told the first, and with it our last words are—Never covet an old bachelor's nightcap.
