Now was the moment to rise into the sublime, and to trouble myself no longer about aught here below, but softly to devote myself to death. "Snatch me away," cried I, and, without thinking, cut three crosses; "quick, dispatch me, ye ghosts; I die more innocent than thousands of tyrants and blasphemers, to whom ye yet appear not, but to unpolluted me." Here I heard a sort of laugh, either on the street or in the side-room. At this warm human tone, I suddenly bloomed up again, as at the coming of a new Spring, in every twig and leaf. Wholly despising the winged coverlid, which was not now to be picked from the door, I laid myself down uncovered, but warm and perspiring from other causes, and soon fell asleep. For the rest, I am not the least ashamed, in the face of all refined capital cities,--though they were standing here at my hand,--that, by this Devil-belief and Devil-address, I have attained some likeness to our great German Lion, to Luther.
Early in the morning, I felt myself awakened by the well-known coverlid; it had laid itself on me like a nightmare; I gaped up; quiet, in a corner of the room, sat a red, round, blooming, decorated girl, like a full-blown tulip in the freshness of life, and gently rustling with gay ribbons as with leaves.
"Who's there--how came you in?" cried I, half-blind.
"I covered thee softly, and thought to let thee sleep," said Bergelchen; "I have walked all night to be here early; do but look!"
She showed me her boots, the only remnant of her travelling-gear which, in the moulting process of the toilette, she had not stript at the gate of Flätz.
"Is there," said I, alarmed at her coming six hours sooner, and the more, as I had been alarmed all night and was still so, at her mysterious entrance; "is there some fresh woe come over us, fire, murder, robbery?"
She answered: "The old Rat thou hast chased so long, died yesterday; further there was nothing of importance."
"And all has been managed rightly, and according to my Letter of Instructions, at home?" inquired I.
"Yes, truly," answered she; "only I did not see the Letter; it is lost; thou hast packed it among thy clothes."