“There, on the lowest shelf of the bookcase, but do be quiet.”
He got the book without knocking anything down; refilled his coffee-cup, and leant back in his chair, and murmured—
“Where shall I meet thee?
On the Guadelquiver?
“On the Sequara? On the fair Zucar?
“Or any other far-off Spanish river.....”
Sleep again overpowered me, and I knew nothing till I was awakened by a noisy discussion taking place close to me. Balder stood with his face to the door, engaged in a hot dispute with my neighbours.
“The devil himself couldn’t collect his thoughts with that coughing going on,” he was saying as I woke up.
“I was coughing to make you quiet, that endless murmuring made me so nervous!” cried Fräulein Lieschen, her voice trembling with annoyance.
“I’M GLAD YOU’VE BEEN ASLEEP.”
I’m writing a poem, I tell you, and when one is composing a poem one must murmur. If you can’t sleep through it, you can’t be healthy. You must have eaten too much supper, or something. You can congratulate yourself that you’ve got such a lodger as Reif. Do you understand me? If you had me I’d teach you——”
Again and again, in as persuasive a voice as I could assume, I begged the orator at the wardrobe to put an end to the speech he was delivering on his views of a landlady’s duties towards her tenants. At length my patience gave way, and, sitting up in bed, I commanded him in a voice of authority to give, over his poetry and recitation, and to blow out the light and get into bed. Balder at length seemed to realise that he was trespassing on my hospitality, and that a certain amount of respect was due to my wishes as his host. He became silent; put his manuscript carefully into my dressing-gown pocket; cast one last fiery glance at the door, and retired to bed.