“It is a sin; it is a theft; it is an infamy,” he said slowly, his eyes fastened on the gilded feet of Hirschvogel.

“Oh, August, do not say such things of father!” sobbed his sister.  “Whatever he does, we ought to think it right.”

August laughed aloud.

“Is it right that he should spend his money in drink?—­that he should let orders lie unexecuted?—­that he should do his work so ill that no one cares to employ him?—­that he should live on grandfather’s charity, and then dare sell a thing that is ours every whit as much as it is his?  To sell Hirschvogel!  Oh, dear God!  I would sooner sell my soul!”

“August!” cried Dorothea, with piteous entreaty.  He terrified her, she could not recognise her little, gay, gentle brother in those fierce and blasphemous words.

August laughed aloud again; then all at once his laughter broke down into bitterest weeping.  He threw himself forward on the stove, covering it with kisses, and sobbing as though his heart would burst from his bosom.

What could he do?  Nothing, nothing, nothing!

“August, dear August,” whispered Dorothea piteously, and trembling all over—­for she was a very gentle girl, and fierce feeling terrified her—­“August, do not lie there.  Come to bed:  it is quite late.  In the morning you will be calmer.  It is horrible indeed, and we shall die of cold, at least the little ones; but if it be father’s will—­”

“Let me alone,” said August, through his teeth, striving to still the storm of sobs that shook him from head to foot.  “Let me alone.  In the morning!—­how can you speak of the morning?”

“Come to bed, dear,” sighed his sister.  “Oh, August, do not lie and look like that! you frighten me.  Do come to bed.”

“I shall stay here.”

“Here! all night!”

“They might take it in the night.  Besides, to leave it now.”

“But it is cold! the fire is out.”

“It will never be warm any more, nor shall we.”

All his childhood had gone out of him, all his gleeful, careless, sunny temper had gone with it; he spoke sullenly and wearily, choking down the great sobs in his chest.  To him it was as if the end of the world had come.

His sister lingered by him while striving to persuade him to go to his place in the little crowded bedchamber with Albrecht and Waldo and Christof.  But it was in vain.  “I shall stay here,” was all he answered her.  And he stayed—­all the night long.

The lamps went out; the rats came and ran across the floor; as the hours crept on through midnight and past, the cold intensified and the air of the room grew like ice.  August did not move; he lay with his face downward on the golden and rainbow hued pedestal of the household treasure, which henceforth was to be cold for evermore, an exiled thing in a foreign city in a far-off land.

Whilst yet it was dark his three elder brothers came down the stairs and let themselves out, each bearing his lantern and going to his work in stone-yard and timber-yard and at the salt-works.  They did not notice him; they did not know what had happened.