The work was done, and the overstrained mind, no longer occupied, filled with ghastly fears and fancies.  He did not dare to put out the light, and yet its faint glimmer only made the darkness more horrible.  He did not dare to look behind him, though he knew that there was nothing there.  He trembled at the scratching sound in the wainscot, though he knew that it was only mice.  A sudden light on the window, and a distant chorus, did not make his heart beat less wildly from being nothing more alarming than two or three noisy students going home with torches.  Then his light took the matter into its own hands, and first flared up with a suddenness that almost made Friedrich jump out of his skin, and then left him in total darkness.  He could endure no longer, and, scrambling out of bed, crossed the floor to where the warm light came up the steps of the ladder from the room beneath.  There our hero crouched without daring to move, and comforted himself with the sounds of life below.  But it was very wearying, and yet he dared not go back.  A neighbour had “dropped in,” and he could see figures passing to and fro across the kitchen.

At last his sister passed, with the light shining on her golden plaits, and he risked a low murmur of “Marie!  Marie!”

She stopped an instant, and then passed on; but after a few minutes, she returned, and came up the ladder with her finger on her lips to enjoin silence.  He needed no caution, being instinctively aware that if one parental duty could be more obvious than another to the tradesman, it would be that of crushing such folly as Friedrich was displaying by timely severity.  The boy crept back to bed, and Marie came after him.

There are unheroic moments in the lives of the greatest of men, and though when the head is strong and clear, and there is plenty of light and good company, it is highly satisfactory and proper to smile condescension upon female inanity, there are times when it is not unpleasant to be at the mercy of kind arms that pity without asking a reason, and in whose presence one may be foolish without shame.  And it is not ill, perhaps, for some of us, whose acutely strung minds go up with every discovery, and down with every doubt, if we have some humble comforter (whether woman or man) on whose face a faithful spirit has set the seal of peace—­a face which in its very steadfastness is “as the face of an angel.”

Such a face looked down upon Friedrich, before which fancied horrors fled; and he wound his arms round Marie’s neck, and laid down his head, and was comfortable, if not sublime.

After a dozen or so of purposeless kisses, she spoke—­

“What is it, my beloved?”

“I—­I don’t think I can get to sleep,” said the poet.

Marie abstained from commenting on this remark, and Friedrich was silent and comfortable.  So comfortable that, though he despised her opinion on such matters he asked it in a low whisper—­“Marie, dost thou not think it would be the very best thing in the world to be a great man?  To labour and labour for it, and be a great man at last?”