tour and explore the country.  I was only too pleased, and we started.  It was glorious weather, and we enjoyed ourselves hugely.  On the third night after we had started we arrived at a village called Salzheim.  It was a picturesque little place, and there was a curious old church in it with some interesting tombs and relics of the Thirty Years War.  But the inn where we put up for the night was even more picturesque than the church.  It had been a convent for nuns, only the greater part of it had been burnt, and only a quaint gabled house, and a kind of tower covered with ivy, which I suppose had once been the belfry, remained.  We had an excellent supper and went to bed early.  We had been given two bedrooms, which were airy and clean, and altogether we were satisfied.  My bedroom opened into Braun’s, which was beyond it, and had no other door of its own.  It was a hot night in July, and Braun asked me to leave the door open.  I did—­we opened both the windows.  Braun went to bed and fell asleep almost directly, for very soon I heard his snores.

“I had imagined that I was longing for sleep, but no sooner had I got into bed than all my sleepiness left me.  This was odd, because we had walked a good many miles, and it had been a blazing hot day, and up till then I had slept like a log the moment I got into bed.  I lit a candle and began reading a small volume of Heine I carried with me.  I heard the clock strike ten, and then eleven, and still I felt that sleep was out of the question.  I said to myself:  ’I will read till twelve and then I will stop.’  My watch was on a chair by my bedside, and when the clock struck eleven I noticed that it was five minutes slow, and set it right.  I could see the church tower from my window, and every time the clock struck—­and it struck the quarters—­the noise boomed through the room.

“When the clock struck a quarter to twelve I yawned for the first time, and I felt thankful that sleep seemed at last to be coming to me.  I left off reading, and taking my watch in my hand I waited for midnight to strike.  This quarter of an hour seemed an eternity.  At last the hands of my watch showed that it was one minute to twelve.  I put out my candle and began counting sixty, waiting for the clock to strike.  I had counted a hundred and sixty, and still the clock had not struck.  I counted up to four hundred; then I thought I must have made a mistake.  I lit my candle again, and looked at my watch:  it was two minutes past twelve.  And still the clock had not struck!

“A curious uncomfortable feeling came over me, and I sat up in bed with my watch in my hand and longed to call Braun, who was peacefully snoring, but I did not like to.  I sat like this till a quarter past twelve; the clock struck the quarter as usual.  I made up my mind that the clock must have struck twelve, and that I must have slept for a minute—­at the same time I knew I had not slept—­and I put out my candle.  I must have fallen asleep almost directly.