hung.  They were all draped in black crape; the violin of the old master was missing; in its place was a cypress wreath.  I knew what had happened.  “Antonia!  Antonia!” I cried, in inconsolabie grief.  The Councillor, with his arms crossed on his breast, stood beside me, as if turned into stone.  I pointed to the cypress wreath.  “When she died,” said he, in a very hoarse solemn voice, “when she died, the sound-post of that violin broke into pieces with a ringing crack, and the sound-board was split from end to end.  The faithful instrument could only live with her and in her; it lies beside her in the coffin, it has been buried with her.”  Deeply agitated, I sank down upon a chair, whilst the Councillor began to sing a gay song in a husky voice; it was truly horrible to see him hopping about on one foot, and the crape strings (he still had his hat on) flying about the room and up to the violins hanging on the walls.  Indeed, I could not repress a loud cry that rose to my lips when, on the Councillor making an abrupt turn, the crape came all over me; I fancied he wanted to envelop me in it and drag me down into the horrible dark depths of insanity.  Suddenly he stood still and addressed me in his singing way, “My son! my son! why do you call out?  Have you espied the angel of death?  That always precedes the ceremony.”  Stepping into the middle of the room, he took the violin-bow out of his sword-belt, and, holding it over his head with both hands, broke it into a thousand pieces.  Then, with a loud laugh, he cried, “Now you imagine my sentence is pronounced, don’t you, my son? but it’s nothing of the kind—­not at all! not at all!  Now I’m free—­free—­ free—­hurrah!  I’m free!  Now I shall make no more violins—­no more violins—­hurrah! no more violins!” This he sang to a horrible mirthful tune, again spinning round on one foot.  Perfectly aghast, I was making the best of my way to the door, when he held me fast, saying quite calmly, “Stay, my student friend, pray don’t think from this outbreak of grief, which is torturing me as if with the agonies of death, that I am insane; I only do it because a short time ago I made myself a dressing-gown in which I wanted to look like Fate or like God!” The Councillor then went on with a medley of silly and awful rubbish, until he fell down utterly exhausted; I called up the old housekeeper, and was very pleased to find myself in the open air again.

I never doubted for a moment that Krespel had become insane; the Professor, however, asserted the contrary.  “There are men,” he remarked, “from whom nature or a special destiny has taken away the cover behind which the mad folly of the rest of us runs its course unobserved.  They are like thin-skinned insects, which, as we watch the restless play of their muscles, seem to be misshapen, while nevertheless everything soon comes back into its proper form again.  All that with us remains thought passes over with Krespel into action.  That bitter scorn which the spirit