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 forevermore, 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.

A little later his sister came down with a light in her hand to make ready the house ere morning should break.

She stole up to him and laid her hand on his shoulder timidly.

“Dear August, you must be frozen.  August, do look up! do speak!”

August raised his eyes with a wild, feverish, sullen look in them that she had never seen there.  His face was ashen white; his lips were like fire.  He had not slept all night; but his passionate sobs had given way to delirious waking dreams and numb senseless trances, which had alternated one on another all through the freezing, lonely, horrible hours.