So went matters the first day. The following morning I arose to find myself quite as firm as before, but somewhat less disposed towards jocosity. I abused my imbecility with as much vigour as yesterday, but with fewer quips and humours. I began to see that, for such a fool as I had proved myself, stringent means were best; I ought to be too much ashamed of the affair to laugh at it or treat it lightly. Accordingly, I went about all day with a sour and malignant expression of countenance: whenever old Joanna, the maidservant, happened to venture into my apartments, I growled like a dangerous dog at her: and I gave her my orders that no visitor was to be admitted, and no letters or messages were to be brought up, in a tone of such energy and menace, that you would have thought my privacy was as important and as liable to intrusion as Chancellor Bismarck's: instead of which, the only person I knew in Dresden, after my six months' residence there, was the German-American banker; and it was not likely that he would give himself the trouble to visit me--no, indeed! for my whole yearly revenue (not including the sums received for my pictures, because I had never yet sold any) did not reach fifteen hundred thalers; and though I knew that at least twelve per cent. of this sum went into my German-American friend's pocket under the name of 'commission,' yet even that _douceur_ would not suffice to bring him a mile and a half away into the outskirts of the Neustadt, and up three flights of dark and devious staircases, to pay me a complimentary call. However, had he, in spite of probability, actually made his appearance, I should not have hesitated, in my then state of mind, to kick him downstairs again. Well, that day passed, and was followed by a restless and weary night; and I awoke in the morning to confront the fact that my attack had now lasted no less than forty-two mortal hours, and, so far from abating, showed every symptom of being on the increase. I was now seriously alarmed. Here was I grappling with an insidious and potent enemy, who apparently knew all my weak places, and how to take advantage of them, but of the proper methods of defending myself against whom I was fatally and completely ignorant. I had done what I could, only to prove that I could do nothing: and in this case, doing nothing was not a negative but a positive evil. The more I pondered over my helplessness, the more disturbed did I become. What did it all mean? What should I do? What was to be the end of it?