“It’s freshening up,” he said, and producing from his coat a loaf of bread, he broke it in three, so that everyone had as large a piece as he did. After that, he lifted off his riding-cape and fastened it himself about the shoulders of the sentinel ensign. Abashed over his own conduct, he then took the Holsteiner forcibly by the arm and led him up through the garden, while they chewed at their hard bread. Now if ever, thought the Holsteiner, is the time to win the king’s attention with a clever turn of speech and afterwards talk sense with him. “The accommodation might be better,” he began, at the same time biting and chewing. “Ah, good old days! That reminds me of a gallant adventure outside of Dresden.” The king kept on holding him by the arm, and the Holsteiner lowered his voice. The story was lively and salacious, and the king grew inquisitive. The roughest ambiguities always lured out his set smile. He listened with a despairing and half-absent man’s need of momentary diversion. Only when the Holsteiner with cunning deftness began to shift the conversation over to some words about their immediate danger did the king again become serious. “Bagatelle, bagatelle!” he replied. “It is nothing at all worth mentioning, except that we must behave ourselves well and sustain our reputation to the last man. If the rascals come on, we will all three place ourselves at the gate and pink them with our swords.” The Holsteiner stroked his forehead and felt around. He began to talk about the stars that were just shining out. He set forth a theory for measuring their distance from the earth. The king now listened to him with a quite different sort of attention. He broke into the question keenly, resourcefully, and with an unwearied desire to think out new, surprising methods in his own way. One assertion gave a hand to another, and soon the conversation dwelt on the universe and the immortality of the soul, to return afresh to the stars. More and more flickered in the heavens, and the king described what he knew about the sun-dial. He stood up his broadsword with its scabbard in the snow and directed the point toward the Polestar, so that next morning they might be able to tell the time. “The heart of the universe,” he said, “must be either the earth or the star that stands over the land of the Swedes. No land must be of more account than the Swedish land.” Outside the wall the Cossacks were calling out, but as soon as the Holsteiner led the talk to their threatened attack, the king was laconic. “At daybreak we shall betake ourselves back to Hadjash,” said he. “Before then we can hardly secure a third horse, so that each of us can ride comfortably in his own saddle.” After he had spoken in that strain he went back into the dwelling-house.