This belief became more and more fixed in his mind, so that he submitted to all the remedies prescribed without opposition and with far more patience than usual, and he even, often as a loving word to Edwin or Reginchen hovered on his lips, strictly observed the prohibition against speaking. He would lie half the day in a reverie, his eyes fixed upon the sorrowful plaster mask of the prisoner opposite him, composing verses which he hastily wrote down as soon as Edwin's back was turned. Even his old regret that he could not make up his mind to confess his secret to his brother, who never had one from him, no longer troubled him. When he had grown strong again and could at last go out into the world and cast aside all his premature renunciation of self, he would pour out his happiness, and compensate Edwin tenfold for what he had lost. All these thoughts had passed through his mind, while the leaves of the acacia were falling off, and Edwin wandered about with a wound that would not heal. The oppressive stillness that pervaded the tun, seemed to have affected the other lodgers in the house as well; they appeared to be in that uncomfortable, chilly autumn mood, in which man, like nature, gradually becomes silent, until the crackling flames in the stove beget encouragement and the lips of human beings once more unclose. Christiane's piano emitted no sound. The head journeyman, whose grumbling and scolding often echoed in the air as long as the windows of the work shop remained open, was no longer heard. In the rooms occupied by the old couple no one opened a window to look at the thermometer, which hung on the shady side of the house. They well knew it was no weather for a once famous tenor to expose his throat to the air. Even Herr Feyertag was in a bad humor, although an unusual number of jack-boots were ordered and business was very prosperous. His son, who had imbibed from Franzelius all sorts of wild communistic ideas, caused him a great deal of anxiety, and out ran with seven league boots that worthy citizen and man of progress, his father. All such cares seem doubly threatening in the autumn rain, and we are the more inclined to believe the end of the world is coming, when the summer sunlight has long lulled us into forgetfulness of all anxiety.