At that moment, as if forcibly roused by some one violently wrenching me about, I awoke! The laughter still continued in the room. I raised myself up. The morning had broken in bright gleams through the window, and I actually beheld at the table, with his back turned towards me, a figure dressed in the capuchin habit! I was petrified with horror. The abominable dream had started into real life! The capuchin tossed and tumbled among the things which lay upon the table, till by accident he turned round, and thereupon I recovered all my courage, for his visage, thank Heaven, was _not mine_! Certain features, indeed, bore the closest resemblance, but I was in health and vigour; he was, on the contrary, worn and emaciated, disguised too by an overgrown head of hair, and grizzly black beard. Moreover, his eyes rolled and glared with the workings of a thoughtless and vacant delirium. I resolved not to give any alarm, but remain quietly on the watch for whatever he might do, and not interrupt him unless he attempted something formidably mischievous, for my stiletto lay near me on the bed, and on that account, together with my superior strength, I could soon be completely master of this intruder. He appeared to look at, and to play with, the things that lay upon the table, as a child would do with toys; especially, he seemed delighted with the red _portefeuille_, which he turned over and over towards the light of the window, at the same time making strange grimaces, and jumping up like a patient in the dance of St Vitus. At last, he found the bottle with the rest of the Devil's Elixir, which he directly opened and smelt at; then he seemed to tremble convulsively through every limb. He uttered a loud and indescribable cry--"He, he, he!--He, he, he!" which echoed in faltering reverberations through the room, and passages. A clear-toned clock in the house just then struck three (but the hour must have been much later.) Thereupon, to my great annoyance, he lifted up his voice, and howled as if seized by some horrible torment; then broke out once more into the same shrill laughter that I had heard in my dream. He heaved himself about into the wildest attitudes and caprioles, concluding with a long draught from the bottle with the Devil's Elixir, which (after having exhausted the last drops) he then hurled from him against the wall, and ran out at the door. I now instantly rose up and looked after him, but he was already out of sight, and I heard him clamping and clattering down a distant staircase; and, lastly, the violent hollow clank of a door, as he closed it after him.