He liked best of all the narrow streets of the cities, when the gentle murmurings of song wafted forth from the open windows, or when the light from the lamp shone forth from the windows after they had been closed. He loved to pass by courts and cellars, gates and fences; when the face of an old man, or that of a young girl, came suddenly to view, when workmen went home from the factories, or soldiers from the barracks, or seamen from the harbours, he saw a story in each of them; he felt as one feels on reading an exciting book. One day when he was in Cleve he walked the streets at night all alone. He noticed a man and a woman and five children, all poorly dressed, standing near a church. Lying before them on the pavement were several bundles containing their earthly possessions. A man came up after a while and addressed them in a stern, domineering tone; they picked up their bundles and followed him: it was a mournful procession. They were emigrants; the man had told them about their ship. Daniel felt as if a cord in his soul had been made taut and were vibrating without making a sound. The steps of the eight people, as they died away in the distance, developed gradually into a rhythmical, musical movement. What had been confused became ordered; what had been dark shone forth in light. Weighed down with heaviness of soul, he went on, his eyes fixed on the ground as if he were looking for something. He no longer saw, nor could he hear. Nor did he know what time it was. After a year and a half of congealed torpidity, the March wind once more began to blow in his soul. But it was like a disease; he was being consumed with impatience. His immediate goal was the cloister of Œsede at Osnabrück, and from there he wanted to go to Berlin. He could not bear to sit in the railway carriages: in Wesel he placed his trunk on a freight train, and went from there on foot, his top-coat hung over his arm, his knapsack strapped across his back. Despite the inclement weather he walked from eight to ten hours every day. It was towards the end of October, the mornings and evenings were chilly, the roads were muddy, the inns were wretched. This did not deter him from going on: he walked and walked, sought and sought, often until late at night, passionately absorbed in himself. When he came to the coal and iron district, he raised his head more and more frequently. The houses were black, the earth and the air were black, blackened men met him on the road. Copper wires hummed in the fog and mist, hammers clinked, wheels hummed, chimneys smoked, whistles blew—it was like a dream vision, like the landscape of an unknown and accursed star.