Oswald shivered as if he had a fever. The momentary excitement after his long journey in the stage-coach had passed away; he felt tired and sick. He buttoned up his overcoat and turned to go back into the city. A carriage came rapidly towards him. A horseman with a lantern in his hand galloped before it--probably the same who before had galloped madly through the dark night into town. Could it be Doctor Braun, who was going away? The thought that he might possibly not find his friend at home, awakened in Oswald the desire to see him and to talk to him. In a few minutes--for the distances in Grunwald are not considerable--he stood before the house which the waiter had told him was Doctor Braun's house. The girl who opened the door said her master was at the privy councillor's, adding that he spent all his evenings there. Here Oswald was told that Bemperlein was in the sitting-room--Bemperlein, the only one, with the exception of old Baumann, who knew his relations to Frau von Berkow--the only one whom he feared to meet; whose reproachful glance, in case he should not yet have been informed of the most recent events, must be painful to him. He only remembered, when he was in the street again, that his going away in such a manner must have appeared extraordinary, if not ridiculous. This disturbed him and made him feel worse than before. He would have liked best to hide himself in the lowest depth of the earth; to forget in sleep the misery of life. In sleep? Why not in wine, when sleep is not to be had? "The best of life is but intoxication," says Byron; and there where a solitary lamp shines dimly between two stone pillars, is the entrance to the cellars of the old city hall. Down the long, broad staircase with the low steps, down into the bowels of the earth, where nobody cares for sentiments that make the heart heavy, and for thoughts that confuse the head! CHAPTER XVII.