The city cellars of Grunwald cannot rival those of Bremen, but nevertheless they are very respectable cellars. The low, spacious vaults stretch far under the city hall, and extend even below the market-place, on which it is situated. There are rooms enough that have in former days served as drinking rooms of every size, and may even to-day be used for larger and smaller companies, but what is most needed is wanting--the guests. The good old times, when Grunwald was wealthy and powerful, are no longer. Those who built these vaults and filled them with ringing of cups, with songs of cheerful converse--the honorable sober-minded burgesses with their broad shoulders, their full, well-trimmed beards, and the broad-swords by their sides--they sleep, all of them, sound, good sleep in the old graveyards, or under the huge slabs of stone with which the churches are paved, if they were members of the council, or otherwise great men, and there "await a blissful resurrection." Their grandchildren crowd together in dark, narrow chambers, and drink stale brown beer, instead of fiery, golden wine; many a one, whose ancestor went down these steps day by day, whenever the rosy summer evening was lying on the high gable roofs, or the storms of winter were careering through the dark, narrow streets, hardly knows how it looks down there in the city cellars. Nevertheless they do not seem to be entirely deserted by the good people of Grunwald. The dim little lamp at the entrance burns night after night--often far into the small hours, sometimes till daybreak--and the solemn citizen who has been belated at some Christening feast or other great festivity, and now walks home with wife and daughter in the silent night through the deserted streets, and past the city cellars, often sees a dim light shine through the unwashed windows, and hears perhaps low confused voices, which seem to rise from the bowels of the earth and make an uncanny impression at that hour and in that place.