The dealers undid the shutters, scaring the redbreast away, and
then tramped about in their heavy boots and chattered in contented
voices, and began to wrap up the stove once more in all its straw
and hay and cordage.
It never once occurred to them to glance inside. Why should they
look inside a stove that they had bought and were about to sell
again for all its glorious beauty of exterior?
The child still did not feel afraid. A great exaltation had come
to him: he was like one lifted up by his angels.
Presently the two traders called up their porters, and the stove,
heedfully swathed and wrapped and tended as though it were some
sick prince going on a journey, was borne on the shoulders of six
stout Bavarians down the stairs and out of the door into the
Marienplatz. Even behind all those wrappings August felt the icy
bite of the intense cold of the outer air at dawn of a winter's
day in Munich. The men moved the stove with exceeding gentleness
and care, so that he had often been far more roughly shaken in his
big brothers' arms than he was in his journey now; and though both
hunger and thirst made themselves felt, being foes that will take
no denial, he was still in that state of nervous exaltation which
deadens all physical suffering and is at once a cordial and an
opiate. He had heard Hirschvogel speak; that was enough.
Pages:
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70