Balder had begged me to give him a bed for the night. He was going to a ball that evening, and had business early the following morning in Berlin. He lived in such an out-of-the-way suburb that it would be quite impossible for him to go home to sleep. I was only too delighted to be of service to him. Although I could not offer him a bed, it would be easy to improvise a shakedown on which he could have a few hours’ rest. I set to work at once, and did the best I could for him, using a bundle of rags for the pillows, and my old dressing-gown for the mattress. When Balder saw it, he declared that nothing could be more to his taste.

It was long past midnight, when I was awakened from a refreshing sleep by somebody fumbling with a key at the lock of my door. Several bungling attempts were made before the key was fitted into the lock successfully. At last, Balder walked into my room. He presented rather a comical appearance, with his crush-hat on one side of his head like the leaning tower of Pisa, and a short overcoat, with his long tail-coat peeping beneath. His face was flushed, partly with excitement, and he appeared possessed of a burning desire to relate his adventures to somebody. I had been looking at him with one eye; the other, nearest him, I kept tight shut, and did not move, for I had no desire to enter into conversation with him. But my friend was not so easily shaken in his purpose; he came close to my bedside, stepping on my boot-jack, so that it fell over with a terrible noise, and held the lighted candle within a few inches of my nose. It was impossible for even the most shameless shammer of sleep to hold out any longer. I opened my eyes, and said in the sleepiest tone I could assume:

“Enjoyed yourself?”

“Famously, my dear fellow,” answered Balder, seating himself on the side of my bed, although I forestalled his intention, and left hardly an inch for him to sit on. Then he entered into a long and not very lucid rigmarole on souls which are destined to come together. The story was rendered all the more difficult to understand from the fact that I kept falling asleep, and dreaming between his rhapsodies; but I gathered that Balder had met with a young Spanish lady at the mask ball, who apparently possessed the soul which he was fated to meet, and that she was the only person on earth who could make him happy. He had spent the whole evening with her, and she had promised to meet him at the next ball. At his request she had lifted her veil for one instant, revealing a face of Madonna-like beauty. It was a simple story, but when a man’s brain is fired with love he lingers over it. The words grace, Southern colouring, eyes like a gazelle, etc., must have been repeated very often, for I dreamed later on that I was repeating them to myself.

I bore it all patiently, for hospitality is a sacred duty, and, besides, the state which Balder’s mind was in demanded and deserved consideration.

As he went on with his story, he raised his voice, perhaps to rouse my flagging attention. Suddenly, somebody coughed in the next room. It was not a natural cough, but an artificial one, evidently intended by my landlady to serve as a gentle reminder that at two o’clock in the morning all respectable people should be in bed and quiet. My room was only separated from the apartment in which my landlady and her daughter slept by a door, which was hidden on either side by a high wardrobe, through which, in spite of this precaution, voices could be heard very distinctly. I informed Balder of this fact, but, unfortunately, he utterly refused to take my advice and go quietly to bed. He said he could not sleep, and, unhappily, catching sight of my coffee-machine, he added that he would like some coffee.

“Sleep if you can,” he said; “I can manage it all for myself.” He then removed his coat, dressed himself in the dressing-gown which acted as his mattress, and started to get some water from the kitchen, knocking things down on the way, and opening and shutting all the wrong doors. I became resigned, and made up my mind not to waste my breath on any fresh warnings. Somebody else coughed. It was FrÄulein Lieschen this time, my landlady’s daughter. At any other time, Balder himself would have shown more consideration.

Most extraordinary noises proceeded from the water-tap in the kitchen. At last the kitchen door banged, and Balder re-appeared again. I expressed my regret that I had no methylated spirit, but he said it did not matter, and catching hold of a bottle of my expensive brandy, poured a lot into the lamp. Then he sat gazing into the blue flame without blinking.

Crash! went the glass globe, and the boiling water poured all over the table and put out the fire. I sprang out of my bed. “Good gracious!” I exclaimed, “the whole thing will explode.” He said nothing, but began to pick up the hot pieces of glass patiently. The coughing in the next room became louder than ever.

“For heaven’s sake!” I went on, “try to be quiet if you can. The people in the next room want to go to sleep. Don’t you hear them coughing?”

“Well! I never heard of such impudence! That coughing has disturbed me for some time. Anybody would think you’d got into an almshouse for old women—Where is the sugar?”

“Up there, in the cigar-box. But don’t knock that rapier down.”

Balder climbed up on a cane chair. It gave way. Klirr! The rapier fell on the floor, and Balder with it.

“Confound you, do take care. Didn’t I warn you?” An energetic knocking at the door of communication interrupted me.

“Herr Reif, I must really beg you to be quiet,” called my landlady’s daughter, not by any means in her sweetest tones. “We’ve been kept awake for the last hour.”

“That’s nothing to us,” said Balder from the floor, where he was groping for the rapier that had rolled under the wardrobe.

“Do be quiet! That is my landlady’s daughter, a very respectable girl—”

“Well, is nobody respectable except her? What do you pay rent for?” His face grew red with rage, and, placing his mouth close to the door, he called out, “What do you want with Reif? He’s in bed. I only wanted to reach down the sugar, and the old rapier fell on my head—a thing that might happen to anybody! Just lie down quietly and go to sleep. Such a fuss about nothing! Are we in a hospital?”

“Do be quiet, Balder!” I begged, and my pleading at least had the effect of silencing whatever else was on his tongue. He thought no more of the sugar, but sat at the table and drank his self-brewed coffee without it. When he had finished it he lighted a cigarette, at which he puffed away till the room was full of smoke. As I lay and looked at him, I fell into that peaceful state in which dreaming and reality are so much mixed that it is hard to distinguish between them. And then Balder disappeared in clouds of smoke, and I heard and saw no more. I was awakened again by a light being held near my face. Balder was standing at my bedside with the candle in his hand. “Ah! I’m glad you’ve been asleep again!” he said, as I half-opened my eyes and looked at him. “I want to make a poem to my Spaniard. Have you got a rhyming dictionary anywhere about?”

“There, on the lowest shelf of the bookcase, but do be quiet.”

He got the book without knocking anything down; refilled his coffee-cup, and leant back in his chair, and murmured—

Sleep again overpowered me, and I knew nothing till I was awakened by a noisy discussion taking place close to me. Balder stood with his face to the door, engaged in a hot dispute with my neighbours.

“The devil himself couldn’t collect his thoughts with that coughing going on,” he was saying as I woke up.

“I was coughing to make you quiet, that endless murmuring made me so nervous!” cried FrÄulein Lieschen, her voice trembling with annoyance.

I’m writing a poem, I tell you, and when one is composing a poem one must murmur. If you can’t sleep through it, you can’t be healthy. You must have eaten too much supper, or something. You can congratulate yourself that you’ve got such a lodger as Reif. Do you understand me? If you had me I’d teach you——”

Again and again, in as persuasive a voice as I could assume, I begged the orator at the wardrobe to put an end to the speech he was delivering on his views of a landlady’s duties towards her tenants. At length my patience gave way, and, sitting up in bed, I commanded him in a voice of authority to give, over his poetry and recitation, and to blow out the light and get into bed. Balder at length seemed to realise that he was trespassing on my hospitality, and that a certain amount of respect was due to my wishes as his host. He became silent; put his manuscript carefully into my dressing-gown pocket; cast one last fiery glance at the door, and retired to bed.

I do not know if he saw the daughter of sunny Spain, with her gazelle-like eyes in his dreams, but I do know that he snored as if he were dreaming of a saw-mill.

About three hours later, the winter daylight struggled into the room. Balder got up and dressed himself as quietly as a mouse. He seemed as though he was trying to make up for the disturbance he had made in the night, or, rather, in the morning. He excused himself most politely for waking me up, but said that he felt that he could not leave without saying good-bye, and thanking me for my kind hospitality. Then he left the room, closing the door softly behind him. At the same moment, I heard the door of my landlady’s room open. Half a minute’s dead silence followed, and then Balder fell back into my room like one stunned.

“Who is that girl that came out of the next room?” he asked breathlessly.

“FrÄulein Lieschen, of course, the daughter of my landlady, to whom you were kind enough to deliver a lecture in the middle of the night——”

“She is my Spanish girl!” he gasped, grinding his teeth, and shaking his head disconsolately. He took a long time to recover himself. He sat down again on the side of my bed, as he had done on his return from the ball. But in what a different mood! He made me swear to him that I would never reveal his name to FrÄulein Lieschen, but that I would excuse him without giving any clue to his identity, for the disturbance he had caused in the night. This duty I willingly undertook.

FrÄulein Lieschen, who was a good-natured girl, looked at the matter from the comical side, and readily accepted my unknown friend’s apology; and whenever we met on the stairs after that, she would say jokingly, “Please remember me to your funny friend!”