and had sat
all his life, year in, year out, under his glass globe of water,[A]
tapping away on leather. He was unmarried, lived much alone and since
he was industrious and economical, he had laid up a comfortable little
property. And there he sat under his glass globe and nothing whatever
happened. But gradually the globe began to look more and more strange
to him. It flashed upon him and dazzled him, so that he sometimes felt
for a moment a certain unacknowledged fear of it. It seemed to grow
bigger and bigger, until at last the time came when Engelhardt's hair
stood on end with horror--

[Footnote A: German shoemakers used a glass globe full of water placed
in front of their lamp, to concentrate the light upon their work.]

[Illustration: HERA]

And thenceforth he suffered from the strange and terrible delusion that
he was the centre of the universe and that it was his task to keep the
whole world in equilibrium. The myriad forces of all creation were
united in him and he felt with agonizing constancy, how the suns and
the planets were circling about him, and how everything was rushing and
whirling through space. If a chain of skaters revolves around one man
who is in the middle, that man will feel the extraordinary force with
which the two rushing wings whirl around him, and he will be obliged to
exert all his strength to maintain his position. Engelhardt felt
precisely so and since his efforts were unremitting, his delusion
exhausted him to such an extent, that in one year he had aged as if in
ten. Even if--so he said--the heavenly bodies had been so marvelously
ordained by the almighty Creator, that through all eternity they
revolved in their foreordained circles and spirals (as he said), yet he
suffered beyond endurance from the slightest disturbance in outer
space. During the winter he had been unable to sleep for two weeks,
because a swiftly moving star was pulling at him. Curiously enough, at
this very time a comet appeared which astonished all the astronomers.
Just then Schwindt, an attendant, had died under peculiar circumstances
and Engelhardt--as he himself said--had _drunk in_ his soul, from which
he had gained fresh strength, sufficient to last him throughout the
spring and summer. But now again his task was wearing him out more
every day and his powers were failing rapidly. The shooting stars and
the swarms of meteors dragged at him, until he became dizzy, and
especially the moon exerted at this pe