months, he had led a life full of incidents of the
extremest contrasts. He had been alarmed, excited, menaced. His own
anguish had been submerged in the anguish of others, and their pangs had
only increased his own. From the ashes of a dead love, the flames of
another passionate illusion had flared up. Frederick had been driven,
pursued, lured on, led about in the world, without a will of his own,
like a puppy on a strap--without a will of his own and with his senses
departed. Now at last his senses had returned. And the senses return when
the life that has been lived in an unconscious state becomes material for
dreams to the mind in a conscious state.

Frederick took a sheet of paper, dipped a new American pen in a new
inkwell of fresh ink, and wrote: "Life: Material for Dreams."

He rose and again went about arranging his Robinson Crusoe household to
suit his fancy. He piled up books that he had got in New York, little
Reclams and other volumes, among them a copy of Schleiermacher's
translation of Plato, which he had borrowed from Peter Schmidt. In front
of an old Dutch sofa covered in leather, which Lamping, the druggist,
had brought over from Leyden, his birthplace, stood a large, round
table. Frederick covered the table with a green cloth and arranged the
long-stemmed roses that the artists had given him in plain glass vases,
placing Miss Burns's roses by themselves. Before Peter Schmidt had left,
he and Frederick had taken a cup of coffee together. Frederick now washed
and cleared away the utensils, loaded a revolver that Schmidt had lent
him, and placed it beside the inkstand on his writing table. Next he took
from his trunk a more peaceable instrument, a Zeiss microscope, examined
all its parts, and set it up. It was the microscope that he had selected
years ago in Jena for his friend, Peter, when he was leaving for America.
Here was a remarkable meeting with the old instrument.

There were more things that Frederick had to do. He had to take apart a
seaman's clock, put it together again and hang it on the wall. It was an
antique that he had come across that very day and secured at a low price
along with some furniture. To his joy the old grandfather began to tick
away at a proper, dignified pace on the wall at the foot of the bed.
There it was to remain in its brown case about three feet long until,
as Frederick inwardly vowed, he would return it to its home in Europe,
Schleswig-Holstein, for which it was pini