The
responsibility which the King's presence cast upon me lay so
heavily upon my waking mind that I could not lie; and long before
the King's usual hour of rising I was at his door inquiring how
he did. No one knew, for the page whose turn it was to sleep at
his feet had not come out; but while I stood questioning, the
King's voice was heard, bidding me enter. I went in, and found
him sitting up with a haggard face, which told me, before he
spoke, that he had slept little better than I had. The shutters
were thrown wide open, and the cold morning light poured into the
room with an effect rather sombre than bright; the huge figures
on the tapestry looming huger from a drab and melancholy
background, and the chamber presenting all those features of
disorder that in a sleeping-room lie hid at night, only to show
themselves in a more vivid shape in the morning.
The King sent his page out, and bade me sit by him. "I have had
a bad night," he said, with a shudder. "Grand Master, I doubt
that astrologer was right, and I shall never see Germany, nor
carry out my designs.
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