So she concealed herself behind the bellows that
were attached to the furnace, and there she was witness of events that
sent cold shivers down her back whenever she thought of them.
In his best holiday costume of black velvet puffed with silk he entered
the laboratory, holding himself very erect. The high, arched room was
only dimly lighted by a hanging-lamp, but when Frau Schimmel heard his
steps she shrank together till, as she fancied, she must have become
smaller and less easily discoverable. What she feared was that he might
start the furnace and she should be obliged to reveal herself because of
the heat.
But to her great relief he walked straight into the middle of the
laboratory and stopped directly under the lamp, which was suspended from
the point where the ribs of the vaulting intersected. There he waved a
fresh laurel branch towards every side of the room and called out the
same words and names that he had murmured by the bed-side of his son,
only louder and more imperiously.
To the listener it was perfectly clear that this was an invocation of
spirits, and her knees trembled under her, and her teeth chattered so
audibly that she feared he must hear her.
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