Midnight
It was not very cold in this lumber-room ; it was tightly shut up , and very full of things , and at the back of it were the hot pipes of an adjacent house , where a great deal of fuel was burnt . Moreover , August 's clothes were warm ones , and his blood was young . So he was not cold , though Munich is terribly cold in the nights of December ; and he slept on and on , -- which was a comfort to him , for he forgot his woes , and his perils , and his hunger , for a time . Midnight was once more chiming from all the brazen tongues of the city when he awoke , and , all being still around him , ventured to put his head out of the brass door of the stove to see why such a strange bright light was round him . It was a very strange and brilliant light indeed ; and yet , what is perhaps still stranger , it did not frighten or amaze him , nor did what he saw alarm him either , and yet I think it would have done you or me . For what he saw was nothing less than all the _ bric-à-brac _ in motion . A big jug , an Apostel-Krug , of Kruessen , was solemnly dancing a minuet with a plump Faenza jar ; a tall Dutch clock was going through a gavotte with a spindle-legged ancient chair ; a very droll porcelain figure of Littenhausen was bowing to a very stiff soldier in _ terre cuite _ of Ulm ; an old violin of Cremona was playing itself , and a queer little shrill plaintive music that thought itself merry came from a painted spinet covered with faded roses ; some gilt Spanish leather had got up on the wall and laughed ; a Dresden mirror was tripping about , crowned with flowers , and a Japanese bonze was riding along on a griffin ; a slim Venetian rapier had come to blows with a stout Ferrara sabre , all about a little pale-faced chit of a damsel in white Nymphenburg china ; and a portly Franconian pitcher in _ grès gris _ was calling aloud , `` Oh , these Italians !