I wonder whether my tongue is cleaving to my palate from dread of your over-hasty courage, or whether it is really so terribly sultry here!" "At any rate," Heinz interrupted, "a cup of wine will harm neither of us; for I myself feel how oppressive the air is.

Besides, it is light in the tavern, and who knows what the little note will tell me." Meanwhile they passed the end of St.Klarengasse and went up to the green bush, which projected from the end of a pole far out into the street.
Soldiers in the pay of the city, and men-at-arms in the employ of the Emperor and the princes who had come to attend the Reichstag, were sitting over their wine in the tavern.

From the ceiling hung two crossed iron triangles, forming a six-pointed star.

The tallow candles burning low in their sockets, which it contained, and some pitch-pans in the corners, diffused but a dim light through the long apartment.
Master and man found an empty table apart from the other guests, in a niche midway down the rear wall.
Without heeding the brawling and swearing, the rude songs and disorderly shouts, the drumming of clenched fists upon the oak tables, the wild laughter of drunken soldiers, the giggling and screeching of bar-maids, and the scolding and imperious commands of the host, they proved that the green bush had not lied, for the wine really did come from a freshly opened cask just brought up from the cellar.

But as the niche was illumined only by the tiny oil lamp burning beneath the image of the Virgin, bedizened with flowers and gold and silver tinsel, fastened against the wall, Biberli asked the weary bar-maid for a brighter light.
When the girl withdrew he sighed heavily, saying: "O my lord, if you only knew! Even now, when we are again among men and the wine has refreshed me, I feel as if rats were gnawing at my soul.