CHAPTER XI

As I once scotched my boots on the shores of the north and gathered

lichens and sea-weed, an ice-bear came unawares upon me round the

corner of a rock. Flinging off my slippers, I would step over to an

opposite island, to which a naked crag which protruded midway from

the waves offered me a passage. I stepped with one foot firmly on

the rock, and plunged over on the other side into the sea, one of my

slippers having unobserved remained fast on the foot.

The excessive cold seized on me; I with difficulty rescued my life

from this danger; and the moment I reached land, I ran with the utmost

speed to the Lybyan desert in order to dry myself in the sun, but,

as I was here exposed, it burned me so furiously on the head that I

staggered back again very ill toward the north. I sought to relieve

myself by rapid motion, and ran with swift, uncertain steps, from west

to east, from east to west. I found myself now in the day, now in the

night; now in summer, now in the winter's cold.

I know not how long I thus reeled about on the earth. A burning fever

glowed in my veins; with deepest distress I felt my senses forsaking

me. As mischief would have it, in my incautious career, I now trod on

some one's foot; I must have hurt him; I received a heavy blow, and

fell to the ground.

When I again returned to consciousness, I lay comfortably in a good

bed, which stood amongst many other beds in a handsome hall. Some one

sat at my head; people went through the hall from one bed to another.

They came to mine, and spoke together about me. They styled me _Number

Twelve_; and on the wall at my feet stood--yes, certainly it was no

delusion, I could distinctly read on a black tablet of marble in great

golden letters, quite correctly written, my name--

PETER SCHLEMIHL.

On the tablet beneath my name were two other rows of letters, but I

was too weak to put them together. I again closed my eyes.

I heard something of which the subject was Peter Schlemihl read aloud,

and articulately, but I could not collect the sense. I saw a friendly

man, and a very lovely woman in black dress appear at my bedside. The

forms were not strange to me, and yet I could not recognize them.

Some time went on, and I recovered my strength. I was called _Number

Twelve_; and _Number Twelve_, on account of his long beard, passed for

a Jew, on which account, however, he was not at all the less carefully

treated. That he had no shadow appeared to have been unobserved. My

boots, as I was assured, were, with all that I had brought hither, in

good keeping, in order to be restored to me on my recovery. The place

in which I lay was called the SCHLEMIHLIUM. What was daily read aloud

concerning Peter Schlemihl was an exhortation to pray for him as the

Founder and Benefactor of this institution. The friendly man whom I

had seen by my bed was Bendel; the lovely woman was Mina.

I recovered unrecognized in the Schlemihlium; and learned yet further

that I was in Bendel's native city, where, with the remains of my

otherwise unblessed gold, he had in my name founded this

Hospital, where the unhappy blessed me, and himself maintained its

superintendence. Mina was a widow. An unhappy criminal process had

cost Mr. Rascal his life, and her the greater part of her property.

Her parents were no more. She lived here as a pious widow, and

practised works of mercy.

Once she conversed with Mr. Bendel at the bedside of _Number Twelve_.

"Why, noble lady, will you so often expose yourself to the bad

atmosphere which prevails here? Does fate then deal so hardly with you

that you wish to die?"

"No, Mr. Bendel, since I have dreamed out my long dream, and have

awoke in myself, all is well with me; since then I crave not, and fear

not, death. Since then, I reflect calmly on the past and the future.

Is it not also with a still inward happiness that you now, in so

devout a manner, serve your master and friend?"

"Thank God, yes, noble lady. But we have seen wonderful things; we

have unwarily drunk much good, and bitter woes, out of the full cup.

Now it is empty, and we may believe that the whole has been only a

trial, and, armed with wise discernment, awaits the real beginning.

The real beginning is of another fashion; and we wish not back the

first jugglery, and are on the whole glad, such as it was, to have

lived through it. I feel also within me a confidence that it must now

be better than formerly with our old friend."

"Within me too," replied the lovely widow, and then passed on.

The conversation left a deep impression upon me, but I was undecided

in myself whether I should make myself known or depart hence

unrecognized. I took my resolve. I requested paper and pencil, and

wrote these words--"It is indeed better with your old friend now than

formerly, and if he does penance it is the penance of reconciliation."

Hereupon I desired to dress myself, as I found myself stronger. The

key of the small wardrobe which stood near my bed was brought, and I

found therein all that belonged to me. I put on my clothes, suspended

my botanical case, in which I rejoiced still to find my northern

lichens, round my black polonaise, drew on my boots, laid the written

paper on my bed, and, as the door opened, I was already far on the way

to the Thebais.

As I took the way along the Syrian coast, on which I for the last time

had wandered from home, I perceived my poor Figaro coming toward me.

This excellent poodle, which had long expected his master at home,

seemed to desire to trace him out. I stood still and called to him.

He sprang barking toward me, with a thousand moving assurances of his

inmost and most extravagant joy. I took him up under my arm, for in

truth he could not follow me, and brought him with me home again.

I found all in its old order, and returned gradually, as my strength

was recruited, to my former employment and mode of life, except that

I kept myself for a whole year out of the, to me, wholly insupportable

polar cold. And thus, my dear Chamisso, I live to this day. My boots

are no worse for the wear, as that very learned work of the celebrated

Tieckius, _De Rebus Gestis Pollicilli_, at first led me to fear. Their

force remains unimpaired, my strength only decays; yet I have the

comfort to have exerted it in a continuous and not fruitless pursuit

of one object. I have, so far as my boots could carry me, become more

fundamentally acquainted than any man before me with the earth,

its shape, its elevations, its temperatures, the changes of its

atmosphere, the exhibitions of its magnetic power, and the life upon

it, especially in the vegetable world. The facts I have recorded with

the greatest possible exactness and in perspicuous order in several

works, and stated my deductions and views briefly in several

treatises. I have settled the geography of the interior of Africa,

and of the northern polar regions; of the interior of Asia, and its

eastern shores. My _Historia Stirpium Plantarum Utriusque Orbis_

stands as a grand fragment of the _Flora Universalis Terrae_, and as

a branch of my _Systema Naturae_. I believe that I have therein not

merely augmented, at a moderate calculation, the amount of known

species, more than one-third, but have done something for the _Natural

System_, and for the _Geography of Plants_. I shall labor diligently

at my _Fauna_. I shall take care that, before my death, my works shall

be deposited in the Berlin University.

And thee, my dear Chamisso, have I selected as the preserver of my

singular history, which, perhaps, when I have vanished from the earth,

may afford valuable instruction to many of its inhabitants. But thou,

my friend, if thou wilt live among men, learn before all things to

reverence the shadow, and then the gold. Wishest thou to live only for

thyself and for thy better self--oh, then!--thou needest no counsel.

ERNST THEODOR AMADEUS HOFFMANN

* * * * *

THE GOLDEN POT[44] (1814)

TRANSLATED BY FREDERIC H. HEDGE

FIRST VIGIL

The mishaps of the student Anselmus. Conrector Paulmann's sanitary

canaster and the gold-green snakes.

On Ascension-day, at three o'clock in the afternoon, a young man in

Dresden came running through the Black Gate, falling right into a

basket of apples and cakes, which an old and very ugly woman was

there exposing to sale. All that escaped being smashed to pieces was

scattered away, and the street-urchins joyfully divided the booty

which this quick gentleman had thrown in the way. At the murder-shriek

which the crone set up, her gossips, leaving their cake and

brandy-tables, encircled the young man, and with plebeian violence

stormfully scolded him, so that, for shame and vexation, he uttered

no word, but merely held out his small and by no means particularly

well-filled purse, which the crone eagerly clutched and stuck into her

pocket. The firm ring now opened; but as the young man started off,

the crone called after him: "Ay, run, run thy ways, thou Devil's bird!

To the crystal run--to the crystal!" The squealing, creaking voice

of the woman had something unearthly in it, so that the promenaders

paused in amazement, and the laugh, which at first had been universal,

instantly died away. The student Anselmus, for the young man was no

other, felt himself, though he did not in the least understand these

singular phrases, nevertheless seized with a certain involuntary

horror; and he quickened his steps still more, to escape the curious

looks of the multitude, which were all turned toward him. As he

worked his way through the crowd of well-dressed people, he heard them

murmuring on all sides: "Poor young fellow! Ha! what a cursed bedlam

it is!" The mysterious words of the crone had, oddly enough, given

this ludicrous adventure a sort of tragic turn; and the youth, before

unobserved, was now looked after with a certain sympathy. The ladies,

for his fine shape and handsome face, which the glow of inward anger

was rendering still more expressive, forgave him this awkward step, as

well as the dress he wore, though it was utterly at variance with all

mode. His pike-gray frock was shaped as if the tailor had known the

modern form only by hearsay; and his well-kept black satin lower

habiliments gave the whole a certain pedagogic air, to which the gait

and gesture of the wearer did not at all correspond.

The student had almost reached the end of the alley which leads out to

the Linke Bath; but his breath could stand such a rate no longer. From

running, he took to walking; but scarcely did he yet dare to lift an

eye from the ground; for he still saw apples and cakes dancing round

him, and every kind look from this or that fair damsel was to him but

the reflex of the mocking laughter at the Black Gate. In this mood, he

had got to the entrance of the bath; one group of holiday people after

the other were moving in. Music of wind-instruments resounded from the

place, and the din of merry guests was growing louder and louder. The

poor student Anselmus was almost on the point of weeping; for he too

had expected, Ascension-day having always been a family-festival with

him, to participate in the felicities of the Linkean paradise; nay, he

had purposed even to go the length of a half "portion" of coffee with

rum, and a whole bottle of double beer, and, that he might carouse

at his ease, had put more money in his purse than was properly

permissible and feasible. And now, by this fatal step into the

apple-basket, all that he had about him had been swept away. Of

coffee, of double beer, of music, of looking at the bright damsels--in

a word, of all his fancied enjoyments, there was now nothing more to

be said. He glided slowly past, and at last turned down the Elbe road,

which at that time happened to be quite solitary.

[Illustration: Permission Berlin Photo Co., New York. HENSEL

ERNST THEODOR AMADEUS HOFFMANN]

Beneath an elder-tree, which had grown out through the wall, he found

a kind green resting-place; here he sat down, and filled a pipe from

the _Sanitätsknaster_ or Health-tobacco, of which his friend the

Conrector Paulmann had lately made him a present. Close before him

rolled and chafed the gold-dyed waves of the fair Elbe-stream; behind

him rose lordly Dresden, stretching, bold and proud, its light towers

into the airy sky; which again, farther off, bent itself down toward

flowery meads and fresh springing woods; and in the dim distance, a

range of azure peaks gave notice of remote Bohemia. But, heedless of

this, the student Anselmus, looking gloomily before him, blew forth

his smoky clouds into the air. His chagrin at length became audible,

and he said: "Of a truth, I am born to losses and crosses for my life

long! That in boyhood I never could become the King on Twelfthnight,

that at Odds or Evens I could never once guess the right way, that

my bread and butter always fell on the buttered side--of all these

sorrows I will not speak; but is it not a frightful destiny, that now,

when, in spite of Satan, I have become a student, I must still be a

jolthead as before? Do I ever put a new coat on, without the first day

smearing it with tallow, or on some ill-fastened nail or other tearing

a cursed hole in it? Do I ever bow to any Councilor or any lady,

without pitching the hat out of my hands, or even slipping on the

pavement, and shamefully going heels-over-head? Had I not, every

market-day, while in Halle, a regular sum of from three to four

groschen to pay for broken pottery, the Devil putting it into my head

to walk straight forward, like a leming-rat? Have I ever once got to

my college, or any place I was appointed to, at the right time? What

availed it that I set out half an hour before, and planted myself at

the door, with the knocker in my hand? Just as the clock is going to

strike, souse! some Devil pours a wash-basin down on me, or I bolt

against some fellow coming out, and get myself engaged in endless

quarrels till the time is clean gone.

"Ah! well-a-day! whither are ye fled, ye blissful dreams of coming

fortune, when I proudly thought that here I might even reach the

height of Privy Secretary? And has not my evil star estranged from me

my best patrons? I learn, for instance, that the Councilor, to whom I

have a letter, cannot suffer cropped hair; with immensity of trouble,

the barber fastens me a little cue to my hindhead; but at the first

bow his unblessed knot gives way, and a little shock-dog, running

snuffling about me, frisks off to the Privy Councilor with the cue in

his mouth. I spring after it in terror, and stumble against the

table, where he has been working while at breakfast; and cups, plates,

ink-glass, sand-box, rush jingling to the floor, and a flood of

chocolate and ink overflows the "Relation" he has just been writing.

'Is the Devil in the man?' bellows the furious Privy Councilor, and

shoves me out of the room.

"What avails it that Corrector Paulmann gave me hopes of a writership:

will my malignant fate allow it, which everywhere pursues me?

Today even! Do but think of it! I was purposing to hold my good old

Ascension-day with right cheerfulness of soul; I would stretch a point

for once; I might have gone, as well as any other guest, into Linke's

Bath, and called out proudly: 'Marqueur! a bottle of double beer; best

sort, if you please!' I might have sat till far in the evening, and,

moreover, close by this or that fine party of well-dressed ladies. I

know it, I feel it! heart would have come into me and I should have

been quite another man; nay, I might have carried it so far that when

one or other of them asked, `What o'clock may it be?' or 'What is

it they are playing?' I should have started up with light grace, and

without overturning my glass or stumbling over the bench, but in a

curved posture, moving one step and a half forward, I should have

answered: 'Give me leave, Mademoiselle! it is the overture of the

_Donauweibchen_;' or, 'It is just going to strike six.' Could any

mortal in the world have taken it ill of me? No! I say; the girls

would have looked over, smiling so roguishly, as they always do when

I pluck up heart to show them that I too understand the light tone of

society, and know how ladies should be spoken to. But here--the Devil

leads me into that cursed apple-basket, and now must I sit moping

in solitude, with nothing but a poor pipe of----" Here the student

Anselmus was interrupted in his soliloquy by a strange rustling and

whisking, which rose close by him in the grass, but soon glided up

into the twigs and leaves of the elder-tree that stretched out over

his head. It was as if the evening wind were shaking the leaves; as if

little birds were twittering among the branches, moving their little

wings in capricious flutter to and fro. Then he heard a whispering and

lisping; and it seemed as if the blossoms were sounding like

little crystal bells. Anselmus listened and listened. Ere long, the

whispering, and lisping, and tinkling, he himself knew not how, grew

to faint and half-scattered words:

"'Twixt this way, 'twixt that; 'twixt branches, 'twixt blossoms, come

shoot, come twist and twirl we! Sisterkin, sisterkin! up to the shine;

up, down, through and through, quick! Sun-rays yellow; evening-wind

whispering; dew-drops pattering; blossoms all singing: sing we with

branches and blossoms! Stars soon glitter; must down: 'twixt this way,

'twixt that, come shoot, come twist, come twirl we, sisterkin!"

And so it went along, in confused and confusing speech. The student

Anselmus thought: "Well, it is but the evening-wind, which tonight

truly is whispering distinctly enough." But at that moment there

sounded over his head, as it were, a triple harmony of clear crystal

bells: he looked up, and perceived three little snakes, glittering

with green and gold, twisted round the branches, and stretching out

their heads to the evening sun. Then, again, began a whispering and

twittering in the same words as before, and the little snakes went

gliding and caressing up and down through the twigs; and while they

moved so rapidly, it was as if the elder-bush were scattering a

thousand glittering emeralds through the dark leaves.

"It is the evening sun which sports so in the elder-bush," thought the

student Anselmus; but the bells sounded again, and Anselmus observed

that one Snake held out its little head to him. Through all his limbs

there went a shock like electricity; he quivered in his inmost heart;

he kept gazing up, and a pair of glorious dark-blue eyes were looking

at him with unspeakable longing; and an unknown feeling of highest

blessedness and deepest sorrow was like to rend his heart asunder.

And as he looked, and still looked, full of warm desire, into these

charming eyes, the crystal bells sounded louder in harmonious accord,

and the glittering emeralds fell down and encircled him, flickering

round him in thousand sparkles, and sporting in resplendent threads

of gold. The Elder-bush moved and spoke: "Thou layest in my shadow; my

perfume flowed round thee, but thou understoodst me not. The perfume

is my speech, when Love kindles it." The Evening-Wind came gliding

past, and said: "I played round thy temples, but thou understoodst me

not. Breath is my speech, when Love kindles it." The sunbeams broke

through the clouds, and the sheen of it burnt, as in words: "I

overflowed thee with glowing gold, but thou understoodst me not. Glow

is my speech, when Love kindles it."

And, still deeper and deeper sunk in the view of these glorious eyes,

his longing grew keener, his desire more warm. And all rose and moved

around him, as if awakening to joyous life. Flowers and blossoms shed

their odors round him; and their odor was like the lordly singing of

a thousand softest voices; and what they sung was borne, like an

echo, on the golden evening clouds, as they flitted away, into far-off

lands. But as the last sunbeam abruptly sank behind the hills, and

the twilight threw its veil over the scene, there came a hoarse deep

voice, as from a great distance:

"Hey! hey! what chattering and jingling is that up there? Hey! hey!

who catches me the ray behind the hills? Sunned enough, sung enough.

Hey! hey! through bush and grass, through grass and stream! Hey! hey!

Come dow-w-n, dow-w-w-n!"

So faded the voice away, as in murmurs of a distant thunder; but the

crystal bells broke off in sharp discords. All became mute; and

the student Anselmus observed how the three snakes, glittering and

sparkling, glided through the grass toward the river; rustling and

hustling, they rushed into the Elbe; and over the waves where they

vanished, there crackled up a green flame, which, gleaming forward

obliquely, vanished in the direction of the city.

SECOND VIGIL

How the student Anselmus was looked upon as drunk and mad. The

crossing of the Elbe. Bandmaster Graun's Bravura. Conradi's

Stomachic Liqueur, and the bronzed Apple-Woman.

"The gentleman seems not to be in his right wits!" said a respectable

burgher's wife, who, returning from a walk with her family, had paused

here, and, with crossed arms, was looking at the mad pranks of the

student Anselmus. Anselmus had clasped the trunk of the elder-tree,

and was calling incessantly up to the branches and leaves: "O glitter

and shine once more, ye dear gold snakes; let me hear your little

bell-voices once more! Look on me once more, ye kind eyes; O once, or

I must die in pain and ardent longing!" And with this, he was sighing

and sobbing from the bottom of his heart most pitifully, and, in his

eagerness and impatience, shaking the elder-tree to and fro; which,

however, instead of any reply, rustled quite gloomily and inaudibly

with its leaves, and so rather seemed, as it were, to make sport of

the student Anselmus and his sorrows.

"The gentleman seemingly is not in his right wits!" said the burgher's

wife; and Anselmus felt as if you had shaken him out of a deep dream,

or poured ice-cold water on him, that he might awaken without loss

of time. He now first saw clearly where he was and recollected what a

strange apparition had teased him, nay, so beguiled his senses as to

make him break forth into loud talk with himself. In astonishment,

he gazed at the woman; and at last, snatching up his hat, which had

fallen to the ground in his transport, was for making off in all

speed. The burgher himself had come forward in the meanwhile; and,

setting down the child from his arm on the grass, had been leaning on

his staff, and with amazement listening and looking at the student.

He now picked up the pipe and tobacco-pouch which the student had let

fall, and, holding them out to him, said: "Don't take on so dreadfully

in the dark, my worthy sir, or alarm people, when nothing is the

matter, after all, but having taken a sip too much; go home, like a

pretty man, and take a nap of sleep on it."

The student Anselmus felt exceedingly ashamed; he uttered nothing but

a most lamentable Ah!

"Pooh! Pooh!" said the burgher, "never mind it a jot; such a thing

will happen to the best; on good old Ascension-day a man may readily

enough forget himself in his joy, and gulp down a thought too much.

A clergyman himself is no worse for it: I presume, my worthy sir, you

are a _Candidatus_.--But, with your leave, sir, I shall fill my pipe

with your tobacco; mine went out a little while ago."

This last sentence the burgher uttered while the student Anselmus was

about putting up his pipe and pouch; and now the burgher slowly and

deliberately cleaned his pipe, and began as slowly to fill it. Several

burgher girls had come up; they were speaking secretly with the woman

and one another, and tittering as they looked at Anselmus. The student

felt as if he were standing on prickly thorns and burning needles. No

sooner had he recovered his pipe and tobacco-pouch, than he darted off

at the height of his speed.

All the strange things he had seen were clean gone from his memory; he

simply recollected having babbled all manner of foolish stuff beneath

the elder-tree. This was the more shocking to him, as he entertained

from of old an inward horror against all soliloquists. It is Satan

that chatters out of them, said his Rector; and Anselmus shared

honestly his belief. To be regarded as a _Candidatus Theologiae_,

overtaken with drink on Ascension-day! The thought was intolerable.

He was just about turning up the Poplar Alley, by the Kosel Garden,

when a voice behind him called out: "Herr Anselmus! Herr Anselmus!

for the love of Heaven, whither are you running in such haste?" The

student paused, as if rooted to the ground; for he was convinced that

now some new mischance would befall him. The voice rose again: "Herr

Anselmus, come back, then; we are waiting for you here at the water!"

And now the student perceived that it was his friend Conrector

Paulmann's voice; he went back to the Elbe, and found the Conrector,

with his two daughters, as well as Registrator Heerbrand, all on the

point of stepping into their gondola. Conrector Paulmann invited the

student to go with them across the Elbe, and then to pass the evening

at his house in the Pirna suburb. The student Anselmus very gladly

accepted this proposal, thinking thereby to escape the malignant

destiny which had ruled over him all day.

Now, as they were crossing the river, it chanced that, on the farther

bank, near the Anton Garden, fireworks were just going off. Sputtering

and hissing, the rockets went aloft, and their blazing stars flew

to pieces in the air, scattering a thousand vague shoots and flashes

round them. The student Anselmus was sitting by the steersman, sunk in

deep thought; but when he noticed in the water the reflection of

these darting and wavering sparks and flames, he felt as if it was the

little golden snakes that were sporting in the flood. All the strange

things he had seen at the elder-tree again started forth into his

heart and thoughts; and again that unspeakable longing, that glowing

desire, laid hold of him here, which had before agitated his bosom in

painful spasms of rapture.

"Ah! is it you again, my little golden snakes? Sing now, O sing! In

your song let the kind, dear, dark-blue eyes again appear to me.--Ah?

are ye under the waves, then?"

So cried the student Anselmus, and at the same time made a violent

movement, as if he were for plunging from the gondola into the river.

"Is the Devil in you, sir?" exclaimed the steersman, and clutched

him by the coat-tail. The girls, who were sitting by him, shrieked

in terror, and fled to the other side of the gondola. Registrator

Heerbrand whispered something in Conrector Paulmann's ear, to

which the latter answered, but in so low a tone that Anselmus could

distinguish nothing but the words: "Such attacks--never noticed them

before?" Directly after this, Conrector Paulmann also rose, and then

sat down, with a certain earnest, grave, official mien, beside the

student Anselmus, taking his hand, and saying: "How are you, Herr

Anselmus?" The student Anselmus was like to lose his wits, for in his

mind there was a mad distraction, which he strove in vain to soothe.

He now saw plainly that what he had taken for the gleaming of the

golden snakes was nothing but the reflection of the fireworks in

Anton's Garden: but a feeling unexperienced till now, he himself knew

not whether it was rapture or pain, cramped his breast together; and

when the steersman struck through the water with his helm, so that the

waves, curling as in anger, gurgled and chafed, he heard in their din

a soft whispering: "Anselmus! Anselmus! seest thou not how we still

skim along before thee? Sisterkin looks at thee again; believe,

believe, believe in us!" And he thought he saw in the reflected light

three green-glowing streaks; but then, when he gazed, full of fond

sadness, into the water, to see whether these gentle eyes would not

again look up to him, he perceived too well that the shine proceeded

only from the windows in the neighboring houses. He was sitting mute

in his place, and inwardly battling with himself, when Conrector

Paulman repeated, with still greater emphasis: "How are you, Herr

Anselmus?"

With the most rueful tone, Anselmus replied: "Ah! Herr Conrector, if

you knew what strange things I have been dreaming, quite awake,

with open eyes, just now, under an elder-tree at the wall of Linke's

garden, you would not take it amiss of me that I am a little absent,

or so."

"Ey, ey, Herr Anselmus!" interrupted Conrector Paulmann, "I have

always taken you for a solid young man; but to dream, to dream with

your eyes wide open, and then, all at once, to start up for leaping

into the water! This, begging your pardon, is what only fools or

madmen could do."

The student Anselmus was deeply affected at his friend's hard saying;

then Veronica, Paulmann's eldest daughter, a most pretty blooming

girl of sixteen, addressed her father: "But, dear father, something

singular must have befallen Herr Anselmus; and perhaps he only thinks

he was awake, while he may really have been asleep, and so all

manner of wild stuff has come into his head and is still lying in his

thoughts."

"And, dearest Mademoiselle! Worthy Conrector!" interrupted Registrator

Heerbrand, "may one not, even when awake, sometimes sink into a sort

of dreaming state? I myself have had such fits. One afternoon, for

instance, during coffee, in a sort of brown study like this, in the

very moment of corporeal and spiritual digestion, the place where a

lost document was lying occurred to me, as if by inspiration; and last

night, no further gone, there came glorious large Latin WRIT tripping

out before my open eyes, in the very same way."

"Ah! most honored Registrator," answered Conrector Paulmann, "you

have always had a tendency to the _Poetica_; and thus one falls into

fantasies and romantic humors."

The student Anselmus, however, was particularly gratified that in this

most troublous situation, while in danger of being considered drunk or

crazy, any one should take his part; and though it was already fairly

dark, he thought he noticed, for the first time, that Veronica had

really very fine dark-blue eyes, and this too without remembering the

strange pair which he had looked at in the elder-bush. On the whole,

the adventure under the elder-bush had once more entirely vanished

from the thoughts of the student Anselmus; he felt himself at ease and

light of heart; nay, in the capriciousness of joy, he carried it so

far that he offered a helping hand to his fair advocate, Veronica, as

she was stepping from the gondola; and without more ado, as she put

her arm in his, escorted her home with so much dexterity and good luck

that he missed his footing only once, and this being the only wet spot

in the whole road, spattered Veronica's white gown only a very little

by the incident.

Conrector Paulmann failed not to observe this happy change in

the student Anselmus; he resumed his liking for him, and begged

forgiveness for the hard words which he had let fall before. "Yes,"

added he, "we have many examples to show that certain phantasms may

rise before a man and pester and plague him not a little; but this is

bodily disease, and leeches are good for it, if applied to the right

part, as a certain learned physician, now deceased, has directed." The

student Anselmus knew not whether he had been drunk, crazy, or sick;

but at all events the leeches seemed entirely superfluous, as these

supposed phantasms had utterly vanished, and the student himself was

growing happier and happier, the more he prospered in serving the

pretty Veronica with all sorts of dainty attentions.

As usual, after the frugal meal, came music; the student Anselmus had

to take his seat before the harpsichord, and Veronica accompanied

his playing with her pure clear voice. "Dear Mademoiselle," said

Registrator Heerbrand, "you have a voice like a crystal bell!"

"That she has not!" ejaculated the student Anselmus, he scarcely

knew how. "Crystal bells in elder-trees sound strangely, strangely!"

continued the student Anselmus, murmuring half aloud.

Veronica laid her hand on his shoulder, and asked: "What are you

saying now, Herr Anselmus?"

Instantly Anselmus recovered his cheerfulness, and began playing.

Conrector Paulmann gave a grim look at him; but Registrator Heerbrand

laid a music-leaf on the frame, and sang with ravishing grace one

of Bandmaster Graun's bravura airs. The student Anselmus accompanied

this, and much more; and a fantasy duet, which Veronica and he now

fingered, and Conrector Paulmann had himself composed, again brought

all into the gayest humor.

It was now quite late, and Registrator Heerbrand was taking up his hat

and stick, when Conrector Paulmann went up to him with a mysterious

air, and said: "Hem!--Would not you, honored Registrator, mention to

the good Herr Anselmus himself--Hem! what we were speaking of before?"

"With all the pleasure in nature," said Registrator Heerbrand; and

after all were seated in a circle, he began, without farther preamble,

as follows:

"In this city is an old, strange, remarkable man; people say he

follows all manner of secret sciences; but as there are no such

sciences, I rather take him for an antiquary, and, along with

this, for an experimental chemist. I mean no other than our Privy

Archivarius Lindhorst. He lives, as you know, by himself, in his old

sequestered house; and when disengaged from his office he is to

be found in his library, or in his chemical laboratory, to which,

however, he admits no stranger. Besides many curious books, he

possesses a number of manuscripts, partly Arabic, Coptic, and some of

them in strange characters which belong not to any known tongue. These

he wishes to have copied properly; and for this purpose he requires

a man who can draw with the pen, and so transfer these marks to

parchment, in Indian ink, with the highest strictness and fidelity.

The work is carried on in a separate chamber of his house, under his

own oversight; and besides free board during the time of business, he

pays his man a specie-dollar, daily, and promises a handsome present

when the copying is rightly finished. The hours of work are from

twelve to six. From three to four, you take rest and dinner.

"Herr Archivarius Lindhorst having in vain tried one or two young

people for copying these manuscripts, has at last applied to me to

find him an expert drawer; and so I have been thinking of you,

dear Herr Anselmus, for I know that you both write very neatly, and

likewise draw with the pen to great perfection. Now, if in these bad

times, and till your future establishment, you would like to earn a

speziesthaler in the day, and this present over and above, you can go

tomorrow precisely at noon, and call upon the Archivarius, whose house

no doubt you know. But be on your guard against any blot! If such a

thing falls on your copy, you must begin it again; if it falls on the

original, the Archivarius will think nothing of throwing you out of

the window, for he is a hot-tempered gentleman."

The student Anselmus was filled with joy at Registrator Heerbrand's

proposal; for not only could the student write well and draw well

with the pen, but this copying with laborious calligraphic pains was

a thing he delighted in beyond aught else. So he thanked his patron in

the most grateful terms, and promised not to fail at noon tomorrow.

All night the student Anselmus saw nothing but clear speziesthalers,

and heard nothing but their lovely clink. Who could blame the poor

youth, cheated of so many hopes by capricious destiny, obliged to take

counsel about every farthing, and to forego so many joys which a young

heart requires! Early in the morning he brought out his black-lead

pencils, his crow-quills, his Indian ink; for better materials,

thought he, the Archivarius can find nowhere. Above all, he mustered

and arranged his calligraphic masterpieces and his drawings, to show

them to the Archivarius, in proof of his ability to do what he wished.

All prospered with the student; a peculiar happy star seemed to be

presiding over him; his neckcloth sat right at the very first trial;

no tack burst; no loop gave way in his black silk stockings; his hat

did not once fall to the dust after he had trimmed it. In a word,

precisely at half-past eleven, the student Anselmus, in his pike-gray

frock, and black satin lower habiliments, with a roll of calligraphics

and pen-drawings in his pocket, was standing in the Schlossgasse, in

Conradi's shop, and drinking one--two glasses of the best stomachic

liqueur; for here, thought he, slapping on the still empty pocket, for

here speziesthalers will be clinking soon.

Notwithstanding the distance of the solitary street where the

Archivarius Lindhorst's very ancient residence lay, the student

Anselmus was at the front door before the stroke of twelve. He stood

here, and was looking at the large fine bronze knocker; but now when,

as the last stroke tingled through the air with loud clang from the

steeple-clock of the Kreuzkirche, he lifted his hand to grasp this

same knocker, the metal visage twisted itself, with horrid rolling

of its blue-gleaming eyes, into a grinning smile. Alas, it was the

Apple-woman of the Black Gate! The pointed teeth gnashed together in

the loose jaws, and in their chattering through the skinny lips

there was a growl of: "Thou fool, fool, fool!--Wait, wait!--Why

didst run!--Fool!" Horror-struck, the student Anselmus flew back;

he clutched at the door-post, but his hand caught the bell-rope and

pulled it, and in piercing discords it rung stronger and stronger, and

through the whole empty house the echo repeated, as in mockery: "To

the crystal fall!" An unearthly terror seized the student Anselmus,

and quivered through all his limbs. The bell-rope lengthened downward,

and became a white, transparent, gigantic serpent, which encircled and

crushed him, and girded him straiter and straiter in its coils, till

his brittle, paralyzed limbs went crashing in pieces, and the blood

spouted from his veins, penetrating into the transparent body of the

serpent, and dyeing it red. "Kill me! Kill me!" he would have cried,

in his horrible agony; but the cry was only a stifled gurgle in his

throat. The serpent lifted its head, and laid its long peaked tongue

of glowing brass on the breast of Anselmus; then a fierce pang

suddenly cut asunder the artery of life, and thought fled away

from him. On returning to his senses, he was lying on his own poor

truckle-bed; Conrector Paulmann was standing before him, and saying:

"For Heaven's sake, what mad stuff is this, dear Herr Anselmus?"

SIXTH VIGIL

Archivarius Lindhorst's Garden, with some Mocking birds. The Golden

Pot. English current-hand. Pot-hooks. The Prince of the Spirits.

"It may be, after all," said the student Anselmus to himself, "that

the superfine, strong, stomachic liqueur, which I took somewhat freely

at Monsieur Conradi's, might really be the cause of all these shocking

phantasms which so tortured me at Archivarius Lindhorst's door.

Therefore, I will go quite sober today, and so bid defiance to

whatever further mischief may assail me." On this occasion, as before,

when equipping himself for his first call on Archivarius Lindhorst,

the student Anselmus put his pen-drawings and calligraphic

masterpieces, his bars of Indian ink, and his well-pointed crow-pens,

into his pockets; and was just turning to go out, when his eye lighted

on the vial with the yellow liqueur, which he had received from

Archivarius Lindhorst. All the strange adventures he had met with

again rose on his mind in glowing colors; and a nameless emotion

of rapture and pain thrilled through his breast. Involuntarily he

exclaimed, with a most piteous voice: "Ah, am I not going to

the Archivarius solely for a sight of thee, thou gentle lovely

Serpentina!" At that moment he felt as if Serpentina's love might be

the prize of some laborious perilous task which he had to undertake,

and as if this task were no other than the copying of the Lindhorst

manuscripts. That at his very entrance into the house, or, more

properly, before his entrance, all manner of mysterious things might

happen, as of late, was no more than he anticipated. He thought no

more of Conradi's strong water, but hastily put the vial of liqueur

in his waistcoat-pocket that he might act strictly by the Archivarius'

directions, should the bronzed Apple-woman again take it upon her to

make faces at him.

And did not the hawk-nose actually peak itself, did not the cat-eyes

actually glare from the knocker, as he raised his hand to it, at the

stroke of twelve? But now, without further ceremony, he dribbled his

liqueur into the pestilent visage; and it folded and molded itself,

that instant, down to a glittering bowl-round knocker. The door went

up; the bells sounded beautifully over all the house: "Klingling,

youngling, in, in, spring, spring, klingling." In good heart he

mounted the fine broad stair and feasted on the odors of some strange

perfumery that was floating through the house. In doubt, he paused on

the lobby; for he knew not at which of these many fine doors he was to

knock. But Archivarius Lindhorst, in a white damask nightgown, stepped

forth to him, and said: "Well, it is a real pleasure to me, Herr

Anselmus, that you have kept your word at last. Come this way, if you

please; I must take you straight into the Laboratory;" and with this

he stepped rapidly through the lobby, and opened a little side-door

which led into a long passage. Anselmus walked on in high spirits,

behind the Archivarius; they passed from this corridor into a hall,

or rather into a lordly green-house: for on both sides, up to the

ceiling, stood all manner of rare wondrous flowers, nay, great trees

with strangely-formed leaves and blossoms. A magic dazzling light

shone over the whole, though you could not discover whence it came,

for no window whatever was to be seen. As the student Anselmus looked

in through the bushes and trees, long avenues appeared to open

in remote distance. In the deep shade of thick cypress groves lay

glittering marble fountains, out of which rose wondrous figures,

spouting crystal jets that fell with pattering spray into gleaming

lily-cups; strange voices cooed and rustled through the wood of

curious trees; and sweetest perfumes streamed up and down.

The Archivarius had vanished, and Anselmus saw nothing but a huge bush

of glowing fire-lilies before him. Intoxicated with the sight and the

fine odors of this fairy-garden, Anselmus stood fixed to the spot.

Then began on all sides of him a giggling and laughing; and light

little voices railed and mocked him: "Herr Studiosus! Herr Studiosus!

Where are you coming from? Why are you dressed so bravely, Herr

Anselmus? Will you chat with us for a minute, how grandmammy sat

squatting down upon the egg, and young master got a stain on his

Sunday waistcoat?--Can you play the new tune, now, which you learned

from Daddy Cocka-doodle, Herr Anselmus?--You look very fine in your

glass periwig, and post-paper boots." So cried and chattered and

sniggered the little voices, out of every corner, nay, close by the

student himself, who but now observed that all sorts of party-colored

birds were fluttering above him and jeering him in hearty laughter.

At that moment the bush of fire-lilies advanced toward him; and he

perceived that it was Archivarius Lindhorst, whose flowered nightgown,

glittering in red and yellow, had so far deceived his eyes.

"I beg your pardon, worthy Herr Anselmus," said the Archivarius, "for

leaving you alone; I wished, in passing, to take a peep at my fine

cactus, which is to blossom tonight. But how like you my little

house-garden?"

"Ah, Heaven! Immeasurably pretty it is, most valued Herr Archivarius,"

replied the student; "but those party-colored birds have been

bantering me a little."

"What wishy-washy is this?" cried the Archivarius angrily into the

bushes. Then a huge gray parrot came fluttering out, and perched

itself beside the Archivarius on a myrtle-bough; and looking at him

with an uncommon earnestness and gravity through a pair of spectacles

that stuck on his hooked bill, it shrilled out: "Don't take it amiss,

Herr Archivarius; my wild boys have been a little free or so; but the

Herr Studiosus has himself to blame in the matter, for----"

"Hush! hush!" interrupted Archivarius Lindhorst; "I know the varlets;

but thou must keep them in better discipline, my friend!--Now, come

along, Herr Anselmus."

And the Archivarius again stepped forth, through many a

strangely-decorated chamber; so that the student Anselmus, in

following him, could scarcely give a glance at all the glittering

wondrous furniture, and other unknown things, with which the whole of

them were filled. At last they entered a large apartment, where the

Archivarius, casting his eyes aloft, stood still; and Anselmus

got time to feast himself on the glorious sight which the simple

decoration of this hall afforded. Jutting from the azure-colored walls

rose gold-bronze trunks of high palm-trees, which wove their colossal

leaves, glittering like bright emeralds, into a ceiling far up; in the

middle of the chamber, and resting on three Egyptian lions, cast

out of dark bronze, lay a porphyry plate; and on this stood a simple

Golden Pot, from which, so soon as he beheld it, Anselmus could not

turn away an eye. It was as if, in a thousand gleaming reflections,

all sorts of shapes were sporting on the bright polished gold; often

he perceived his own form, with arms stretched out in longing--ah!

beneath the elder-bush--and Serpentina was winding and shooting up and

down, and again looking at him with her kind eyes. Anselmus was beside

himself with frantic rapture.

"Serpentina! Serpentina!" cried he aloud; and Archivarius Lindhorst

whirled round abruptly, and said: "How now, worthy Herr Anselmus? If

I mistake not, you were pleased to call for my daughter; she is way

in the other side of the house at present, and indeed just taking her

lesson on the harpsichord. Let us go over."

Anselmus, scarcely knowing what he did, followed his conductor; he saw

or heard nothing more, till Archivarius Lindhorst suddenly grasped his

hand, and said: "Here is the place!" Anselmus awoke as from a dream,

and now perceived that he was in a high room, all lined on every side

with book-shelves, and nowise differing from a common library and

study. In the middle stood a large writing-table, with a stuffed

arm-chair before it. "This," said Archivarius Lindhorst, "is your

work-room for the present: whether you may work, some other time, in

the blue library, also where you so suddenly called out my daughter's

name, I yet know not. But now I could wish to convince myself of your

ability to execute this task appointed to you, in the way I wish it

and need it." The student here gathered full courage; and not without

internal self-complacence in the certainty of highly gratifying

Archivarius Lindhorst through his extraordinary talents, pulled out

his drawings and specimens of penmanship from his pocket. But no

sooner had the Archivarius cast his eye on the first leaf, a piece of

writing in the finest English style, than he smiled very oddly, and

shook his head. These motions he repeated at every following leaf, so

that the student Anselmus felt the blood mounting to his face; and at

last, when the smile became quite sarcastic and contemptuous, he

broke out in downright vexation: "The Herr Archivarius does not seem

contented with my poor talents."

"Dear Herr Anselmus," said Archivarius Lindhorst, "you have indeed

fine capacities for the art of calligraphy; but, in the meanwhile, it

is clear enough, I must reckon more on your diligence and good-will

than on your capacity."

The student Anselmus spoke largely of his often-acknowledged

perfection in this art, of his fine Chinese ink, and most select

crow-quills. But Archivarius Lindhorst handed him the English sheet,

and said: "Be judge yourself!" Anselmus felt as if struck by a

thunderbolt, to see his handwriting look so: it was miserable, beyond

measure. There was no rounding in the turns, no hair-stroke where it

should be; no proportion between the capital and single letters; nay,

villainous school-boy pot-hooks often spoiled the best lines. "And

then," continued Archivarius Lindhorst, "your ink will not stand." He

dipped his finger in a glass of water, and as he just skimmed it over

the lines they vanished without vestige. The student Anselmus felt as

if some monster were throttling him; he could not utter a word. There

stood he with the unlucky sheet in his hand; but Archivarius Lindhorst

laughed aloud, and said: "Never mind it, dearest Herr Anselmus; what

you could not accomplish before, will perhaps do better here. At any

rate, you shall have better materials than you have been accustomed

to. Begin, in Heaven's name!"

From a locked press Archivarius Lindhorst now brought out a black

fluid substance, which diffused a most peculiar odor; also pens,

sharply pointed and of strange color, together with a sheet of

especial whiteness and smoothness; then at last an Arabic manuscript;

and as Anselmus sat down to work, the Archivarius left the room. The

student Anselmus had often before copied Arabic manuscripts; the first

problem, therefore, seemed to him not so very difficult to solve. "How

these pot-hooks came into my fine English current-hand, Heaven and

Archivarius Lindhorst know best," said he; "but that they are not from

_my_ hand, I will testify to the death!" At every new word that stood

fair and perfect on the parchment, his courage increased, and with it

his adroitness. In truth, these pens wrote exquisitely well; and the

mysterious ink flowed pliantly and black as jet, on the bright white

parchment. And as he worked along so diligently and with such strained

attention, he began to feel more and more at home in the solitary

room; and already he had quite fitted himself into his task, which he

now hoped to finish well, when at the stroke of three the Archivarius

called him into the side-room to a savory dinner. At table,

Archivarius Lindhorst was in special gaiety of heart; he inquired

about the student Anselmus' friends, Conrector Paulmann, and

Registrator Heerbrand, and of the latter especially he had a store

of merry anecdotes to tell. The good old Rhenish was particularly

grateful to the student Anselmus, and made him more talkative than he

was wont to be. At the stroke of four he rose to resume his labor; and

this punctuality appeared to please the Archivarius.

If the copying of these Arabic manuscripts had prospered in his hands

before dinner, the task now went forward much better; nay, he could

not himself comprehend the rapidity and ease with which he succeeded

in transcribing the twisted strokes of this foreign character. But

it was as if, in his inmost soul, a voice were whispering in audible

words: "Ah! couldst thou accomplish it wert thou not thinking of

_her_, didst thou not believe in _her_ and in her love?" Then there

floated whispers, as in low, low, waving crystal tones, through the

room: "I am near, near, near! I help thee; be bold, be steadfast, dear

Anselmus! I toil with thee, that thou mayest be mine!" And as, in

the fulness of secret rapture, he caught these sounds, the unknown

characters grew clearer and clearer to him; he scarcely required

to look on the original at all; nay, it was as if the letters were

already standing in pale ink on the parchment, and he had nothing more

to do than mark them black. So did he labor on, encompassed with dear,

consoling tones as with soft, sweet breath, till the clock struck six,

and Archivarius Lindhorst entered the room. He came forward to

the table, with a singular smile; Anselmus rose in silence; the

Archivarius still looked at him, with that mocking smile; but no

sooner had he glanced over the copy than the smile passed into deep,

solemn earnestness, which every feature of his face adapted itself to

express. He seemed no longer the same. His eyes, which usually gleamed

with sparkling fire, now looked with unutterable mildness at Anselmus;

a soft red tinted the pale cheeks; and instead of the irony which at

other times compressed the mouth, the softly-curved, graceful lips now

seemed to be opening for wise and soul-persuading speech. The whole

form was higher, statelier; the wide nightgown spread itself like a

royal mantle in broad folds over his breast and shoulders; and through

the white locks, which lay on his high open brow, there was wound a

thin band of gold.

"Young man," began the Archivarius in solemn tone, "before thou

thoughtest of it, I knew thee, and all the secret relations which

bind thee to the dearest and holiest I have on earth! Serpentina loves

thee; a singular destiny, whose fateful threads were spun by hostile

powers, is fulfilled should she be thine and thou obtain, as an

essential dowry, the Golden Pot, which of right belongs to her. But

only from effort and contest can thy happiness in the higher life

arise; hostile Principles assail thee; and only the interior force

with which thou shalt withstand these assaults can save thee from

disgrace and ruin. Whilst laboring here thou art passing your

apprenticeship; belief and full knowledge will lead thee to the near

goal, if thou but hold fast what thou hast well begun. Bear _her_

always and truly in thy thoughts, her who loves thee; then shalt thou

see the marvels of the Golden Pot, and be happy forevermore. Fare

thee well! Archivarius Lindhorst expects thee tomorrow at noon in

thy cabinet. Fare thee well!" With these words Archivarius Lindhorst

softly pushed the student Anselmus out of the door, which he then

locked; and Anselmus found himself in the chamber where he had dined,

the single door of which led out to the lobby.

Altogether stupified with these strange phenomena, the student

Anselmus stood lingering at the street-door; he heard a window open

above him, and looked up: it was Archivarius Lindhorst, quite the

old man again, in his light-gray gown, as he usually appeared. The

Archivarius called to him: "Hey, worthy Herr Anselmus, what are

you studying over there? Tush, the Arabic is still in your head.

My compliments to Herr Conrector Paulmann, if you see him; and come

tomorrow precisely at noon. The fee for this day is lying in your

right waistcoat-pocket." The student Anselmus actually found the clear

speziesthaler in the pocket indicated; but he took no joy in it. "What

is to come of all this," said he to himself, "I know not; but if it

be some mad delusion and conjuring work that has laid hold of me, the

dear Serpentina still lives and moves in my inward heart, and rather

than leave her I will perish altogether; for I know that the thought

in me is eternal, and no hostile Principle can take it from me; and

what else is this thought but Serpentina's love?"

EIGHTH VIGIL

The Library of the Palm-trees. Fortunes of an unhappy Salamander.

How the Black Quill caressed a Parsnip, and Registrator Heerbrand

was much overcome with Liqueur.

The student Anselmus had now worked several days with Archivarius

Lindhorst; these working hours were for him the happiest of his life;

ever encircled with the lovely tone of Serpentina's encouraging words,

he was filled and overflowed with a pure delight, which often rose

to highest rapture. Every strait, every little care of his needy

existence, had vanished from his thoughts; and in the new life which

had risen on him as in serene sunny splendor, he comprehended all

the wonders of a higher world, which before had filled him with

astonishment, nay, with dread. His copying proceeded rapidly and

lightly, for he felt more and more as if he were writing characters

long known to him; and he scarcely needed to cast his eye upon the

manuscript, while copying it all with the greatest exactness.

Except at the hour of dinner, Archivarius Lindhorst seldom made his

appearance, and this always precisely at the moment when Anselmus

had finished the last letter of some manuscript; then the Archivarius

would hand him another, and, directly after, leave him without

uttering a word, having first stirred the ink with a little black rod

and changed the old pens with new sharp-pointed ones. One day, when

Anselmus, at the stroke of twelve, had as usual mounted the stairs, he

found the door through which he commonly entered, standing locked; and

Archivarius Lindhorst came forward from the other side, dressed in his

strange flower-figured nightgown. He called aloud: "Today come this

way, dear Anselmus; for we must to the chamber where Bhogovotgita's

masters are waiting for us."

He stepped along the corridor, and led Anselmus through the same

chambers and halls as at the first visit. The student Anselmus again

felt astonished at the marvelous beauty of the garden; but he now

perceived that many of the strange flowers, hanging on the dark

bushes, were in truth insects gleaming with lordly colors, hovering

up and down with their little wings as they danced and whirled in

clusters, caressing one another with their antennae. On the other hand

again, the rose and azure-colored birds were odoriferous flowers;

and the perfume which they scattered mounted from their cups in low,

lovely tones, which, with the gurgling of distant fountains, and the

sighing of the high shrubs and trees, melted into mysterious harmonies

of a deep unutterable longing. The mocking-birds, which had so jeered

and flouted him before, were again fluttering to and fro over his

head and crying incessantly with their sharp, small voices: "Herr

Studiosus, Herr Studiosus, don't be in such a hurry! Don't peep into

the clouds so! You may fall on your nose--He, he! Herr Studiosus, put

your powder-mantle on; cousin Screech-Owl will frizzle your toupee."

And so it went along, in all manner of stupid chatter, till Anselmus

left the garden.

Archivarius Lindhorst at last stepped into the azure chamber; the

porphyry, with the Golden Pot, was gone; instead of it, in the middle

of the room, stood a table overhung with violet-colored satin, upon

which lay the writing-materials already known to Anselmus; and a

stuffed arm-chair, covered with the same sort of cloth, was placed

before it.

"Dear Herr Anselmus," said Archivarius Lindhorst, "you have now copied

me a number of manuscripts, rapidly and correctly, to my no small

contentment: you have gained my confidence; but the hardest is yet to

come; and that is the transcribing or rather painting of certain works

after the original, composed of peculiar signs; I keep them in this

room, and they can be copied only on the spot. You will, therefore, in

future, work here; but I must recommend to you the greatest foresight

and attention; a false stroke, or, which may Heaven forefend, a blot

let fall on the original, will plunge you into misfortune."

Anselmus observed that from the golden trunks of the palm-trees,

little emerald leaves projected: one of these leaves the Archivarius

took hold of; and Anselmus could not but perceive that the leaf was in

truth a roll of parchment, which the Archivarius unfolded and spread

out before the student on the table. Anselmus wondered not a little

at these strangely intertwisted characters; and as he looked over

the many points, strokes, dashes, and twirls in the manuscript, which

seemed to represent either plants or mosses or animal figures, he

almost lost hope of ever copying it. He fell into deep thought on the

subject.

"Be of courage, young man!" cried the Archivarius; "if thou hast

sterling faith and true love, Serpentina will help thee."

His voice sounded like ringing metal; and as Anselmus looked up in

utter terror, Archivarius Lindhorst was standing before him in the

kingly form, which, during the first visit, he had assumed in the

library. Anselmus felt as if in his deep reverence he could not

but sink on his knee; but the Archivarius stepped up the trunk of a

palm-tree, and vanished aloft among the emerald leaves. The student

Anselmus understood that the Prince of the Spirits had been speaking

with him, and was now gone up to his study; perhaps intending to

advise with the beams which some of the planets had dispatched to him

as envoys, on what was to become of Anselmus and Serpentina.

"It may be too," thought he further, "that he is expecting news from

the Springs of the Nile; or that some magician from Lapland is paying

him a visit; me it behooves to set diligently about my task." And

with this, he began studying the foreign characters in the roll of

parchment.

The strange music of the garden sounded over to him and encircled him

with sweet lovely odors; the mocking-birds too he still heard chirping

and twittering, but could not distinguish their words--a thing which

greatly pleased him. At times also it was as if the emerald leaves of

the palm-trees were rustling, and as if the clear crystal tones, which

Anselmus on that fateful Ascension-day had heard under the elder-bush,

were beaming and flitting through the room. Wonderfully strengthened

by this shining and tinkling, the student Anselmus directed his eyes

and thoughts more and more intensely on the superscription of the

parchment roll; and ere long he felt, as it were from his inmost soul,

that the characters could denote nothing else than these words: _Of

the marriage of the Salamander with the green Snake_. Then resounded

a louder triphony of clear crystal bells; "Anselmus! dear Anselmus!"

floated to him from the leaves; and, O wonder! on the trunk of the

palm-tree the green Snake came winding down.

"Serpentina! Serpentina!" cried Anselmus, in the madness of highest

rapture; for as he gazed more earnestly, it was in truth a lovely,

glorious maiden that, looking at him with those dark-blue eyes, full

of inexpressible longing, as they lived in his heart, was hovering

down to meet him. The leaves seemed to jut out and expand; on every

hand were prickles sprouting from the trunks; but Serpentina twisted

and wound herself deftly through them; and so drew her fluttering

robe, framing her as if in changeful colors, along with her, that,

playing round the dainty form, it nowhere caught on the projecting

points and prickles of the palm-trees. She sat down by Anselmus on the

same chair, clasping him with her arm, and pressing him toward her,

so that he felt the breath which came from her lips, and the electric

warmth of her frame.

"Dear Anselmus!" began Serpentina, "thou shalt now soon be wholly

mine; by thy faith, by thy Love thou shalt obtain me, and I will bring

thee the Golden Pot, which shall make us both happy forevermore."

"O thou kind, lovely Serpentina!" said Anselmus. "If I have but thee,

what care I for all else! If thou art but mine, I will joyfully give

in to all the wondrous mysteries that have beset me ever since the

moment when I first saw thee."

"I know," continued Serpentina, "that the strange and mysterious

things with which my father, often merely in the sport of his humor,

has surrounded thee, have raised horror and dread in thy mind; but

now, I hope, it shall be so no more; for I came now only to tell thee,

dear Anselmus, from the bottom of my heart and soul, all and sundry to

a tittle that thou needest to know for understanding my father, and so

learn the real condition of both of us."

Anselmus felt as if he were so wholly clasped and encircled by the

gentle, lovely form, that only with her could he move and stir, and

as if it were but the beating of her pulse that throbbed through

his nerves and fibres; he listened to each one of her words which

penetrated his inmost heart, and, like a burning ray, kindled in him

the rapture of Heaven. He had put his arm round that daintier than

dainty waist; but the changeful glistering cloth of her robe was

so smooth and slippery that it seemed to him as if she could at any

moment wind herself from his arms, and glide away. He trembled at the

thought.

"Ah, do not leave me, sweet Serpentina!" cried he involuntarily; "thou

alone art my life."

"Not now," said Serpentina, "till I have told thee all that in thy

love of me thou canst comprehend."

"Know then, dearest, that my father is sprung from the wondrous race

of the Salamanders; and that I owe my existence to his love for the

green Snake. In primeval times, in the Fairyland Atlantis, the potent

Spirit-prince Phosphorus bore rule; and to him the Salamanders, and

other Spirits of the Elements, were plighted. Once on a time, the

Salamander, whom he loved before all others (it was my father),

chanced to be walking in the stately garden, which Phosphorus' mother

had decked in the lordliest fashion with her best gifts; and the

Salamander heard a tall Lily singing in low tones: `Press down thy

little eyelids, till my Lover, the Morning-wind, awake thee.' He

stepped toward it: touched by his glowing breath, the Lily opened her

leaves; and he saw the Lily's daughter, the green Snake, lying asleep

in the hollow of the flower. Then was the Salamander inflamed with

warm love for the fair Snake; and he carried her away from the Lily,

whose perfumes in nameless lamentation vainly called for her beloved

daughter throughout all the garden. For the Salamander had borne her

into the palace of Phosphorus, and was there beseeching him: 'Wed me

with my beloved, for she shall be mine forevermore.' 'Madman, what

askest thou!' said the Prince of the Spirits; 'know that once the Lily

was my mistress, and bore rule with me; but the Spark, which I cast

into her, threatened to annihilate the fair Lily; and only my victory

over the black Dragon, whom now the Spirits of the Earth hold in

fetters, maintains her, that her leaves continue strong enough to

inclose this Spark and preserve it within them. But when thou claspest

the green Snake, thy fire will consume her frame; and a new Being,

rapidly arising from her dust, will soar away and leave thee.'

"The Salamander heeded not the warning of the Spirit-prince: full of

longing ardor he folded the green Snake in his arms; she crumbled into

ashes; a winged Being, born from her dust, soared away through the

sky. Then the madness of desperation caught the Salamander, and he ran

through the garden, throwing forth fire and flames, and wasted it

in his wild fury, till its fairest flowers and blossoms hung down,

blackened and scathed, and their lamentation filled the air. The

indignant Prince of the Spirits, in his wrath, laid hold of the

Salamander, and said: 'Thy fire has burnt out, thy flames are

extinguished, thy rays darkened; sink down to the Spirits of the

Earth; let these mock and jeer thee, and keep thee captive, till the

Fire-element shall again kindle and beam up with thee as with a new

being from the Earth.' The poor Salamander sank down extinguished;

but now the testy old Earth-spirit, who was Phosphorus' gardener,

came forth and said: 'Master! who has greater cause to complain of the

Salamander than I? Had not all the fair flowers, which he has burnt,

been decorated with my gayest metals; had I not stoutly nursed and

tended their seeds, and spent many a fair hue on their leaves? And yet

I must pity the poor Salamander; for it was but love, in which thou, O

Master, hast full often been entangled, that drove him to despair

and made him desolate the garden. Remit him the too harsh

punishment!'--'His fire is for the present extinguished,' said the

Prince of the Spirits; 'but in the hapless time, when the Speech of

Nature shall no longer be intelligible to degenerate man; when the

Spirits of the Elements, banished into their own regions, shall speak

to him only from afar, in faint, spent echoes; when, displaced from

the harmonious circle, an infinite longing alone shall give him

tidings of the Land of Marvels, which he once might inhabit while

Faith and Love still dwelt in his soul--in this hapless time the fire

of the Salamander shall again kindle; but only to manhood shall he

be permitted to rise, and, entering wholly into man's necessitous

existence, he shall learn to endure its wants and oppressions. Yet not

only shall the remembrance of his first state continue with him, but

he shall again rise into the sacred harmony of all Nature; he shall

understand its wonders, and the power of his fellow-spirits shall

stand at his behest. Then, too, in a Lily-bush, shall he find the

green Snake again, and the fruit of his marriage with her shall be

three daughters, which, to men, shall appear in the form of their

mother. In the spring season these shall disport them in the dark

Elder-bush, and sound with their lovely crystal voices. And then if,

in that needy and mean age of inward obduracy, there shall be found

a youth who understands their song; nay, if one of the little Snakes

look at him with her kind eyes; if the look awaken in him forecastings

of the distant, wondrous Land, to which, having cast away the burden

of the Common, he can courageously soar; if, with love to the Snake,

there rise in him belief in the Wonders of Nature, nay, in his own

existence amid these Wonders--then the Snake shall be his. But not

till three youths of this sort have been found and wedded to the three

daughters, may the Salamander cast away his heavy burden, and return

to his brothers.'--'Permit me, Master,' said the Earth-spirit, 'to

make these three daughters a present, which may glorify their life

with the husbands they shall find. Let each of them receive from me

a Pot, of the fairest metal which I have; I will polish it with

beams borrowed from the diamond; in its glitter shall our Kingdom

of Wonders, as it now exists in the Harmony of universal Nature, be

mirrored in glorious dazzling reflection; and from its interior, on

the day of marriage, shall spring forth a Fire-lily, whose eternal

blossom shall encircle the youth that is found worthy, with sweet

wafting odors. Soon too shall he learn its speech, and understand

the wonders of our kingdom, and dwell with his beloved in Atlantis

itself.'

"Thou perceivest well, dear Anselmus, that the Salamander of whom I

speak is no other than my father. Spite of his higher nature, he was

forced to subject himself to the paltriest afflictions of common life;

and hence, indeed, often comes the mischievous humor with which he

vexes many. He has told me now and then, that, for the inward make of

mind, which the Spirit-prince Phosphorus required as a condition of

marriage with me and my sisters, men have a name at present, which,

in truth, they frequently enough misapply: they call it a childlike

poetic mind. This mind, he says, is often found in youths, who, by

reason of their high simplicity of manners and their total want of

what is called knowledge of the world, are mocked by the populace. Ah,

dear Anselmus, beneath the Elder-bush thou understoodest my song, my

look; thou lovest the green Snake, thou believest in me, and wilt be

mine forevermore! The fair Lily will bloom forth from the Golden

Pot; and we shall dwell, happy, and united, and blessed, in Atlantis

together!

"Yet I must not hide from thee that in its deadly battle with the

Salamanders and Spirits of the Earth, the black Dragon burst from

their grasp and hurried off through the air. Phosphorus, indeed,

again holds him in fetters; but from the black Quills, which, in the

struggle, rained down on the ground, there sprung up hostile Spirits,

which on all hands set themselves against the Salamanders and Spirits

of the Earth. That woman who so hates thee, dear Anselmus, and who,

as my father knows full well, is striving for possession of the

Golden Pot; that woman owes her existence to the love of such a Quill

(plucked in battle from the Dragon's wing) for a certain Parsnip

beside which it dropped. She knows her origin and her power; for, in

the moans and convulsions of the captive Dragon, the secrets of many a

mysterious constellation are revealed to her; and she uses every means

and effort to work from the Outward into the Inward and unseen; while

my father, with the beams which shoot forth from the spirit of the

Salamander, withstands and subdues her. All the baneful principles

which lurk in deadly herbs and poisonous beasts, she collects; and,

mixing them under favorable constellations, raises therewith many

a wicked spell, which overwhelms the soul of man with fear and

trembling, and subjects him to the power of those Demons, produced

from the Dragon when it yielded in battle. Beware of that old woman,

dear Anselmus! She hates thee because thy childlike, pious character

has annihilated many of her wicked charms. Keep true, true to me; soon

art thou at the goal!"

"O my Serpentina! my own Serpentina!" cried the student Anselmus, "how

could I leave thee, how should I not love thee forever!" A kiss was

burning on his lips; he awoke as from a deep dream; Serpentina had

vanished; six o'clock was striking, and it fell heavy on his heart

that today he had not copied a single stroke. Full of anxiety, and

dreading reproaches from the Archivarius, he looked into the sheet;

and, O wonder! the copy of the mysterious manuscript was fairly

concluded; and he thought, on viewing the characters more narrowly,

that the writing was nothing else but Serpentina's story of her

father, the favorite of the Spirit-prince Phosphorus, in Atlantis,

the Land of Marvels. And now entered Archivarius Lindhorst, in his

light-gray surtout, with hat and staff; he looked into the parchment

on which Anselmus had been writing, took a large pinch of snuff, and

said with a smile "Just as I thought!--Well, Herr Anselmus, here is

your speziesthaler; we will now to the Linke Bath; do but follow me!"

The Archivarius stepped rapidly through the garden, in which there was

such a din of singing, whistling, talking, that the student Anselmus

was quite deafened with it and thanked Heaven when he found himself on

the street.

Scarcely had they walked a few paces when they met Registrator

Heerbrand, who companionably joined them. At the Gate, they filled

their pipes, which they had about them; Registrator Heerbrand

complained that he had left his tinder-box behind, and could not

strike fire. "Fire!" cried Archivarius Lindhorst, scornfully; "here is

fire enough, and to spare!" And with this he snapped his fingers, out

of which came streams of sparks and directly kindled the pipes.--"Do

but observe the chemical knack of some men!" said Registrator

Heerbrand; but the student Anselmus thought, not without internal awe,

of the Salamander and his history.

In the Linke Bath, Registrator Heerbrand drank so much strong double

beer that at last, though usually a good-natured, quiet man, he began

singing student songs in squeaking tenor; he asked every one sharply

whether he was his friend or not; and at last had to be taken home by

the student Anselmus, long after Archivarius had gone his way.

NINTH VIGIL

How the student Anselmus attained to some Sense. The Punch Parts.

How the student Anselmus took Conrector Paulmann for a Screech-Owl,

and the latter felt much hurt at it. The Ink-blot, and its

Consequences.

The strange and mysterious things which day by day befell the student

Anselmus had entirely withdrawn him from every-day life. He no longer

visited any of his friends, and waited every morning with impatience

for the hour of noon, which was to unlock his paradise. And yet while

his whole soul was turned to the sweet Serpentina and the wonders of

Archivarius Lindhorst's fairy kingdom, he could not help now and then

thinking of Veronica; nay, often it seemed as if she came before him

and confessed with blushes how heartily she loved him, how much

she longed to rescue him from the phantoms which were mocking and

befooling him. At times he felt as if a foreign power, suddenly

breaking in on his mind, were drawing him with resistless force to the

forgotten Veronica; as if he must needs follow her whither she pleased

to lead him, nay, as if he were bound to her by ties that would not

break. That very night after Serpentina had first appeared to him

in the form of a lovely maiden, after the wondrous secret of the

Salamander's nuptials with the green Snake had been disclosed,

Veronica, came before him more vividly than ever. Nay, not till he

awoke was he clearly aware that he had been but dreaming; for he had

felt persuaded that Veronica was actually beside him, complaining with

an expression of keen sorrow, which pierced through his inmost soul,

that he should sacrifice her deep, true love to fantastic visions,

which only the distemper of his mind called into being, and which,

moreover, would at last prove his ruin. Veronica was lovelier than he

had ever seen her; he could not drive her from his thoughts: and in

this perplexed and contradictory mood he hastened out, hoping to get

rid of it by a morning walk.

A secret magic influence led him on to the Pirna gate; he was just

turning into a cross street, when Conrector Paulmann, coming after

him, cried out: "Ey! Ey!--Dear Herr Anselmus!--_Amice! Amice_! Where,

in Heaven's name, have you been buried so long? We never see you at

all. Do you know, Veronica is longing very much to have another song

with you! So come along; you were just on the road to me, at any

rate."

The student Anselmus, constrained by this friendly violence, went

along with the Conrector. On entering the house they were met by

Veronica, attired with such neatness and attention that Conrector

Paulmann, full of amazement, asked her: "Why so decked, Mam'sell? Were

you expecting visitors? Well, here I bring you Herr Anselmus." The

student Anselmus, in daintily and elegantly kissing Veronica's hand

felt a small soft pressure from it, which shot like a stream of fire

over all his frame. Veronica was cheerfulness, was grace itself; and

when Paulmann left them for his study, she contrived, by all manner of

rogueries and waggeries, so to uplift the student Anselmus that he at

last quite forgot his bashfulness, and jigged round the room with the

light-headed maiden. But here again the Demon of Awkwardness got hold

of him; he jolted a table, and Veronica's pretty little work-box fell

to the floor. Anselmus picked it up; the lid had sprung, and a little

round metallic mirror was glittering on him, into which he looked with

peculiar delight. Veronica glided softly up to him, laid her hand on

his arm, and, pressing close to him, looked over his shoulder into the

mirror also. And now Anselmus felt as if a battle were beginning

in his soul; thoughts, images flashed out--Archivarius

Lindhorst--Serpentina--the green Snake--at last the tumult abated, and

all this chaos arranged and shaped itself into distinct consciousness.

It was now clear to him that he had always thought of Veronica alone;

nay, that the form which had yesterday appeared to him in the blue

chamber had been no other than Veronica; and that the wild legend of

the Salamander's marriage with the green Snake had merely been written

down by him from the manuscript, but nowise related in his hearing. He

wondered not a little at all these dreams and ascribed them solely to

the heated state of mind into which Veronica's love had brought him,

as well as to his working with Archivarius Lindhorst, in whose rooms

there were, besides, so many strangely intoxicating odors. He could

not but laugh heartily at the mad whim of falling in love with a

little green Snake and taking a well-fed Privy Archivarius for a

Salamander: "Yes, Yes! It is Veronica!" cried he aloud; but on turning

his head around he looked right into Veronica's blue eyes, from which

warmest love was beaming. A faint soft Ah! escaped her lips, which at

that moment were burning on his.

"O happy I!" sighed the enraptured student: "What I yesternight but

dreamed, is in very deed mine today."

"But wilt thou really wed me, then, when thou art Hofrat?" said

Veronica.

"That I will," replied the student Anselmus; and just then the door

creaked, and Conrector Paulmann entered with the words:

"Now, dear Herr Anselmus, I will not let you go today. You will put up

with a bad dinner; then Veronica will make us delightful coffee, which

we shall drink with Registrator Heerbrand, for he promised to come

hither."

"All, best Herr Conrector!" answered the student Anselmus, "are you

not aware that I must go to Archivarius Lindhorst's and copy?"

"Look you, Amice!" said Conrector Paulmann, holding up his watch,

which pointed to half-past twelve.

The student Anselmus saw clearly that he was much too late for

Archivarius Lindhorst; and he complied with the Corrector's wishes the

more readily as he might now hope to look at Veronica the whole day

long, to obtain many a stolen glance and little squeeze of the hand,

nay, even to succeed in conquering a kiss--so high had the student

Anselmus' desires now mounted; he felt more and more contented in

soul, the more fully he convinced himself that he should soon be

delivered from all the fantastic imaginations, which really might have

made a sheer idiot of him.

Registrator Heerbrand came, as he had promised, after dinner; and

coffee being over, and the dusk come on, the Registrator, his face

puckering up to a smile and gaily rubbing his hands, signified that he

had something about him which, if mingled and reduced to form, as it

were paged and titled, by Veronica's fair hands, might be pleasant to

them all, on this October evening.

"Come out, then, with this mysterious substance which you carry

with, you, most valued Registrator," cried Conrector Paulmann. Then

Registrator Heerbrand shoved his hand into his deep pocket, and at

three journeys brought out a bottle of arrack, some citrons, and a

quantity of sugar. Before half an hour had passed, a savory bowl of

punch was smoking on Paulmann's table. Veronica served the beverage;

and ere long there was plenty of gay, good-natured chat among the

friends. But the student Anselmus, as the spirit of the punch mounted

into his head, felt all the images of those wondrous things, which for

some time he had experienced, again coming through his mind. He

saw the Archivarius in his damask nightgown, which glittered like

phosphorus; he saw the azure room, the golden palm-trees; nay, it now

seemed to him as if he must still believe in Serpentina; there was a

fermentation, a conflicting tumult in his soul. Veronica handed him

a glass of punch; and in taking it, he gently touched her hand.

"Serpentina! Veronica!" sighed he to himself. He sank into deep

dreams; but Registrator Heerbrand cried quite aloud: "A strange old

gentleman, whom nobody can fathom, he is and will be, this Archivarius

Lindhorst. Well, long life to him! Your glass, Herr Anselmus!"

Then the student Anselmus awoke from his dreams, and said, as he

touched glasses with Registrator Heerbrand "That proceeds, respected

Herr Registrator, from the circumstance that Archivarius Lindhorst

is in reality a Salamander, who wasted in his fury the Spirit-prince

Phosphorus' garden, because the green Snake had flown away from him."

"How? What?" inquired Conrector Paulmann.

"Yes," continued the student Anselmus; "and for this reason he is now

forced to be a Royal Archivarius, and to keep house here in Dresden

with his three daughters, who, after all, are nothing more than little

gold-green Snakes, that bask in elder-bushes, and traitorously sing,

and seduce away young people, like so many sirens."

"Herr Anselmus! Herr Anselmus!" cried Conrector Paulmann, "is there

a crack in your brain? In Heaven's name, what monstrous stuff is this

you are babbling?"

"He is right," interrupted Registrator Heerbrand; "that fellow, that

Archivarius, is a cursed Salamander, and strikes you fiery snips from

his fingers, which burn holes in your surtout like red-hot tinder. Ay,

ay, thou art in the right, brotherkin Anselmus; and whoever says No,

is saying No to me!" And at these words Registrator Heerbrand struck

the table with his fist, till the glasses rattled.

"Registrator! Are you crazy?" cried the angry Conrector. "Herr

Studiosus, Herr Studiosus! What is this you are about again?"

"Ah!" said the student, "you too are nothing but a bird, a

screech-owl, that frizzles toupees, Herr Conrector!" "What!--I

a bird?--screech-owl, a frizzler?" cried the Conrector, full of

indignation; "Sir, you are mad, born mad!"

"But the crone will get a clutch of him," cried Registrator Heerbrand.

"Yes, the crone is potent," interrupted the student Anselmus, "though

she is but of mean descent; for her father was nothing but a ragged

wing-feather, and her mother a dirty parsnip; but the most of her

power she owes to all sorts of baneful creatures, poisonous vermin

which she keeps about her."

"That is a horrid calumny," cried Veronica, with eyes all glowing in

anger; "old Liese is a wise woman; and the black Cat is no baneful

creature, but a polished young gentleman of elegant manners, and her

cousin german."

"Can _he_ eat Salamanders without singeing his whiskers, and dying

like a candle-snuff?" cried Registrator Heerbrand.

"No! no!" shouted the student Anselmus, "that he never can in this

world; and the green Snake loves me, for I have a childlike mien, and

I have looked into Serpentina's eyes."

"The Cat will scratch them out," cried Veronica.

"Salamander, Salamander masters them all, all!" hallooed Conrector

Paulmann, in the highest fury. "But am I in a madhouse? Am I mad

myself? What crazy stuff am I chattering? Yes, I am mad too! mad too!"

And with this, Conrector Paulmann started up, tore the peruke from his

head and dashed it against the ceiling of the room, till the battered

locks whizzed, and, tangled into utter disorder, rained down the

powder far and wide. Then the student Anselmus and Registrator

Heerbrand seized the punch-bowl and the glasses, and, hallooing and

huzzaing, pitched them against the ceiling also, and the sherds fell

jingling and tingling about their ears.

"_Vivat_ the Salamander!--_Pereat, pereat_ the crone!--Break the

metal mirror!--Dig the cat's eyes out!--Bird, little Bird, from the

air--_Eheu--Eheu--Evoe--Evoe_, Salamander!" So shrieked and shouted

and bellowed the three, like utter maniacs. With loud weeping,

Fränzchen ran out; but Veronica lay whimpering for pain and sorrow on

the sofa.

At this moment the door opened; all was instantly still; and a little

man, in a small gray cloak, came stepping in. His countenance had

a singular air of gravity; and especially the round hooked nose, on

which was a huge pair of spectacles, distinguished itself from all the

noses ever seen. He wore a strange peruke too--more like a feather-cap

than a wig.

"Ey, many good evenings!" grated and cackled the little comical

mannikin. "Is the student Herr Anselmus among you, gentlemen?--Best

compliments from Archivarius Lindhorst; he has waited today in vain

for Herr Anselmus; but tomorrow he begs most respectfully to request

that Herr Anselmus would not forget the hour."

And with this he went out again; and all of them now saw clearly

that the grave little mannikin was in fact a gray Parrot. Conrector

Paulmann and Registrator Heerbrand raised a horse-laugh, which

reverberated through the room, and, in the intervals, Veronica was

moaning and whimpering, as if torn by nameless sorrow; but as to the

student Anselmus, the madness of inward horror was darting through

him, and unconsciously he ran out of the door, into the street.

Instinctively he reached his house, his garret. Ere long Veronica came

in to him, with a peaceful and friendly look, and asked him why, in

his intoxication, he had so alarmed her; and desired him to be on

his guard against new imaginations, while working at Archivarius

Lindhorst's. "Good night, good night, my beloved friend!" whispered

Veronica, scarce audibly, and breathed a kiss on his lips. He

stretched out his arms to clasp her, but the dreamy shape had

vanished, and he awoke cheerful and refreshed. He could not but laugh

heartily at the effects of the punch; but in thinking of Veronica, he

felt pervaded by a most delightful feeling. "To her alone," said he

within himself, "do I owe this return from my insane whims. In good

sooth, I was little better than the man who believed himself to be of

glass; or he who durst not leave his room for fear the hens should eat

him, as he imagined himself to be a barleycorn. But as soon as I am

Hofrat I will marry Mademoiselle Paulmann and be happy, and there's an

end of it."

At noon, as he walked through Archivarius Lindhorst's garden, he

could not help wondering how all this had once appeared so strange and

marvelous to him. He now saw nothing but common, earthen flowerpots,

quantities of geraniums, myrtles, and the like. Instead of the

glittering party-colored birds which used to flout him, there were

only a few sparrows fluttering hither and thither, which raised an

unpleasant, unintelligible cry at sight of Anselmus. The azure room

also had quite a different look; and he could not understand how that

glaring blue, and those unnatural golden trunks of palm-trees, with

their shapeless glistening leaves, should ever have pleased him for a

moment. The Archivarius looked at him with a most peculiar, ironical

smile, and asked: "Well, how did you like the punch last night, good

Anselmus?"

"Ah, doubtless you have heard from the gray Parrot how--" answered the

student Anselmus, quite ashamed; but he stopped short, bethinking him

that this appearance of the Parrot was all a piece of jugglery of the

confused senses.

"I was there myself," said Archivarius Lindhorst; "did you not see me?

But, among the mad pranks you were playing, I had nigh got lamed; for

I was sitting in the punch-bowl, at the very moment when Registrator

Heerbrand laid hands on it, to dash it against the ceiling; and I had

to make a quick retreat into the Conrector's pipehead. Now, adieu,

Herr Anselmus! Be diligent at your task; for the lost day also you

shall have a speziesthaler, because you worked so well before."

"How can the Archivarius babble such mad stuff?" thought the student

Anselmus, sitting down at the table to begin the copying of the

manuscript, which Archivarius Lindhorst had as usual spread out before

him. But on the parchment roll he perceived so many strange crabbed

strokes and twirls all twisted together in inexplicable confusion,

offering no resting-point for the eye, that it seemed to him well-nigh

impossible to copy all this exactly. Nay, in glancing over the whole,

you might have thought the parchment was nothing but a piece of

thickly veined marble, or a stone sprinkled over with lichens.

Nevertheless he determined to do his utmost, and boldly dipped in

his pen; but the ink would not run, do what he would; impatiently

he spirted the point of his pen against his nail, and--Heaven and

Earth!--a huge blot fell on the out-spread original! Hissing and

foaming, a blue flash rose from the blot, and, crackling and wavering,

shot through the room to the ceiling. Then a thick vapor rolled from

the walls; the leaves began to rustle, as if shaken by a tempest; and

down out of them darted glaring basilisks in sparkling fire; these

kindled the vapor, and the bickering masses of flame rolled round

Anselmus. The golden trunks of the palm-trees became gigantic snakes,

which knocked their frightful heads together with piercing metallic

clang and wound their scaly bodies round Anselmus.

"Madman I suffer now the punishment of what, in insolent sacrilege,

thou hast done!" So cried the frightful voice of the crowned

Salamander, who appeared above the snakes like a glittering beam in

the midst of the flame; and now the yawning jaws of the snakes poured

forth cataracts of fire on Anselmus; and it was as if the fire-streams

were congealing about his body and changing into a firm ice-cold

mass. But while Anselmus' limbs, more and more pressed together and

contracted, stiffened into powerlessness, his senses passed away.

On returning to himself, he could not stir a joint; he was as if

surrounded with a glistening brightness, on which he struck if he but

tried to lift his hand or move otherwise.--Alas! He was sitting in a

well-corked crystal bottle, on a shelf, in the library of Archivarius

Lindhorst.

TENTH VIGIL

Sorrows of the student Anselmus in the Glass Bottle. Happy Life of

the Cross Church Scholars and Law Clerks. The Battle in the Library

of Archivarius Lindhorst. Victory of the Salamander, and Deliverance

of the student Anselmus.

Justly may I doubt whether thou, kind reader, wert ever sealed up in

a glass bottle; or even that any vivid tormenting dream ever oppressed

thee with such a demon from fairyland. If such were the case, thou

wouldst keenly enough figure out the poor student Anselmus' woe; but

shouldst thou never have even dreamed such things, then will thy quick

fancy, for Anselmus' sake and mine, be obliging enough to inclose

itself for a few moments in the crystal. Thou art drowned in dazzling

splendor; all objects about thee appear illuminated and begirt with

beaming rainbow hues; all quivers and wavers, and clangs and drones,

in the sheen; thou art floating motionless as in a firmly congealed

ether, which so presses thee together that the spirit in vain gives

orders to the dead and stiffened body. Weightier and weightier the

mountain burden lies on thee; more and more does every breath exhaust

the little handful of air, that still plays up and down in the narrow

space; thy pulse throbs madly; and, cut through with horrid anguish,

every nerve is quivering and bleeding in this deadly agony. Have

pity, kind reader, on the student Anselmus of whom this inexpressible

torture laid hold in his glass prison; but he felt too well that death

could not relieve him; for did he not awake from the deep swoon

into which the excess of pain had cast him, and open his eyes to new

wretchedness, when the morning sun shone clear into the room? He could

move no limb; but his thoughts struck against the glass, stupefying

him with discordant clang; and instead of the words, which the spirit

used to speak from within him, he now heard only the stifled din of

madness. Then he exclaimed in his despair "O Serpentina! Serpentina!

save me from this agony of Hell!" And it was as if faint sighs

breathed around him, which spread like green transparent elder-leaves

over the glass; the clanging ceased; the dazzling, perplexing glitter

was gone, and he breathed more freely.

"Have not I myself solely to blame for my misery? Ah! Have not I

sinned against thee, thou kind, beloved Serpentina? Have not I raised

vile doubts of thee? Have not I lost my faith, and, with it, all,

all that was to make me so blessed? Ah! Thou wilt now never, never

be mine; for me the Golden Pot is lost, and I shall not behold its

wonders any more. Ah, but once could I see thee, but once hear thy

gentle sweet voice, thou lovely Serpentina!"

So wailed the student Anselmus, caught with deep piercing sorrow; then

spoke a voice close by him: "What the devil ails you Herr Studiosus?

What makes you lament so, out of all compass and measure?"

The student Anselmus now noticed that on the same shelf with him were

five other bottles, in which he perceived three Cross Church Scholars,

and two Law Clerks.

"Ah, gentlemen, my fellows in misery," cried he, "how is it possible

for you to be so calm, nay so happy, as I read in your cheerful looks?

You are sitting here corked up in glass bottles, as well as I, and

cannot move a finger, nay, not think a reasonable thought but there

rises such a murder-tumult of clanging and droning and in your head

itself a tumbling and rumbling enough to drive one mad. But doubtless

you do not believe in the Salamander, or the green Snake."

"You are pleased to jest, Mein Herr Studiosus," replied a Cross Church

Scholar; "we have never been better off than at present; for the

speziesthalers which the mad Archivarius gave us for all manner of

pot-hook copies, are clinking in our pockets; we have now no Italian

choruses to learn by heart; we go every day to Joseph's or other inns,

where we do justice to the double-beer, we even look pretty girls in

their faces; and we sing, like real students, _Gaudeamus igitur_, and

are contented in spirit!"

"The gentlemen are quite right," added a Law Clerk; "I too am well

furnished with speziesthalers, like my dearest colleague beside me

here; and we now diligently walk about on the Weinberg, instead of

scurvy Act-writing within four walls."

"But, my best, worthiest gentlemen!" said the student Anselmus, "do

you not feel, then, that you are all and sundry corked up in glass

bottles, and cannot for your hearts walk a hair's-breadth?"

Here the Cross Church Scholars and the Law Clerks set up a loud laugh,

and cried: "The student is mad; he fancies himself to be sitting in

a glass bottle, and is standing on the Elbe-bridge and looking right

down into the water. Let us go along!"

"Ah!" sighed the student, "they have never seen the sweet Serpentina;

they know not what Freedom, and life in Love, and Faith, signify;

and so by reason of their folly and low-mindedness, they feel not

the oppression of the imprisonment into which the Salamander has cast

them. But I, unhappy I, must perish in want and woe, if she, whom I so

inexpressibly love, do not deliver me!"

Then, waving in faint tinkles, Serpentina's voice flitted through

the room: "Anselmus! believe, love, hope!" And every tone beamed

into Anselmus' prison; and the crystal yielded to his pressure, and

expanded, till the breast of the captive could move and heave.

The torment of his situation became less and less, and he saw clearly

that Serpentina still loved him, and that it was she alone, who

had rendered his confinement in the crystal tolerable. He disturbed

himself no more about his frivolous companions in misfortune, but

directed all his thoughts and meditations on the gentle Serpentina.

Suddenly, however, there arose on the other side a dull, croaking,

repulsive murmur. Ere long he could observe that it proceeded from an

old coffee-pot, with half-broken lid, standing over against him on a

little shelf. As he looked at it more narrowly, the ugly features of

a wrinkled old woman by degrees unfolded themselves; and in a few

moments, the Apple-wife of the Black Gate stood before him. She

grinned and laughed at him, and cried with screeching voice: "Ey, Ey,

my pretty boy, must thou lie in limbo now? To the crystal thou hast

run; did I not tell thee long ago?"

"Mock and jeer me; do, thou cursed witch!" said the student Anselmus.

"Thou art to blame for it all; but the Salamander will catch thee,

thou vile Parsnip!"

"Ho, ho!" replied the crone, "not so proud, good ready-writer! Thou

hast smashed my little sons to pieces, thou hast burnt my nose; but I

must still like thee, thou knave, for once thou wert a pretty fellow;

and my little daughter likes thee too. Out of the crystal thou wilt

never come unless I help thee; up thither I cannot clamber; but my

cousin gossip the Rat, that lives close above thee, will gnaw in two

the shelf on which thou standest; thou shalt jingle down, and I catch

thee in my apron, that thy nose be not broken, or thy fine sleek face

at all injured; then I will carry thee to Mam'sell Veronica, and thou

shalt marry her when thou art Hofrat."

"Avaunt, thou devil's brood!" cried the student Anselmus, full of

fury; "it was thou alone and thy hellish arts that brought me to the

sin which I must now expiate. But I bear it all patiently; for only

here can I be, where the kind Serpentina encircles me with love and

consolation. Hear it, thou beldam, and despair! I bid defiance to

thy power; I love Serpentina, and none but her forever; I will not

be Hofrat, will not look at Veronica, who by thy means entices me

to evil. Can the green Snake not be mine, I will die in sorrow and

longing. Take thyself away, thou vile rook! Take thyself away!"

The crone laughed till the chamber rung: "Sit and die then," cried

she, "but now it is time to set to work; for I have other trade to

follow here." She threw off her black cloak, and so stood in hideous

nakedness; then she ran round in circles, and large folios came

tumbling down to her; out of these she tore parchment leaves, and,

rapidly patching them together in artful combination and fixing

them on her body, in a few instants she was dressed as if in strange

party-colored scale harness. Spitting fire, the black Cat darted out

of the ink-glass, which was standing on the table, and ran mewing

toward the crone, who shrieked in loud triumph and along with him

vanished through the door.

Anselmus observed that she went toward the azure chamber, and directly

he heard a hissing and storming in the distance; the birds in the

garden were crying; the Parrot creaked out: "Help! help! Thieves!

thieves!" That moment the crone returned with a bound into the room,

carrying the Golden Pot on her arm, and, with hideous gestures,

shrieking wildly through the air; "Joy! joy, little son!--Kill the

green Snake! To her, son! To her!"

Anselmus thought he heard a deep moaning, heard Serpentina's voice.

Then horror and despair took hold of him; he gathered all his force,

he dashed violently, as if nerve and artery were bursting, against the

crystal; a piercing clang went through the room, and the Archivarius

in his bright damask nightgown was standing in the door.

"Hey, hey! vermin!--Mad spell!--Witchwork!--Hither, holla!" So shouted

he; then the black hair of the crone started up like bristles; her

red eyes glanced with infernal fire, and clenching together the peaked

fangs of her ample jaws, she hissed: "Hiss, at him! Hiss, at him!

Hiss!" and laughed and haw-hawed in scorn and mockery, and pressed

the Golden Pot firmly toward her, and threw out of it handfuls of

glittering earth on the Archivarius; but as it touched the nightgown

the earth changed into flowers, which rained down on the ground.

Then the lilies of the nightgown flickered and flamed up; and the

Archivarius caught these lilies blazing in sparky fire and dashed them

on the witch; she howled for agony, but still as she leapt aloft and

shook her harness of parchment the lilies went out and fell away into

ashes.

"To her, my lad!" creaked the crone; then the black Cat darted through

the air, and plunged over the Archivarius' head toward the door; but

the gray Parrot fluttered out against him and caught him with his

crooked bill by the nape, till red fiery blood burst down over his

neck; and Serpentina's voice cried: "Saved! Saved!" Then the crone,

foaming with rage and desperation, darted out upon the Archivarius;

she threw the Golden Pot behind her, and holding up the long talons of

her skinny fists, was for clutching the Archivarius by the throat; but

he instantly doffed his nightgown, and hurled it against her. Then,

hissing, and sputtering, and bursting, shot blue flames from the

parchment leaves, and the crone rolled round in howling agony, and

strove to get fresh earth from the Pot, fresh parchment leaves from

the books, that she might stifle the blazing flames; and whenever any

earth or leaves came down on her the flames went out. But now, as

if coming from the interior of the Archivarius, there issued fiery

crackling beams, and darted on the crone.

"Hey, hey! To it again! Salamander! Victory!" clanged the Archivarius'

voice through the chamber; and a hundred bolts whirled forth in fiery

circles round the shrieking crone. Whizzing and buzzing flew Cat

and Parrot in their furious battle; but at last the Parrot, with

his strong wing, dashed the Cat to the ground; and with his talons

transfixing and holding fast his adversary, which, in deadly agony,

uttered horrid mews and howls, he, with his sharp bill, picked out

his glowing eyes, and the burning froth spouted from them. Then thick

vapor streamed up from the spot where the crone, hurled to the ground,

was lying under the nightgown; her howling, her terrific, piercing cry

of lamentation died away in the remote distance. The smoke, which had

spread abroad with irresistible smell, cleared off; the Archivarius

picked up his nightgown, and under it lay an ugly Parsnip.

"Honored Herr Archivarius, here, let me offer you the vanquished foe,"

said the Parrot, holding out a black hair in his beak to Archivarius

Lindhorst.

"Very well, my worthy friend," replied the Archivarius; "here lies

my vanquished foe too; be so good now as to manage what remains. This

very day, as a small douceur, you shall have six cocoanuts, and a new

pair of spectacles also, for I see the Cat has villainously broken

your glasses.

"Yours forever, most honored friend and patron!" answered the Parrot,

much delighted; then took the Parsnip in his bill, and fluttered out

with it by the window which Archivarius Lindhorst had opened for him.

The Archivarius now lifted the Golden Pot, and cried, with a strong

voice, "Serpentina! Serpentina!" But as the student Anselmus, joying

in the destruction of the vile beldam who had hurried him into

misfortune, cast his eyes on the Archivarius, behold, here stood once

more the high majestic form of the Spirit-prince, looking up to

him with indescribable dignity and grace. "Anselmus," said the

Spirit-prince, "not thou, but a hostile Principle, which strove

destructively to penetrate into thy nature and divide thee

against thyself, was to blame for thy unbelief. Thou hast kept thy

faithfulness; be free and happy." A bright flash quivered through the

spirit of Anselmus; the royal triphony of the crystal bells sounded

stronger and louder than he had ever heard it; his nerves and fibres

thrilled; but, swelling higher and higher, the melodious tones rang

through the room; the glass which inclosed Anselmus broke; and he

rushed into the arms of his dear and gentle Serpentina.

ELEVENTH VIGIL

Conrector Paulmann's anger at the madness which had broken out in

his Family. How Registrator Heerbrand became Hofrat; and, in the

keenest Frost, walked about in Shoes and silk Stockings. Veronica's

Confessions. Betrothment over the steaming Soup-dish.

"But tell me, best Registrator, how the cursed punch last night could

so mount into our heads, and drive us to all manner of _allotria_?"

So said Conrector Paulmann, as he next morning entered his room,

which still lay full of broken sherds, and in whose midst his hapless

peruke, dissolved into its original elements, was floating in the

punch-bowl. After the student Anselmus ran out of doors, Conrector

Paulmann and Registrator Heerbrand had still kept trotting and

hobbling up and down the room, shouting like maniacs, and butting

their heads together; till Fränzchen, with much labor, carried her

vertiginous papa to bed, and Registrator Heerbrand, in the deepest

exhaustion, sank on the sofa, which Veronica had left, taking refuge

in her bedroom. Registrator Heerbrand had his blue handkerchief tied

about his head; he looked quite pale and melancholic, and moaned out:

"Ah, worthy Conrector, not the punch which Mam'sell Veronica most

admirably brewed, no! but simply that cursed student is to blame for

all the mischief. Do you not observe that he has long been _mente

caphis_? And are you not aware that madness is infectious? One fool

makes twenty; pardon me, it is an old proverb; especially when you

have drunk a glass or two, you fall into madness quite readily, and

then involuntarily you manoeuvre, and go through your exercise, just

as the crack-brained fugleman makes the motion. Would you believe it,

Conrector? I am still giddy when I think of that gray Parrot!"

"Gray fiddlesticks!" interrupted the Conrector; "it was nothing but

Archivarius Lindhorst's little old Famulus, who had thrown a gray

cloak over him and was seeking the student Anselmus."

"It may be," answered Registrator Heerbrand, "but, I must confess, I

am quite downcast in spirit; the whole night through there was such a

piping and organing."

"That was I," said the Conrector, "for I snore loud."

"Well, maybe," answered the Registrator; "but Conrector, Conrector!

Ah, not without cause did I wish to raise some cheerfulness among

us last night--But that Anselmus has spoiled all! You know not--O

Conrector, Conrector!" And with this, Registrator Heerbrand started

up, plucked the cloth from his head, embraced the Conrector, warmly

pressed his hand, and again cried, in quite heart-breaking tones: "O

Conrector, Conrector!" and, snatching his hat and staff, rushed out of

doors.

"This Anselmus comes not over my threshold again," said Conrector

Paulmann; "for I see very well that, with this obdurate madness of

his, he robs the best people of their senses. The Registrator is

now over with it too; I have hitherto kept safe; but the Devil, who

knocked hard last night in our carousal, may get in at last and play

his tricks with me. So _Apage, Satanas_! Off with thee, Anselmus!"

Veronica had grown quite pensive; she spoke no word; only smiled now

and then very oddly, and liked best to be alone. "Also of her distress

Anselmus is the cause," said the Conrector, full of malice; "but it

is well that he does not show himself here; I know he fears me, this

Anselmus, and so he never comes."

These concluding words Conrector Paulmann spoke aloud; then the tears

rushed into Veronica's eyes, and she said, sobbing: "Ah! how can

Anselmus come? He has long been corked up in the glass bottle."

"How? What?" cried Conrector Paulmann. "Ah Heaven! Ah Heaven! she is

doting too, like the Registrator; the loud fit will soon come!

Ah, thou cursed, abominable, thrice-cursed Anselmus!" He ran forth

directly to Doctor Eckstein, who smiled, and again said: "Ey! Ey!"

This time, however, he prescribed nothing; but added, to the little

he had uttered, the following words, as he walked away: "Nerves! Come

round of itself. Take the air; walks; amusements; theatre; playing

_Sonntagskind, Schwestern von Prag_. Come round of itself."

"So eloquent I have seldom seen the Doctor," thought Conrector

Paulmann; "really talkative, I declare!"

Several days and weeks and months were gone; Anselmus had vanished;

but Registrator Heerbrand also did not make his appearance--not till

the fourth of February, when the Registrator, in a new fashionable

coat of the finest cloth, in shoes and silk stockings, notwithstanding

the keen frost, and with a large nosegay of fresh flowers in his hand,

did enter precisely at noon into the parlor of Conrector Paulmann, who

wondered not a little to see his friend so dizened. With a solemn air,

Registrator Heerbrand stepped forward to Conrector Paulmann; embraced

him with the finest elegance, and then said: "Now at last, on the

Saint's-day of your beloved and most honored Mam'sell Veronica, I will

tell you out, straightforward, what I have long had lying at my heart.

That evening, that unfortunate evening, when I put the ingredients of

that cursed punch in my pocket, I purposed imparting to you a piece of

good news, and celebrating the happy day in convivial joys. Already I

had learned that I was to be made Hofrat, for which promotion I have

now the patent, _cum nomine et sigillo Principis_, in my pocket."

"Ah! Herr Registr--Herr Hofrat Heerbrand, I meant to say," stammered

the Conrector.

"But it is you, most honored Conrector," continued the new Hofrat; "it

is you alone that can complete my happiness. For a long time I have in

secret loved your daughter, Mam'sell Veronica; and I can boast of many

a kind look which she has given me, evidently showing that she would

not cast me away. In one word, honored Conrector! I, Hofrat Heerbrand,

do now entreat of you the hand of your most amiable Mam'sell Veronica,

whom I, if you have nothing against it, purpose shortly to take home

as my wife."

Conrector Paulmann, full of astonishment, clapped his hands

repeatedly, crying: "Ey, Ey, Ey! Herr Registr--Herr Hofrat, I meant

to say--who would have thought it? Well, if Veronica does really

love you, I for my share cannot object; nay, perhaps, her present

melancholy is nothing but concealed love for you, most honored Hofrat!

You know what freaks they have!"

At this moment Veronica entered, pale and agitated as she now commonly

was. Then Hofrat Heerbrand stepped toward her; mentioned in a neat

speech her Saint's-day and handed her the odorous nosegay, along

with a little packet; out of which, when she opened it, a pair of

glittering ear-rings beamed up at her. A rapid flying blush tinted her

cheeks; her eyes sparkled in joy, and she cried: "O Heaven! These are

the very ear-rings which I wore some weeks ago, and thought so much

of."