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."

"How can this be, dearest Mam'sell," interrupted Hofrat Heerbrand, somewhat alarmed and hurt, "when I bought these jewels not an hour ago in the Schlossgasse, for current money?"

But Veronica heeded him not; she was standing before the mirror to witness the effect of the trinkets, which she had already suspended in her pretty little ears. Conrector Paulmann disclosed to her, with grave countenance and solemn tone, his friend Heerbrand's preferment and present proposal. Veronica looked at the Hofrat with a searching look, and said: "I have long known that you wished to marry me. Well, be it so! I promise you my heart and hand; but I must now unfold to you, to both of you, I mean, my father and my bridegroom, much that is lying heavy on my heart; yes, even now, though the soup should get cold, which I see Fränzchen is just putting on the table."

Without waiting for the Conrector's or the Hofrat's reply, though the words were visibly hovering on the lips of both, Veronica continued: "You may believe me, best father, I loved Anselmus from my heart, and when Registrator Heerbrand, who is now become Hofrat himself, assured us that Anselmus might probably reach that position, I resolved that he and no other should be my husband. But then it seemed as if alien hostile beings were for snatching him away from me; I had recourse to old Liese, who was once my nurse, but is now a wise woman, and a great enchantress. She promised to help me and give Anselmus wholly into my hands. We went at midnight on the Equinox to the crossing of the roads; she conjured certain hellish spirits, and by aid of the black Cat we manufactured a little metallic mirror, in which I, directing my thoughts on Anselmus, had but to look in order to rule him wholly in heart and mind. But now I heartily repent having done all this, and here abjure all Satanic arts. The Salamander has conquered old Liese; I heard her shrieks; but there was no help to be given; so soon as the Parrot had eaten the Parsnip my metallic mirror broke in two with a piercing clang." Veronica took out both the pieces of the mirror, and a lock of hair from her work-box, and handing them to Hofrat Heerbrand, she proceeded: "Here, take the fragments of the mirror, dear Hofrat; throw them down, tonight, at twelve o'clock, over the Elbe-bridge, from the place where the Cross stands; the stream is not frozen there; the lock, however, do you wear on your faithful breast. I again abjure all magic; and heartily wish Anselmus joy of his good fortune, seeing he is wedded with the green Snake, who is much prettier and richer than I. You, dear Hofrat, I will love and reverence as becomes a true honest wife."

"Alack! Alack!" cried Conrector Paulmann, full of sorrow; "she is cracked, she is cracked; she can never be Frau Hofrätin; she is cracked!"

"Not in the least," interrupted Hofrat Heerbrand; "I know well that Mam'sell Veronica has felt kindly toward the loutish Anselmus; and it may be that in some fit of passion, she has had recourse to the wise woman, who, as I perceive, can be no other than the card-caster and coffee-pourer of the Seetor--in a word, old Rauerin. Nor can it be denied that there are secret arts, which exert their influence on men but too balefully; we read of such in the Ancients, and doubtless there are still such; but as to what Mam'sell Veronica is pleased to say about the victory of the Salamander, and the marriage of Anselmus with the green Snake, this, in reality, I take for nothing but a poetic allegory; a sort of poem, wherein she sings her entire farewell to the Student."

"Take it for what you will, best Hofrat!" cried Veronica; "perhaps for a very stupid dream."

"That I nowise do," replied Hofrat Heerbrand; "for I know well that Anselmus himself is possessed by secret powers, which vex him and drive him on to all imaginable mad freaks."

Conrector Paulmann could stand it no longer; he broke loose: "Hold! For the love of Heaven, hold! Are we again overtaken with the cursed punch, or has Anselmus' madness come over us too? Herr Hofrat, what stuff is this you are talking? I will suppose, however, that it is love which haunts your brain; this soon comes to rights in marriage; otherwise I should be apprehensive that you too had fallen into some shade of madness, most honored Herr Hofrat; then what would become of the future branches of the family, inheriting the _malum_ of their parents? But now I give my paternal blessing to this happy union, and permit you as bride and bridegroom to take a kiss."

This happened forthwith; and thus before the presented soup had grown cold, was a formal betrothment concluded. In a few weeks, Frau Hofrätin Heerbrand was actually, as she had been in vision, sitting in the balcony of a fine house in the Neumarkt, and looking down with a smile on the beaux, who, passing by, turned their glasses up to her, and said: "She is a heavenly woman, the Hofrätin Heerbrand."

TWELFTH VIGIL

Account of the Freehold Property to which Anselmus removed, as son-in-law of Archivarius Lindhorst; and how he lives there with Serpentina. Conclusion.

How deeply did I feel, in the depth of my heart, the blessedness of the student Anselmus, who now, indissolubly united with his gentle Serpentina, has withdrawn to the mysterious Land of Wonders, recognized by him as the home toward which his bosom, filled with strange forecastings, had always longed. But in vain was all my striving to set before thee, kind reader, those glories with which Anselmus is encompassed, or even in the faintest degree to shadow them forth to thee in words. Reluctantly I could not but acknowledge the feebleness of my every expression. I felt myself enthralled amid the paltriness of every-day life; I sickened in tormenting dissatisfaction; I glided about like a dreamer; in brief, I fell into that condition of the student Anselmus, which, in the Fourth Vigil, I have endeavored to set before thee. It grieved me to the heart, when I glanced over the Eleven Vigils, now happily accomplished, and thought that to insert the Twelfth, the keystone of the whole, would never be vouchsafed me. For whensoever, in the night season, I set myself to complete the work, it was as if mischievous Spirits (they might be relations, perhaps cousins german, of the slain witch) held a polished glittering piece of metal before me, in which I beheld my own mean Self, pale, overwatched, and melancholic, like Registrator Heerbrand after his bout of punch. Then I threw down my pen, and hastened to bed, that I might behold the happy Anselmus and the fair Serpentina, at least in my dreams. This had lasted for several days and nights, when at length quite unexpectedly I received a note from Archivarius Lindhorst, in which he addressed me as follows:

"Respected Sir--It is well known to me that you have written down, in Eleven Vigils, the singular fortunes of my good son-in-law Anselmus, whilom student, now poet; and are at present cudgeling your brains very sore, that in the Twelfth and Last Vigil you may tell somewhat of his happy life in Atlantis, where he now lives with my daughter on the pleasant Freehold which I possess in that country. Now, notwithstanding I much regret that hereby my own peculiar nature is unfolded to the reading world; seeing it may, in my office as Privy Archivarius, expose me to a thousand inconveniences; nay, in the Collegium even give rise to the question: How far a Salamander can justly, and with binding consequences, plight himself by oath, as a Servant of the State, and how far, on the whole, important affairs may be intrusted to him, since, according to Gabalis and Swedenborg, the Spirits of the Elements are not to be trusted at all?--notwithstanding, my best friends must now avoid my embrace; fearing lest, in some sudden exuberance, I dart out a flash or two, and singe their hair-curls, and Sunday frocks; notwithstanding all this, I say, it is still my purpose to assist you in the completion of the Work, since much good of me and of my dear married daughter (would the other two were off my hands also!) has therein been said. Would you write your Twelfth Vigil, therefore, then descend your cursed five pair of stairs, leave your garret, and come over to me. In the blue palm-tree room, which you already know, you will find fit writing materials; and you can then, in a few words, specify to your readers what you have seen--a better plan for you than any long-winded description of a life which you know only by hearsay.

With esteem, your obedient servant,

THE SALAMANDER LINDHORST,

P.T. Royal Privy Archivarius."

This truly somewhat rough, yet on the whole friendly note from Archivarius Lindhorst, gave me high pleasure. Clear enough it seemed, indeed, that the singular manner in which the fortunes of his son-in-law had been revealed to me, and which I, bound to silence, must conceal even from thee, kind reader, was well known to this peculiar old gentleman; yet he had not taken it so ill as I might readily have apprehended. Nay, here was he offering me his helpful hand in the completion of my work; and from this I might justly conclude that at bottom he was not averse to have his marvelous existence in the world of spirits thus divulged through the press.

"It may be," thought I, "that he himself expects from this measure, perhaps, to get his two other daughters the sooner married; for who knows but a spark may fall in this or that young man's breast, and kindle a longing for the green Snake; whom, on Ascension-day, under the elder-bush, he will forthwith seek and find? From the woe which befell Anselmus, when inclosed in the glass bottle, he will take warning to be doubly and trebly on his guard against all doubt and unbelief."

Precisely at eleven o'clock I extinguished my study-lamp and glided forth to Archivarius Lindhorst, who was already waiting for me in the lobby.

"Are you there, my worthy friend? Well, this is what I like, that you have not mistaken my good intentions; do but follow me!"

And with this he led the way through the garden, now filled with dazzling brightness, into the azure chamber, where I observed the same violet table at which Anselmus had been writing.

Archivarius Lindhorst disappeared, but soon came back, carrying in his hand a fair golden goblet out of which a high blue flame was sparkling up. "Here," said he, "I bring you the favorite drink of your friend the Bandmaster, Johannes Kreisler.[45] It is burning arrack, into which I have thrown a little sugar. Sip a touch or two of it; I will doff my nightgown, and, to amuse myself and enjoy your worthy company while you sit looking and writing, shall just bob up and down a little in the goblet."

"As you please, honored Herr Archivarius," answered I: "but if I am to ply the liqueur, you will get none."

"Don't fear that, my good fellow," cried the Archivarius; then hastily threw off his nightgown, mounted, to my no small amazement, into the goblet, and vanished in the blaze. Without fear, softly blowing black the flame, I partook of the drink; it was truly delicious!

Stir not the emerald leaves of the palm-trees in soft sighing and rustling, as if kissed by the breath of the morning wind? Awakened from their sleep, they move and mysteriously whisper of the wonders which, from the far distance, approach like tones of melodious harps! The azure rolls from the walls, and floats like airy vapor to and fro; but dazzling beams shoot through the perfume which, whirling and dancing, as in jubilee of childlike sport, mounts and mounts to immeasurable heights, and vaults over the palm-trees. But brighter and brighter shoots beam on beam, till in bright sunshine and boundless expanse opens the grove where I behold Anselmus. Here glowing hyacinths, and tulips, and roses, lift their fair heads; and their perfumes, in loveliest sound, call to the happy youth: "Wander, wander among us, our beloved; for thou understandest us! Our perfume is the Longing of Love; we love thee, and are thine forevermore!" The golden rays burn in glowing tones: "We are Fire, kindled by Love. Perfume is Longing; but Fire is Desire: and dwell we not in thy bosom? We are thy own!" The dark bushes, the high trees, rustle and sound: "Come to us, thou loved, thou happy one! Fire is Desire; but Hope is our cool Shadow. Lovingly we rustle round thy head; for thou understandest us, because Love dwells in thy breast!" The fountains and brooks murmur and patter. "Loved one, walk not so quickly by; look into our crystal! Thy image dwells in us, which we preserve with Love, for thou hast understood us." In the triumphal choir, bright birds are singing: "Hear us! Hear us! We are Joy, we are Delight, the rapture of Love!" But longingly Anselmus turns his eyes to the Glorious Temple, which rises behind him in the distance. The artful pillars seem trees; and the capitals and friezes acanthus leaves, which in wondrous wreaths and figures form splendid decorations. Anselmus walks to the Temple; he views with inward delight the variegated marble, the steps with their strange veins of moss. "Ah, no!" cries he, as if in the excess of rapture, "she is not far from me now; she is near!" Then advances Serpentina, in the fulness of beauty and grace, from the Temple; she bears the Golden Pot, from which a bright Lily has sprung. The nameless rapture of infinite longing glows in her bright eyes; she looks at Anselmus, and says: "Ah! Dearest, the Lily has sent forth her bowl; what we longed for is fulfilled; is there a happiness to equal ours?" Anselmus clasps her with the tenderness of warmest ardor; the Lily burns in flaming beams over his head. And louder move the trees and bushes; clearer and gladder play the brooks; the birds, the shining insects dance in the waves of perfume; a gay, bright rejoicing tumult, in the air, in the water, in the earth, is holding the festival of Love! Now rush sparkling streaks, gleaming over all the bushes; diamonds look from the ground like shining eyes; high gushes spurt from the wells; strange perfumes are wafted hither on sounding wings; they are the Spirits of the Elements, who do homage to the Lily, and proclaim the happiness of Anselmus. Then Anselmus raises his head, as if encircled with a beamy glory. Is it looks? Is it words? Is it song? You hear the sound: "Serpentina! Belief in thee, Love of thee, has unfolded to my soul the inmost spirit of Nature! Thou hast brought me the Lily, which sprung from Gold, from the primeval Force of the earth, before Phosphorus had kindled the spark of Thought; this Lily is Knowledge of the sacred Harmony of all Beings; and in this do I live in highest blessedness forevermore. Yes, I, thrice happy, have perceived what was highest; I must indeed love thee forever, O Serpentina! Never shall the golden blossoms of the Lily grow pale; for, like Belief and Love, Knowledge is eternal."

For the vision, in which I had now beheld Anselmus bodily, in his Freehold of Atlantis, I stand indebted to the arts of the Salamander; and most fortunate was it that, when all had melted into air, I found a paper lying on the violet table, with the foregoing statement of the matter, written fairly and distinctly by my own hand. But now I felt myself as if transpierced and torn in pieces by sharp sorrow. "Ah, happy Anselmus, who hast cast away the burden of week-day life, who in the love of thy kind Serpentina fliest with bold pinion, and now livest in rapture and joy on thy Freehold in Atlantis! while I--poor I!--must soon, nay, in a few moments, leave even this fair hall, which itself is far from a Freehold in Atlantis, and again be transplanted to my garret, where, enthralled among the pettinesses of necessitous existence, my heart and my sight are so bedimmed with thousand mischiefs, as with thick fog, that the fair Lily will never, never be beheld by me."

Then Archivarius Lindhorst patted me gently on the shoulder, and said: "Soft, soft, my honored friend! Lament not so! Were you not even now in Atlantis, and have you not at least a pretty little copyhold Farm there, as the poetical possession of your inward sense? And is the blessedness of Anselmus aught else but a Living in Poesy? Can aught else but Poesy reveal itself as the sacred Harmony of all Beings, as the deepest secret of Nature?"

_FRIEDRICH BARON DE LA MOTTE FOUQUÉ_

* * * * *

SELECTIONS FROM UNDINE[46] (1811)

TRANSLATED BY F.E. BUNNETT

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