Veronica could not answer, yet it seemed as if all manner of perplexed shapes were dancing and whirling in the cauldron; and on a sudden, with friendly looks and reaching her his hand, rose the Student Anselmus from the cavity of the vessel. She cried aloud: “It is Anselmus! It is Anselmus!”

  Instantly the crone turned the cock fixed at the bottom of the cauldron, and glowing metal rushed forth, hissing and bubbling, into a little mould which she had placed beside it. The hag now sprang aloft; and shrieked, capering about with wild horrific gestures: “It is done! It is done! Thanks, my pretty lad; hast watched? — Pooh, pooh, he is coming! Bite him to death! Bite him to death!” But there sounded a strong rushing through the air: it was as if a huge eagle were pouncing down, striking round him with his pinions; and there shouted a tremendous voice: “Hey, hey, vermin! — It is over! It is over! — Home with ye!” The crone sank down with bitter howling; but Veronica’s sense and recollection forsook her.

  On her returning to herself, it was broad day, she was lying in her bed, and Fränzchen was standing before her with a cup of steaming tea, and saying to her: “But tell me then, sister, what in all the world ails thee? Here have I been standing this hour, and thou lying senseless, as if in the heat of a fever, and moaning and whimpering till we are frightened to death. Father has not gone to his class, this morning, because of thee; he will be here directly with the Doctor.”

  Veronica took the tea in silence: and while drinking it, the horrid images of the night rose vividly before her eyes. “So it was all nothing but a wild dream that tortured me? Yet last night, I surely went to that old woman; it was the twenty-third of September too? Well, I must have been very sick last night, and so fancied all this; and nothing has sickened me but my perpetual thinking of Anselmus and the strange old wife who gave herself out for Liese, but was no such thing, and only made a fool of me with that story.”

  Fränzchen, who had left the room, again came in with Veronica’s mantle, all wet, in her hand. “Do but look, sister,” said she, “what a sight thy mantle is! There has the storm overnight blown up the window, and overset the chair where thy mantle was hanging; and so the rain has come in, and wetted it all for thee.”

  This speech sank heavy on Veronica’s heart; for she now saw that it was no dream which had tormented her; but that she had really been with the witch. Anguish and horror took hold of her at the thought; and a fever-frost quivered through all her frame. In spasmodic shuddering, she drew the bed-clothes close over her; but with this, she felt something hard pressing on her breast, and on grasping it with her hand, it seemed like a medallion: she drew it out, so soon as Fränzchen went away with the mantle; it was a little, round, bright-polished metallic mirror. “This is a present from the woman,” cried she eagerly; and it was as if fiery beams were shooting from the mirror, and penetrating into her inmost soul with benignant warmth. The fever-frost was gone; and there streamed through her whole being an unutterable feeling of contentment and cheerful delight. She could not but remember Anselmus; and as she turned her thoughts more and more intensely on him, behold he smiled on her with friendly looks out of the mirror, like a living miniature portrait. But ere long she felt as if it were no longer the image which she saw; no! but the Student Anselmus himself alive and in person. He was sitting in a stately chamber, with the strangest furniture, and diligently writing. Veronica was about to step forward, to pat his shoulder, and say to him: “Herr Anselmus, look round; it is I!” But she could not; for it was as if a fire-stream encircled him; and yet when she looked more narrowly, this fire-stream was nothing but large books with gilt leaves. At last Veronica so far succeeded that she caught Anselmus’ eye: it seemed as if he needed, in gazing at her, to bethink himself who she was; but at last he smiled and said: “Ah! Is it you, dear Mademoiselle Paulmann! But why do you please now and then to take the form of a little Snake?” At these strange words, Veronica could not help laughing aloud; and with this she awoke as from a deep dream; and hastily concealed the little mirror, for the door opened, and Conrector Paulmann with Doctor Eckstein entered the room. Doctor Eckstein stept forward to the bedside; felt Veronica’s pulse with long profound study, and then said: “Ey! Ey!” Thereupon he wrote out a prescription; again felt the pulse; a second time said: “Ey! Ey!” and then left his patient. But from these disclosures of Doctor Eckstein’s, Conrector Paulmann could not clearly make out what it was that particularly ailed Veronica.

  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 overtaken with Liquor

  The Student Anselmus had now worked several days with Archivarius Lindhorst; these working hours were for him the happiest of his life; still encircled with lovely tones, with Serpentina’s encouraging voice, 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 splendour, 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 stair, 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 night-gown. He called aloud: “Today come this way, good Herr Anselmus; for we must to the chamber where Bhogovotgita’s masters are waiting for us.”

  He stept 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 marvellous beauty of the garden: but he now perceived that many of the strange flowers, hanging on the dark bushes, were in truth insects glancing with lordly colours, hovering up and down with their little wings, as they danced and whirled in clusters, caressing one another with their antennæ. On the other hand again, the rose and azure-coloured 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 groves and trees, mingled themselves into mysterious accords of a deep unutterable longing. The mock-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! They may fall about your ears — 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 stept 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-coloured satin, upon which lay the writing-ware already known to Anselnms; and a stuffed arm-chair, covered with the same sort of cloth, was placed beside 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 behind; and that is the transcribing or rather painting of certain works, written in a peculiar character; I keep them in this room, and they can only be copied 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 forfend, 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, he almost lost hope of ever copying it. He fell into deep thoughts on the subject.

  “Be of courage, young man!” cried the Archivarius; “if thou hast continuing Belief 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 stept up the trunk of a palm-tree, and vanished aloft among the emerald leaves. The Student Anselmus perceived that the Prince of the Spirits had been speaking with him, and was now gone up to his study; perhaps intending, by the beams which some of the Planets had despatched to him as envoys, to send back word what was to become of Anselmus and Serpentina.

  “It may be too,” thought he farther, “that he is expecting news from the Springs of the Nile; or that some magician from Lapland is paying him a visit: me it behoves to set diligently about my task.” And with this, he began studying the foreign characters on the roll of parchment.

  The strange music of the garden sounded over to him, and encircled him with sweet lovely odours; the mock-birds too he still heard giggling and twittering, but could not distinguish their words, a thing which greatly pleased him. At times also it was as if the 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 trunk; but Serpentina twisted and winded herself deftly through them; and so drew her fluttering robe, glancing as if in changeful colours, along with her, that, plying round the dainty form, it nowhere caught on the projecting points and prickles of the palm-tree. She sat down by Anselmus on the same chair, clasping him with her arm, and pressing him towards 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 Belief, by thy Love, thou shalt obtain me, and I will bring thee the Golden Pot, which shall make us both happy for evermore.”

  “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 humour, has surrounded thee, have raised distrust and dread in thy mind; but now, I hope, it shall be so no more; for I come at this moment 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 for seeing clearly what thy relation to him and to me really is.”

  Anselmus felt as if he were so wholly clasped and encircled by the gentle lovely form, that only with her could he move and live, 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 till it sounded in 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, gentlest Serpentina!” cried he; “thou 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 stept towards 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, and she shall be mine for evermore.’— ‘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 enclose 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 ardour 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, dashing 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 them, 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 Belief 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 themselves in the dark Elder-bush, and sound with their lovely crystal voices. And then if, in that needy and mean age of inward stuntedness, 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 imaged back in glorious dazzling reflection; and from its interior, on the day of marriage, shall spring forth a Fire-lily, whose eternal blossoms shall encircle the youth that is found worthy, with sweet wafting odours. Soon too shall he learn its speech, and understand the wonders of our kingdom, and dwell with his beloved in Atlantis itself.’