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Updated: June 5, 2025
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.
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.
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.
"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."
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.
"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?
"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.
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.
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?
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.
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