“At nine o’clock the candidate began his lectures and experiments, and now I was one of his auditory.

“It was remarkable to hear and look at!  The chief part of it went over my head and into the parson’s, as one says.  Can it be possible, thought I, that we human beings can find out such things? in that case, we must also be able to hold out longer, before we are put into the earth.  It was merely small miracles that he performed, and yet all as easy as an old stocking—­quite from nature.  In the time of Moses and the prophets, such a polytechnic candidate would have been one of the wise men of the land, and in the Middle Ages he would have been burnt.  I could not sleep the whole night, and as I gave a representation the next evening, and the candidate was there again, I got into a real merry humour.

“I have heard of an actor, who when playing the lovers’ parts, only thought of one of the spectators; he played for her alone, and forgot all the rest of the house; the polytechnic candidate was my her, my only spectator, for whom I played.  And when the performance was over, all the puppets were called forward, and I was invited by the polytechnic candidate to take a glass of wine with him; and he spoke about my comedy, and I of his science; and I believe we each derived equal pleasure from the other.  But yet I had the advantage, for there was so much in his performance that he could not account for:  as for instance, that a piece of iron which falls through a spiral line, becomes magnetic,—­well, how is that?  The spirit comes over it, but whence does it come from? it is just as with the human beings of this world, I think; our Lord lets them fall through the spiral line of time, and the spirit comes over them—­and there stands a Napoleon, a Luther, or a similar person.

“‘All nature is a series of miracles,’ said the candidate, ’but we are so accustomed to them that we call them things of every-day life.’  And he spoke and he explained, so that it seemed at last as if he lifted my scull, and I honestly confessed, that if I were not an old fellow, I would go directly to the polytechnic school, and learn to examine the world in the summer, although I was one of the happiest of men.

“‘One of the happiest!’ said he, and it was just as if he tasted it.  ‘Are you happy?’ ‘Yes!’ said I, ’I am happy, and I am welcome in all the towns I come to with my company!  There is certainly one wish, that comes now and then like a night-mare, which rides on my good-humour, and that is to be a theatrical manager for a living company—­a company of real men and women.’

“’You wish to have your puppets animated; you would have them become real actors and actresses,’ said he, ’and yourself be the manager? you then think that you would be perfectly happy?’

“Now he did not think so, but I thought so; and we talked for and against; and we were just as near in our opinions as before.  But we clinked our glasses together, and the wine was very good; but there was witchcraft in it, or else the short and the long of the story would be—­that I was intoxicated.