“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.