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.”