“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 humor, has surrounded thee, have raised horror and dread in thy mind; but now, I hope, it shall be so no more; for I came now only 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 learn the real condition of both of us.”

Anselmus felt as if he were so wholly clasped and encircled by the gentle, lovely form, that only with her could he move and stir, 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 which penetrated 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, sweet Serpentina!” cried he involuntarily; “thou alone 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 stepped toward 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, for she shall be mine forevermore.’  ’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 inclose 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.’