How the student Anselmus attained to some Sense.  The Punch Parts.  How the student Anselmus took Conrector Paulmann for a Screech-Owl, and the latter felt much hurt at it.  The Ink-blot, and its Consequences.

The strange and mysterious things which day by day befell the student Anselmus had entirely withdrawn him from every-day life.  He no longer visited any of his friends, and waited every morning with impatience for the hour of noon, which was to unlock his paradise.  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.  At times he felt as if a foreign power, suddenly breaking in on his mind, were drawing him with resistless force to the forgotten Veronica; as if he must needs follow her whither she pleased to lead him, nay, as if he were bound to her by ties that would not break.  That very night after Serpentina had first appeared to him in the form of a lovely maiden, after the wondrous secret of the Salamander’s nuptials with the green Snake had been disclosed, Veronica, came before him more vividly than ever.  Nay, not till he awoke was he clearly aware that he had been but dreaming; for he had felt persuaded that Veronica was actually beside him, complaining with an expression of keen sorrow, which pierced through his inmost soul, that he should sacrifice her deep, true love to fantastic visions, which only the distemper of his mind called into being, and which, moreover, would at last prove his ruin.  Veronica was lovelier than he had ever seen her; he could not drive her from his thoughts:  and in this perplexed and contradictory mood he hastened out, hoping to get rid of it by a morning walk.

A secret magic influence led him on to the Pirna gate; he was just turning into a cross street, when Conrector Paulmann, coming after him, cried out:  “Ey!  Ey!—­Dear Herr Anselmus!—­Amice!  Amice!  Where, in Heaven’s name, have you been buried so long?  We never see you at all.  Do you know, Veronica is longing very much to have another song with you!  So come along; you were just on the road to me, at any rate.”

The student Anselmus, constrained by this friendly violence, went along with the Conrector.  On entering the house they were met by Veronica, attired with such neatness and attention that Conrector Paulmann, full of amazement, asked her:  “Why so decked, Mam’sell?  Were you expecting visitors?  Well, here I bring you Herr Anselmus.”  The student Anselmus, in daintily and elegantly kissing Veronica’s hand felt a small soft pressure from it, which shot like a stream of fire over all his frame.  Veronica was cheerfulness, was grace itself; and when Paulmann left them for his study, she contrived,