Conrector Paulmann could stand it no longer; he broke loose:  “Hold!  For the love of Heaven, hold!  Are we again overtaken with the cursed punch, or has Anselmus’ madness come over us too?  Herr Hofrat, what stuff is this you are talking?  I will suppose, however, that it is love which haunts your brain; this soon comes to rights in marriage; otherwise I should be apprehensive that you too had fallen into some shade of madness, most honored Herr Hofrat; then what would become of the future branches of the family, inheriting the malum of their parents?  But now I give my paternal blessing to this happy union, and permit you as bride and bridegroom to take a kiss.”

This happened forthwith; and thus before the presented soup had grown cold, was a formal betrothment concluded.  In a few weeks, Frau Hofraetin Heerbrand was actually, as she had been in vision, sitting in the balcony of a fine house in the Neumarkt, and looking down with a smile on the beaux, who, passing by, turned their glasses up to her, and said:  “She is a heavenly woman, the Hofraetin Heerbrand.”

TWELFTH VIGIL

    Account of the Freehold Property to which Anselmus removed, as
    son-in-law of Archivarius Lindhorst; and how he lives there with
    Serpentina.  Conclusion.

How deeply did I feel, in the depth of my heart, the blessedness of the student Anselmus, who now, indissolubly united with his gentle Serpentina, has withdrawn to the mysterious Land of Wonders, recognized by him as the home toward which his bosom, filled with strange forecastings, had always longed.  But in vain was all my striving to set before thee, kind reader, those glories with which Anselmus is encompassed, or even in the faintest degree to shadow them forth to thee in words.  Reluctantly I could not but acknowledge the feebleness of my every expression.  I felt myself enthralled amid the paltriness of every-day life; I sickened in tormenting dissatisfaction; I glided about like a dreamer; in brief, I fell into that condition of the student Anselmus, which, in the Fourth Vigil, I have endeavored to set before thee.  It grieved me to the heart, when I glanced over the Eleven Vigils, now happily accomplished, and thought that to insert the Twelfth, the keystone of the whole, would never be vouchsafed me.  For whensoever, in the night season, I set myself to complete the work, it was as if mischievous Spirits (they might be relations, perhaps cousins german, of the slain witch) held a polished glittering piece of metal before me, in which I beheld my own mean Self, pale, overwatched, and melancholic, like Registrator Heerbrand after his bout of punch.  Then I threw down my pen, and hastened to bed, that I might behold the happy Anselmus and the fair Serpentina, at least in my dreams.  This had lasted for several days and nights, when at length quite unexpectedly I received a note from Archivarius Lindhorst, in which he addressed me as follows: