The Serapion Brethren, Vol. II

by E. T. A. Hoffmann

CHAPTER V.

WHEREIN THE READER LEARNS WHAT THE DĀ-LĚS IS: ALSO HOW THE GOLDSMITH SAVES THE CLERK OF THE PRIVY CHANCERY FROM A MISERABLE DEATH, AND CONSOLES THE DESPAIRING COMMISSIONSRATH.

Bosswinkel was utterly shaken; more by Manasseh's curse than by the wild piece of spookery which, as he saw, the Goldsmith had been carrying on. And indeed it was a terrible curse, for it set the Dā-lěs on to him.

Dear reader, I don't know if you are aware what the Dā-lěs of the Jews is.

One of the Talmudists says that the wife of a certain poor Jew, one day on coming into her house, found a weazened, emaciated, naked stranger there, who begged her to give him the shelter of her roof, and food and drink. Being afraid, she went to her husband, and told him, in tones of complaint: "A naked, starving man has come in, asking for food and shelter. How are we to help him, when it is all we can do to keep body and soul together ourselves?" The husband said: "I will go to this stranger, and see how I can get him out of the house."

"Why," he said to him, "hast thou come hither, I being so poor and unable to help thee? Begone! Betake thee to the house of Riches, where the cattle are fat, and the guests bidden to the feast!"

"How," said the stranger, "canst thou drive me from this shelter which I have found? Thou seest that I am bare and naked: how can I go to the house of Riches? Have clothing made for me that shall be fitting, and I will leave thee." "Better," thought the master of the house, "better were it for me to spend all I possess in getting rid of him, than that he should stay, and consume whatever I earn in the time to come, as well." So he killed his last calf, on which he and his wife had thought to live for many days; sold the meat, and with the price provided good clothing for the stranger. But when he took the clothing to him, behold! the stranger, who had before been lean, and short of stature, was become tall and stout, so that the clothing was everywhere too short for him and too narrow. At this the poor Jew was much afraid. But the stranger said: "Give up the foolish idea of getting me out of thy house. Know that I am the Dā-lěs!" At this the poor Jew wrung his hands and lamented, crying: "God of my fathers! I am scourged with the rod of Thine anger, and poverty-smitten for ever and ever! For if thou art the Dā-lěs, thou wilt never leave us, but consume all that we have, and always grow bigger and stronger. For the Dā-lěs is Poverty; which, when once it takes up its abode in a house, never departs from it, but ever increases more and more."

If, then, the Commissionsrath was terrified that Manasseh, by his curse, had brought poverty into his house, on the other hand, he stood in the utmost dread of Leonhard, who, to say nothing of the extraordinary magical powers at his command, had a certain something about him which created a decided sense of awe. The Commissionsrath could not but feel that there was nothing (with respect to the two of them) which one could "do;" and thus the full brunt of his anger was discharged upon Edmund Lehsen, upon whom he laid all the blame of all the "unpleasantness" which had come about. Over and above all this, Albertine came to the front, and declared, of her own motion, having evidently completely made up her mind on the subject--declared, we say, with the utmost distinctness, that she loved Edmund more than words could express, and would never marry either that insufferable and unendurable old pedant of a Tussmann, or that equally not-to-be-heard-of beast of a Baron Benjamin. So that the Commissionsrath got into the most tremendous rage imaginable, and wished Edmund at (ahem!) Hong Kong, or Jericho, or, to speak idiomatically, "where the pepper grows." But inasmuch as he could not carry this wish into effect, as the late French Government did (which actually did send objectionable persons to the place "where the pepper grows"), he had to be content with writing Edmund a nice little note, into which he poured all the gall and venom which was in him at the time (and that was not a little), and which ended by telling him that if ever he crossed his, the Commissionsrath's, threshold again, he had better--look out for squalls.

Of course we all know the state of inconsolable despair in which Leonhard found Edmund, when he went to see him, at the fall of the twilight, according to his wont.

"What have I to thank you for?" Edmund cried, indignantly. "Of what service have your protection and all your efforts been to me? Your attempts to send this cursed rival of mine out of my way--what has been the result of them? Those damnable conjuring tricks of yours--all that they have done has been to send everybody into a state of higgledy-piggledy, where nobody knows what to think of anything! Even that darling girl of mine is in the same boat with all the rest of them. It's just this stupid, nonsensical bosh of yours--that, and nothing else,--which is blocking up my way, and so I tell you. Oh Lord! the only thing which I can see that I can do is to be off to Rome at once, and, I can assure you, I mean to do it, too."

"Just so," the Goldsmith said: "that is exactly what I want you to do. Be good enough to remember what I said to you when you first told me you were in love with Albertine. I said my idea was that a young artist was right to be in love, but that he should not go and marry, all at once, because that was most inadvisable. When I said that to you, I brought to your mind, half in jest, the case of Sternbald; but now I tell you, in the utmost seriousness, that, if you really wish to become a great painter, you must put all ideas of marrying out of your head. Go you away, free and glad, into the Father-land of Art; study, in the most enthusiastic manner that ever you can, the inner-being of that world of Art; and then, and only then, will the technical and practical skill (which you might pick up here) be of the slightest real use to you."

"Good gracious!" Edmund cried, "what an idiot I was to say anything to you about my love affairs. I see, now, that it was you--you, on whom I relied for advice and help in them--who have been purposely throwing difficulties in the way, playing Old Harry with my most special heart's desires, out of mere nastiness and unkindness."

"My good young sir!" the Goldsmith said, "just be good enough to keep a rather quieter tongue in your head. Don't be quite so forcible in your expressions. Please to remember that you have got one or two things to learn, still, before you can quite see through me. I can excuse you, of course. I know very well what has upset your temper. This insane spooniness of yours."

"As regards Art," Edmund said, "I really can't see why I should not go to Rome and study, though I do stand in this intimate relation with Albertine. You say yourself that I have a certain amount of 'turn' for painting, and some practical skill, already. What I was thinking of was, that, as soon as I was quite sure that Albertine would be mine, one day, I should be off to Italy; spend a year there, and then come back to my darling girl, having some real knowledge of my work."

"What, Edmund?" the Goldsmith cried; "was this really your idea, arrived at after proper consideration?"

"Yes," Edmund answered: "deeply as I love Albertine, my heart burns for that grand country which is the home of my Art."

"Will you give me your sacred word," the Goldsmith asked, "that if you are sure that Albertine is yours you will be off at once to Italy?"

"Why shouldn't I?" Edmund replied, "inasmuch as it is my firm determination to do so? It always has been so, and would be so--if she were to be mine (I have my doubts as to whether she over will or not").

"Well, Edmund," the Goldsmith said, "be of good courage. This firm resolve of yours has gained you your sweetheart. I give you my word of honour that in a very few days Albertine will be your affianced wife. And you know well enough that you need have no doubt as to my having the power to keep my word."

Joy and rapture beamed from Edmund's eyes; and the mysterious Goldsmith went quickly away, leaving him to all the sweet hopes and dreams which had been awakened in his heart.

In an out-of-the-way corner of the Thiergarten, under a shady tree, the Clerk of the Privy Chancery, Mr. Tussmann, was lying "like a dropped acorn," as Celia, in 'As You Like It,' expresses it, or like a wounded knight, pouring forth his heart's complainings to the perfidious autumn breeze.

"Oh, God of justice!" he lamented. "Unhappy, pitiable Clerk of the Privy Chancery that you are! how did you ever come to deserve all the misery which has fallen to your share? Thomasius says that the estate of matrimony in no wise hinders the acquisition of wisdom. And yet, though you have only been thinking of entering into that estate, you have nearly lost that proportion of understanding (and it was not so very small, neither,) which originally fell to your share. Whence comes the aversion which dear Miss Bosswinkel displays towards your--not particularly striking, but still, fairly well endowed--personality? Are you a politician, who ought not to take a wife (as some have laid down), or an expert in the laws, who (according to Cleobolus) ought to give his wife a licking if she misbehaves herself? Am I either of those, that this beautiful creature should be warranted in entertaining some certain quantum of bashful repugnance to me? Why, oh, why, dearest Clerk of the Privy Chancery, Tussmann, must you go and get mixed up with a lot of horrible wizards, and raging painters, who took your face for a stretched canvas, and painted a Salvator Rosa picture on it without saying with your leave or by your leave? Aye! that's the worst of the business! I put all my trust in my friend, Herr Seccius, whose knowledge of chemistry is so extensive and so profound, and who can help people out of every difficulty. But all in vain! The more I rub my face with the liquid he gave me, the greener I get! though the green does take on the most extraordinary variety of different tints and shades that anybody could imagine. My face has been a face of spring, of summer, and of autumn. Ah, yes! it's this greenness which is driving me to my destruction. And if I don't attain to the whiteness of winter (the proper colour for me), I shall run desperate, pitch myself into this frog-pond here, and die a green death!"

It was no wonder that Tussmann complained most bitterly, for the colour of his countenance was a very great annoyance to him. It was not like any ordinary oil-colour, but as if it were some cleverly compounded tincture or dye, sunk into his skin, and not to be obliterated by any human means. In the day-time the poor wretch dared not go about except with his hat down over his eyes, and a pocket-handkerchief before his face. And even when night came on he could only venture to go flitting through the more out-of-the-way streets at a gallop. He dreaded the street-boys, and he also was afraid that he might come across somebody belonging to his office, as he had reported himself sick.

We often feel any trouble that has befallen us more keenly in the silent hours of night than during the more stirring daylight. And so--as the clouds rolled blacker and blacker over the sky, as the shadows of the trees fell deeper, and the autumn wind soughed louder and louder through the branches--Tussmann, as he pondered over all his wretchedness, got into a state of the profoundest despair.

The terrible idea of jumping into the green frog-pond, and so terminating a baffled career, assailed his mind so irresistibly that he looked on it as an unmistakable hint of destiny, which he was bound to obey.

"Yes!" he cried, getting up from the grass, where he had been lying; "yes!" he shouted; "it's all over with you, Clerk of the Privy Chancery! Despair and die, good Tussmann; Thomasius can't help you! On, to a green death! Farewell, terrible Miss Albertine Bosswinkel! Your husband, that was to have been--whom you despised so cruelly--you will never see again! Here he goes, into the frog-pond!"

Like a mad creature he rushed to the edge of the basin (in the darkness it looked like a fine, smooth, broad road, with trees on each side of it), and there he remained standing for a time.

Doubtless the notion of the nearness of death affected his mind; for he sang, in a high-pitched, penetrating voice, that Scotch song, which has the refrain--

"Green grow the rashes, oh!

Green grow the rashes!"

And he shied the 'Diplomatic Acumen,' and the 'Handbook for Court and City,' and also 'Hufeland, on the Art of Prolonging Life,' into the water, and was in the very act of jumping after them, when he felt himself seized from behind by a pair of powerful arms.

He at once recognized the well-known voice of the necromantic Goldsmith. It said--"Tussmann, what are you after? I beg you not to make an ass of yourself; don't go playing idiotic tricks of this sort."

Tussmann strove with all his might to get out of the Goldsmith's grasp, while, scarcely capable of utterance, he croaked out--

"Herr Professor! I am in a state of desperation, and all ordinary considerations are in abeyance. Herr Professor, I sincerely trust you will not take it ill if a Clerk of the Privy Chancery, who is (as we have said) in a state of desperation, and who (in ordinary circumstances) is well versed in the convenances of official etiquette--I say, I hope you won't take it ill, Herr Professor, if I assert, openly and unceremoniously, that (under all the circumstances of the case) I wish to heaven that you and all your magic tricks were at the devil! along with your unendurable familiarity, your 'Tussmann! Tussmann!' never giving me my official title!----there!"

The Goldsmith let him go, and he tumbled down, exhausted, in the long, wet grass.

Believing himself to be in the basin, he cried out, "Oh, cold death! oh, green rashes! oh, meadows! I bid ye farewell. I leave you my kindest wishes, dearest Miss Albertine Bosswinkel. Commissionsrath, good-bye! The unfortunate 'intended' is lying amongst the frogs that praise God in the summer time."

"Tussmann," cried the Goldsmith, in a powerful voice, "don't you see that you're out of your senses, and worn out and wretched into the bargain? You want to send me to the devil! What if I were the Devil, and should set to and twist that neck of yours, here on this spot, where you think you're lying in the water?"

Tussmann sighed, groaned, and shuddered as if in the most violent ague.

"But I mean you kindly, Tussmann," the Goldsmith said; "and your desperate condition excuses everything. Get up, and come along with me." And he helped him to get on his legs.

Tussmann, completely exhausted, said, in a whisper--

"I am completely in your power, most honoured Herr Professor. Do what you will with my miserable body; but I most humbly beg you to spare my immortal soul."

"Do not talk such absurd nonsense," the Goldsmith said, "but come along with me as fast as you can." He took hold of Tussmann by the arm, and led him away. But when they came to where the walk which leads to the Zelten crosses at right angles, he pulled up, and said--

"Wait a moment, Tussmann. You're wet through, and look like I don't know what. Just let me wipe your face, at all events."

The Goldsmith took a handkerchief of dazzling whiteness out of his pocket, and wiped Tussmann's face with it.

The bright lights of the Weberschen Zelt were visible, shining brightly through the trees. Tussmann cried out, in alarm--

"For God's sake, Herr Professor, where are you taking me? Not into town? not to my own lodgings? not (oh, heavens!) into society, amongst my fellow-men? Good heavens! I can't be seen. Wherever I go I give rise to unpleasantness--create a scandalum."

"Tussmann," said the Goldsmith, "I cannot understand that ridiculous shyness of yours. What do you mean by it? Don't be an ass. What you want is a drop of something pretty strong. I should say a tumbler of hot punch, else we shall be having you laid up with a feverish cold. Come on!"

Tussmann kept on lamenting as to his greenness, and his Salvator Rosa face; but the Goldsmith paid not the slightest attention to him, merely hurrying him along with him at a rapid rate.

When they got into the brightly lighted coffee-room, Tussmann hid his face in his handkerchief, as there were still some people there.

"What's the matter with you, Tussmann?" the Goldsmith asked. "Why do you keep hiding that good-looking face of yours, eh?"

"Oh, dearest Herr Professor, you know all about this awful face of mine," Tussmann answered. "You know how that terrible, passionate painter young gentleman went and daubed it all over with green paint?"

"Nonsense," said the Goldsmith, taking the Clerk of the Privy Chancery by the shoulders and placing him right in front of the big mirror at the top of the room, while he threw a strong light on to him from a branched candlestick which he had taken up. Tussmann forced himself--much against the grain--to look. He could not restrain a loud cry of "Gracious heavens!"

For not only had the terrible green tint of his face disappeared, but he had a much more beautiful complexion than he ever had had in his life, and was looking several years younger. In the excess of his delight he jumped up and down with both feet together, and cried, in a voice of sweet emotion--"Oh, just Heaven! what do I see? what do I contemplate? Most honoured Herr Professor, I have no doubt that it is to you that I am indebted for this great happiness!--to you alone! Ah! now I feel little doubt that Miss Albertine Bosswinkel--for whose dear sake I was so very nearly jumping into the frog-pond--won't make much difficulty about accepting me. Really, dearest Professor, you have rescued me from the very profoundest depths of misery. There is no doubt that I did feel a certain sense of relief and well-being when you were so kind as to pass that snow-white handkerchief of yours over my face. You really were my benefactor, were you not?"

"I won't deny, Tussmann," the Goldsmith answered, "that I wiped the green colour away from your face; and, from that, you may gather that I am not by any means so much your enemy as you have supposed me to be. What I can't bear to think of is this ridiculous notion of yours (which you have allowed the Commissionsrath to put in your head) that you are going to go and marry a splendid young creature, bursting with life and love. It is this, I say, which I can't bear to think about. And even now--though you have scarcely got clear of the little trick which has been played on you--you see, you go and begin at once to think about this marriage again. I feel inclined to take away your appetite for it in a very effectual style; and I could do so if I chose, without the slightest difficulty. However, I don't want to go so far as that. But what my advice to you would be is--that you should keep as quiet, and as much out of the way as ever you can till Sunday next, at twelve o'clock at noon, and then you will see more into things. If you dare to go and see Albertine before that time, I will make you go on dancing in her presence till your breath and senses abandon you. Then I will transform you into the very greenest of frogs, and chuck you into the basin of the Thiergarten, or into the River Spree itself, where you'll go on croaking till the end of your days. Good-bye! I have something to do in town which obliges me to get back there as quickly as possible. You won't be able to follow me, or keep up with me. Good-bye!"

The Goldsmith was right in saying that it would not be possible for Tussmann, or anybody else, to keep up with him, for he was off through the door and out of sight, as if he had Schlemihl's seven-leagued boots on.

Perhaps this was why, the next minute after he had disappeared from Tussmann, he appeared suddenly, like a ghost, in the Commissionsrath's room, and bade him good evening in a rough tone.

The Commissionsrath was very frightened, but he pulled himself together, and asked the Goldsmith, with some warmth, what he meant by coming in at that time of the night, adding that he wished he would take himself off, and not bother him any more with any of those conjuring tricks of his, as he presumed he was about to do.

"Ah!" said the Goldsmith very calmly, "that is how people are, particularly Commissionsraths. Just the very people who come to them, wishing to do them a service, into whose arms they ought to throw themselves with a confident heart--just those are the people whom they want to kick out of the door. My good Herr Commissionsrath, you are a poor unfortunate man, a real object of pity and commiseration. I have come here--I have hastened here--at this late hour of the night, to consult with you as to how this terrible blow which is hanging over you may be averted--if averted it can be--and you----"

"Oh, God," the Commissionsrath cried, "another bankruptcy in Hamburg, I suppose, or in Bremen, or London, to ruin me out and out! That was all that was wanted. Oh, I'm a ruined man!"

"No," the Goldsmith said, "it's an affair of a different kind altogether; you say that you won't allow young Edmund Lehsen to marry Albertine, do you not?"

"What's the good of talking about such a piece of absurdity?" the Commissionsrath replied. "I to give my daughter to this beggar of a penciller."

"Well," said the Goldsmith, "he has painted a couple of magnificent portraits of you and her."

"Oh, oh," cried Bosswinkel, "a fine piece of business it would be to hand over my daughter for a couple of daubs on canvas; I've sent the trash back to him."

"If you don't let Edmund have your daughter," the Goldsmith continued, "he will have his revenge."

"Pretty story!" answered Bosswinkel. "What revenge is this little bit of a beggar, who dribbles paints on to canvas, and hasn't a farthing to bless himself with, going to take upon Commissionsrath Melchior Bosswinkel, I should like to know?"

"I'll tell you that in a moment," said the Goldsmith. "Edmund is going to alter your portrait in a way which you thoroughly deserve. The kindly, smiling face he is going to turn into a sour, grumpy one, with lowering brow, bleary eyes, and hanging lips. He will deepen the wrinkles on the brow and cheeks, and he won't omit to indicate, in proper colour, those grey hairs which the powder is intended to hide. Before you, instead of the pleasant news about the lottery prize, he will write, very legibly, the most unpleasant purport of the letter which came to you the day before yesterday, telling you that Campbell and Co. of London had stopped payment, addressed on the envelope to the 'Bankrupt Commissionsrath,' &c., &c. From the torn pockets of your waistcoat he will show ducats, thalers, and treasury bills falling, to indicate the losses you have had, and this picture will be put in the window of the picture dealer next door to the bank in Hunter Street."

"The demon, the blackguard," the Commissionsrath cried; "he shan't do that, I'll send for the police, I'll appeal to the courts for an interim interdict!"

The Goldsmith said, with much tranquillity, "As soon as even fifty people have seen this picture, that is to say, after it has been in the window for a brief quarter of an hour, the tale will be all over the town, with every description of addition and exaggeration. Every thing in the least degree ridiculous which has ever been said about you, or is being said now, will be brought up again, dressed in fresh and more brilliant colours. Every one you meet will laugh in your face, and, what is the worst of all, everybody will talk about your losses in the Campbell bankruptcy, so your credit will be gone."

"Oh, Lord," said Bosswinkel, "but he must let me have the picture back, the scoundrel? Ay; that he must, the first thing in the morning."

"And if he were to agree to do so," the Goldsmith said, ("of which I have great doubts) how much the better would you be? He's making a copper etching of you, as I have just described you. He'll have several hundred copies thrown off, touch them up himself con amore, and send them all over the world--to Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, London even."

"Stop, stop," Bosswinkel cried; "go, as fast as you can, to this terrible fellow; offer him fifty, yes, offer him a hundred thalers if he will let this business about my portrait remain in statu quo."

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the Goldsmith; "you forget that Lehsen doesn't care a fiddlestick about money. His people are well off. His grand-aunt, Miss Lehsen, who lives in Broad Street, is going to leave him all her money, £12,000 at the very least."

"What," the Commissionsrath cried, pale with the suddenness of his amazement, "£12,000. I tell you what it is. I believe Albertine is crazy about young Lehsen, and I'm not a bad-hearted fellow. I am an affectionate father; can't bear crying, and all that sort of thing. When she sets her heart on a thing, I can't refuse her. Besides, I like the fellow; he's a first-rate painter, you know; and where Art is concerned I'm a perfect gaby. There are a great many capital points about Lehsen. £12,000. I'll tell you what it is, Leonhard, just out of mere goodheartedness, I shall let this nice young fellow have my daughter."

"Hm!" said the Goldsmith, "there's something queer, too, which I want to speak to you about. I was at the Thiergarten just before I came here, and I found your old friend and schoolfellow, Tussmann, going to jump into the water because Albertine wouldn't have anything to say to him. I had the greatest difficulty in preventing him from doing it; and it was only by telling him that you would be quite certain to keep your word, and make her marry him, that I did succeed in preventing him. Now, if this is not so, if she doesn't marry him, and if you give her to young Lehsen, there cannot be a doubt that the Clerk of the Privy Chancery will carry out his idea of jumping into that basin. Think what a sensation the suicide of a person of Tussmann's 'respectability' will create. Everybody will consider that you, and no other, are responsible for his death. You will be looked upon with horror and contempt. Nobody will ask you to dinner, and if you go to a café to see what's in the papers, you will be shown to the door, or kicked downstairs; and more than that, Tussmann bears the very highest character in his profession. All his superiors have a very high opinion of him; the Government departments think him a most valuable official. If you are supposed to be answerable for his death, you know that you need never expect to find a single member of the Privy Legation, or of the Upper Chamber of Finance, in when you go to see them. None of the offices which your business affairs require you to be en rapport with will have a word to say to you. Your title of Commissionsrath will be taken from you, blow will follow upon blow, your credit will be gone, your income will fall away, things will go from bad to worse, till at last, in poverty, misery and contempt, you will--"

"For God's sake stop!" cried the Commissionsrath, "you are putting me to a regular martyrdom. Who would have thought that Tussmann would have been such a goose at his time of life? But you are quite right; whatever happens, I must keep my word to him, or I'm a ruined man. Yes, it is so ordained, Tussmann must marry Albertine."

"You're forgetting all about Baron Dümmerl," said the Goldsmith, "and Manasseh's terrible curse. In him, if you reject Baron Benjie, you have the most fearful enemy. He will oppose you in all your speculations; will stick at no means of injuring your credit, take every possible opportunity of doing you an ill turn, and never rest till he has brought you to shame and disgrace; till the Dā-lěs, which he laid upon you along with his curse, has actually taken up its abode in your house; so that, you see, whatever you do with Albertine, to whichsoever of her wooers you give her, you get into trouble, and that is why I said at the beginning, that you are a poor, unfortunate man, an object of pity and commiseration."

Bosswinkel ran up and down the room like a lunatic, crying over and over again, "It's all over with me; I am a miserable man, a ruined Commissionsrath. O Lord, if I only could get the girl off my shoulders; the devil take the whole lot of them, Lehsen, and Benjie, and my old Tussmann into the bargain."

"Now," said the Goldsmith, "there is one way of getting out of all this mess."

"What is it?" said Bosswinkel; "I'll adopt it, whatever it is."

Leonhard said, "Did you ever see the play of 'The Merchant of Venice'?"

"That's the piece," answered Bosswinkel, "where Devrient plays a bloody-minded Jew of the name of Shylock, who wants a pound of a merchant's flesh. Of course I've seen it, but what has that to do with the matter?"

"You will remember," the Goldsmith said, "that there is a certain wealthy young lady in it of the name of Portia, whose father so arranged matters in his will that her hand is made a species of prize in a kind of lottery. Three caskets are set out, of which her wooers have each to choose one, and open it. The one who finds Portia's portrait in the casket which he chooses obtains her hand. Now do you, Commissionsrath, as a living father, do what her dead father did. Tell the three wooers that, inasmuch as one of them is exactly the same to you as another, they must allow chance to decide between them. Set up three caskets for them to choose amongst, and let the one who finds her portrait in his casket be her husband."

"What an extraordinary idea," said the Commissionsrath; "and even if I were to go in for it, do you suppose, dear Mr. Leonhard, that I should be one bit better off? When chance did decide the matter, I should still have to deal with the rage and hatred of the unsuccessful two."

"Wait a moment," the Goldsmith said; "it is just there that the important part of the business lies. I promise that I will order and arrange the affair of the caskets so that it shall turn out happily and satisfactorily for all parties. The two who make mistakes shall find in their caskets, not a scornful dismissal, like the Princes of Morocco and Arragon, but something which shall so greatly please and delight them that they will think no more of marrying Albertine, but will look upon you as the author of unhoped, undreamt of happiness to them."

"Oh, can it be possible!" the Commissionsrath cried.

"Not only is it possible," the Goldsmith answered, "but it will, it must happen, exactly as I have said it will; I give you my word for it."

The Commissionsrath made no further objection, and they arranged that the Goldsmith's plan should be put in execution on the next Sunday at noon. Leonhard undertook to provide the three caskets, all ready.