ELEVENTH VIGIL
Conrector Paulmann's anger at the madness which had broken out in his Family. How Registrator Heerbrand became Hofrat; and, in the keenest Frost, walked about in Shoes and silk Stockings. Veronica's Confessions. Betrothment over the steaming Soup-dish.
"But tell me, best Registrator, how the cursed punch last night could so mount into our heads, and drive us to all manner of allotria?" So said Conrector Paulmann, as he next morning entered his room, which still lay full of broken sherds, and in whose midst his hapless peruke, dissolved into its original elements, was floating in the punch-bowl. After the student Anselmus ran out of doors, Conrector Paulmann and Registrator Heerbrand had still kept trotting and hobbling up and down the room, shouting like maniacs, and butting their heads together; till Fränzchen, with much labor, carried her vertiginous papa to bed, and Registrator Heerbrand, in the deepest exhaustion, sank on the sofa, which Veronica had left, taking refuge in her bedroom. Registrator Heerbrand had his blue handkerchief tied about his head; he looked quite pale and melancholic, and moaned out: "Ah, worthy Conrector, not the punch which Mam'sell Veronica most admirably brewed, no! but simply that cursed student is to blame for all the mischief. Do you not observe that he has long been mente caphis? And are you not aware that madness is infectious? One fool makes twenty; pardon me, it is an old proverb; especially when you have drunk a glass or two, you fall into madness quite readily, and then involuntarily you manoeuvre, and go through your exercise, just as the crack-brained fugleman makes the motion. Would you believe it, Conrector? I am still giddy when I think of that gray Parrot!"
"Gray fiddlesticks!" interrupted the Conrector; "it was nothing but Archivarius Lindhorst's little old Famulus, who had thrown a gray cloak over him and was seeking the student Anselmus."
"It may be," answered Registrator Heerbrand, "but, I must confess, I am quite downcast in spirit; the whole night through there was such a piping and organing."
"That was I," said the Conrector, "for I snore loud."
"Well, maybe," answered the Registrator; "but Conrector, Conrector! Ah, not without cause did I wish to raise some cheerfulness among us last night—But that Anselmus has spoiled all! You know not—O Conrector, Conrector!" And with this, Registrator Heerbrand started up, plucked the cloth from his head, embraced the Conrector, warmly pressed his hand, and again cried, in quite heart-breaking tones: "O Conrector, Conrector!" and, snatching his hat and staff, rushed out of doors.
"This Anselmus comes not over my threshold again," said Conrector Paulmann; "for I see very well that, with this obdurate madness of his, he robs the best people of their senses. The Registrator is now over with it too; I have hitherto kept safe; but the Devil, who knocked hard last night in our carousal, may get in at last and play his tricks with me. So Apage, Satanas! Off with thee, Anselmus!" Veronica had grown quite pensive; she spoke no word; only smiled now and then very oddly, and liked best to be alone. "Also of her distress Anselmus is the cause," said the Conrector, full of malice; "but it is well that he does not show himself here; I know he fears me, this Anselmus, and so he never comes."
These concluding words Conrector Paulmann spoke aloud; then the tears rushed into Veronica's eyes, and she said, sobbing: "Ah! how can Anselmus come? He has long been corked up in the glass bottle."
"How? What?" cried Conrector Paulmann. "Ah Heaven! Ah Heaven! she is doting too, like the Registrator; the loud fit will soon come! Ah, thou cursed, abominable, thrice-cursed Anselmus!" He ran forth directly to Doctor Eckstein, who smiled, and again said: "Ey! Ey!" This time, however, he prescribed nothing; but added, to the little he had uttered, the following words, as he walked away: "Nerves! Come round of itself. Take the air; walks; amusements; theatre; playing Sonntagskind, Schwestern von Prag. Come round of itself."
"So eloquent I have seldom seen the Doctor," thought Conrector
Paulmann; "really talkative, I declare!"
Several days and weeks and months were gone; Anselmus had vanished; but Registrator Heerbrand also did not make his appearance—not till the fourth of February, when the Registrator, in a new fashionable coat of the finest cloth, in shoes and silk stockings, notwithstanding the keen frost, and with a large nosegay of fresh flowers in his hand, did enter precisely at noon into the parlor of Conrector Paulmann, who wondered not a little to see his friend so dizened. With a solemn air, Registrator Heerbrand stepped forward to Conrector Paulmann; embraced him with the finest elegance, and then said: "Now at last, on the Saint's-day of your beloved and most honored Mam'sell Veronica, I will tell you out, straightforward, what I have long had lying at my heart. That evening, that unfortunate evening, when I put the ingredients of that cursed punch in my pocket, I purposed imparting to you a piece of good news, and celebrating the happy day in convivial joys. Already I had learned that I was to be made Hofrat, for which promotion I have now the patent, cum nomine et sigillo Principis, in my pocket."
"Ah! Herr Registr—Herr Hofrat Heerbrand, I meant to say," stammered the Conrector.
"But it is you, most honored Conrector," continued the new Hofrat; "it is you alone that can complete my happiness. For a long time I have in secret loved your daughter, Mam'sell Veronica; and I can boast of many a kind look which she has given me, evidently showing that she would not cast me away. In one word, honored Conrector! I, Hofrat Heerbrand, do now entreat of you the hand of your most amiable Mam'sell Veronica, whom I, if you have nothing against it, purpose shortly to take home as my wife."
Conrector Paulmann, full of astonishment, clapped his hands repeatedly, crying: "Ey, Ey, Ey! Herr Registr—Herr Hofrat, I meant to say—who would have thought it? Well, if Veronica does really love you, I for my share cannot object; nay, perhaps, her present melancholy is nothing but concealed love for you, most honored Hofrat! You know what freaks they have!"
At this moment Veronica entered, pale and agitated as she now commonly was. Then Hofrat Heerbrand stepped toward her; mentioned in a neat speech her Saint's-day and handed her the odorous nosegay, along with a little packet; out of which, when she opened it, a pair of glittering ear-rings beamed up at her. A rapid flying blush tinted her cheeks; her eyes sparkled in joy, and she cried: "O Heaven! These are the very ear-rings which I wore some weeks ago, and thought so much of."
"How can this be, dearest Mam'sell," interrupted Hofrat Heerbrand, somewhat alarmed and hurt, "when I bought these jewels not an hour ago in the Schlossgasse, for current money?"
But Veronica heeded him not; she was standing before the mirror to witness the effect of the trinkets, which she had already suspended in her pretty little ears. Conrector Paulmann disclosed to her, with grave countenance and solemn tone, his friend Heerbrand's preferment and present proposal. Veronica looked at the Hofrat with a searching look, and said: "I have long known that you wished to marry me. Well, be it so! I promise you my heart and hand; but I must now unfold to you, to both of you, I mean, my father and my bridegroom, much that is lying heavy on my heart; yes, even now, though the soup should get cold, which I see Fränzchen is just putting on the table."
Without waiting for the Conrector's or the Hofrat's reply, though the words were visibly hovering on the lips of both, Veronica continued: "You may believe me, best father, I loved Anselmus from my heart, and when Registrator Heerbrand, who is now become Hofrat himself, assured us that Anselmus might probably reach that position, I resolved that he and no other should be my husband. But then it seemed as if alien hostile beings were for snatching him away from me; I had recourse to old Liese, who was once my nurse, but is now a wise woman, and a great enchantress. She promised to help me and give Anselmus wholly into my hands. We went at midnight on the Equinox to the crossing of the roads; she conjured certain hellish spirits, and by aid of the black Cat we manufactured a little metallic mirror, in which I, directing my thoughts on Anselmus, had but to look in order to rule him wholly in heart and mind. But now I heartily repent having done all this, and here abjure all Satanic arts. The Salamander has conquered old Liese; I heard her shrieks; but there was no help to be given; so soon as the Parrot had eaten the Parsnip my metallic mirror broke in two with a piercing clang." Veronica took out both the pieces of the mirror, and a lock of hair from her work-box, and handing them to Hofrat Heerbrand, she proceeded: "Here, take the fragments of the mirror, dear Hofrat; throw them down, tonight, at twelve o'clock, over the Elbe-bridge, from the place where the Cross stands; the stream is not frozen there; the lock, however, do you wear on your faithful breast. I again abjure all magic; and heartily wish Anselmus joy of his good fortune, seeing he is wedded with the green Snake, who is much prettier and richer than I. You, dear Hofrat, I will love and reverence as becomes a true honest wife."
"Alack! Alack!" cried Conrector Paulmann, full of sorrow; "she is cracked, she is cracked; she can never be Frau Hofrätin; she is cracked!"
"Not in the least," interrupted Hofrat Heerbrand; "I know well that Mam'sell Veronica has felt kindly toward the loutish Anselmus; and it may be that in some fit of passion, she has had recourse to the wise woman, who, as I perceive, can be no other than the card-caster and coffee-pourer of the Seetor—in a word, old Rauerin. Nor can it be denied that there are secret arts, which exert their influence on men but too balefully; we read of such in the Ancients, and doubtless there are still such; but as to what Mam'sell Veronica is pleased to say about the victory of the Salamander, and the marriage of Anselmus with the green Snake, this, in reality, I take for nothing but a poetic allegory; a sort of poem, wherein she sings her entire farewell to the Student."
"Take it for what you will, best Hofrat!" cried Veronica; "perhaps for a very stupid dream."
"That I nowise do," replied Hofrat Heerbrand; "for I know well that Anselmus himself is possessed by secret powers, which vex him and drive him on to all imaginable mad freaks."
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 Hofrätin 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 Hofrätin Heerbrand."