With a loud cry he threw himself upon the lifeless form and wept, while the fair siren by his side laughed and laughed. Beside himself with indignation he panted, trying to strike her and hurl words of hatred in her face; but his hands fell helpless by his side; they had no power to execute his will. He seemed rooted to the ground.
V.
"Get up from this wet ground, you fellow! How did you ever come here in this beastly weather?" He heard a deep sympathetic voice by his side. Awakened from his swoon, soon he looked amazed around him. What had happened? He did not know at all. His limbs were helpless and he lay on the ground where he must have fallen. His treasured source of income, his precious book, containing all his humorous lectures, lay rain-soaked near his side. How long he had been lying there unconscious, he did not know himself. A slim well-dressed man stood before him, doing his best to help him get up and trying to comfort him as much as he could, shaking his head wonderingly, and inquiring how he ever happened to be lost in such a place.
The lecturer looked about him with great relief. He did not see the gnomes anywhere. So it was not true what they told him, what they sneered at—
His heart rejoiced. It was only a hallucination, nothing else. All he had seen and heard must have been a stupid fancy of his tired brain. The best proof was, that he found himself lying helplessly on the ground, just awakening from a swoon.
Yes, the condition of his brain was at fault; that was as clear as daylight. "Thank God!" he exclaimed, while a feeling of unspeakable joy surged through his heart, now gladdened with thankfulness.
"I came near believing all that stupid nonsense of those wicked gnomes about my——"