The Serapion Brethren, Vol. II

by E. T. A. Hoffmann

This thrust took effect, because Tieck's 'Sternbald' was Edmund's favourite book, and he would have been only too glad to have been the hero of that tale himself. So he then and there put on a very pitiful face, and was very near bursting into tears.

"Well," said the goldsmith, "whatever happens, I am going to take Tussmann off your hands. What you have got to do is to get into Bosswinkel's house, by hook or by crook, as often as you can, and attract Albertine to you as much as you can manage to do. As for my operations against the Clerk of the Privy Chancery, they can't be begun till the night of the Autumnal Equinox."

CHAPTER III.

Contains a detailed description of Mr. Tussmann, Clerk of the Privy Chancery; with the reason why he had to dismount the Elector's Horse; and other matters worthy to be read.

Dear reader! From what you have already learnt concerning Mr. Tussmann, you can see the man before you, in all his works and ways. But, as regards his outward man, I ought to add that he was short of stature, very bald, a little bow-legged, and very grotesque in his dress. He wore a coat of the most old-world cut, with endlessly long tails; a waistcoat, also of enormous length; and long white trousers, with shoes which, as he walked, made as loud a clatter as the boots of a courier. Here it should be observed that he never walked in the streets with regular steps, like most people, but jumped, so to speak, with great irregular strides, and incredible rapidity, so that the aforesaid long tails of his coat spread themselves out like wings, in the breeze which he thus created around him. Although there was something excessively comic about his face, yet there was a most kindly smile playing about his mouth which impressed you in his favour; and everybody liked him, though they laughed at the pedantry and awkwardness of his behaviour, which estranged him from the world. His passion was reading. He never went out but he had both his coat-pockets crammed full of books. He read wherever he was, and in all circumstances; walking or standing, as he took his exercise, in church and in the café. He read indiscriminately everything that came to his hand: but only out of old times, the present being hateful to him. Thus, to-day he would be studying, in the café, a work on algebra; to-morrow, 'Frederick the Great's Cavalry Regulations,' and next the remarkable book, 'Cicero proved to be a Pettifogger and a Windbag: in Ten Discourses. Anno 1720.' Moreover, he had a most extraordinary memory; he marked all the passages which particularly struck him in a book, then read all those marked passages over again, after which he never forgot them any more. Hence he was a polyhistor, and a walking encyclopædia, and people turned over the leaves of him when they wanted information on any point. It was only on the rarest occasions that he was unable to supply the information required on the spot, but, if he couldn't, he would go rummaging in various libraries till he could get at it, and then emerge with it, greatly delighted. It was remarkable that when (as usual) he was reading in society, to all appearance completely absorbed in his book, he heard, and took in, everything that was being said around him, and would often strike in with some most apposite observation, or laugh at anything witty in a high tenor laugh, without looking up from his book.

Commissionsrath Bosswinkel had been at school with Tussmann at the Grey Friars, and from that period dated the intimate friendship which there had always been between them. Tussmann saw Albertine grow up from childhood; and, on her twelfth birthday, after presenting her with a bouquet, the finest that money could procure from the first florist in Berlin, kissed her hand for the first time with an amount of courtesy and ceremonious deference which no one would have supposed him to be capable of. Dating from that day there dawned in the breast of the Commissionsrath an idea that it would be a very good thing if his old schoolfellow were to marry Albertine. He wanted to get Albertine married, and he thought this would be about the least troublesome way of getting it done. Tussmann would be content with very little in the shape of portion, and Bosswinkel hated bother of every kind, disliked making new acquaintances, and, in his capacity of a Commissionsrath, thought a great deal more of money than he ought to have done. On Albertine's eighteenth birthday he propounded this scheme (which he had previously kept to himself) to Tussmann.

The Clerk of the Privy Chancery was at first alarmed at the suggestion. The idea of entering the matrimonial estate, particularly with so youthful a lady, was more than he could quite see his way to. But he got accustomed to it by degrees, and one day, when Albertine, at her father's instigation, gave him a little purse, worked by her own hands in the prettiest of colours (addressing him by his much-prized "title" as she did so), his heart blazed up in a sudden flame of affection. He told the Commissionsrath at once that he had made up his mind to marry Albertine, and as Bosswinkel immediately embraced him in the character of his son-in-law, he, very naturally, considered himself engaged to her. There was still one little point in the matter of some importance, namely, that the young lady herself had not heard a syllable about the affair, and could not possibly have the very faintest inkling what was going forward.

At an excessively early hour of the morning, after the strange adventures which we have, in our first chapter, described as having been met with by Tussmann at the foot of the Townhouse Tower, and in the wineshop in Alexander Street, the said Clerk of the Privy Chancery came bursting, pale and wild, with distorted features, into his friend Bosswinkel's bedroom. The Commissionsrath was much alarmed and exercised in his mind, for Tussmann had never come in upon him at such an hour, and his manner and appearance clearly indicated that something most remarkable had been happening.

"What, in the name of Heaven, is the matter with you?" Bosswinkel cried. "Where have you been? What have you been up to? You look like I don't know what!"

Tussmann threw himself feebly into an arm-chair, and it was not till he had gasped for breath during several minutes that he was able to begin to speak--which he did in a whimpering voice.