Upon this, Edmund came forenoon and afternoon, and if the picture did not make much progress, the love-affair made a great deal, and entwined itself more and more firmly. I have no doubt, dear reader, that your own experience has shown you that when one is in love, and wants to give to all the fond, longing words and wishes, which one has got to express, their due and proper effect, so that they may go to the listener's very heart, it is a matter of absolute necessity that one should take hold of the hand of the beloved object, press it, and kiss it; upon which, as by the operation of some sudden development of electrical force, lip goes into contact with lip; and the electricity (if that is what we are to call it), arrives at a condition of equilibrium by means of a fire-stream of sweetest kisses. Thus Edmund was very often obliged to stop painting, and not only that, but he had very frequently to get down from the scaffold upon which he and his easel were placed.
Thus it came about that, one forenoon, he was standing with Albertine at the window, where the white curtains were drawn, and (on the principle we have been explaining), in order to give more force to what he was saying to her, was holding her in his arms, and kissing her hand.
At this particular hour and moment, Mr. Tussmann, Clerk of the Privy Chancery, happened to be passing Bosswinkel's house, with the 'Treatise on Diplomatic Acumen,' and sundry tractates and pamphlets (in which the useful and the entertaining were combined in due measure) in his pockets. And although he was bounding along as fast as ever he could--according to his manner--because the clock was just on the very stroke of the hour at which he used always to enter his office, still he drew up for a moment, in order to cast a sentimental glance up at the window of his love.
There he saw, as in a cloud, Albertine with Edmund; and, although he could not make out anything at all distinctly, his heart throbbed, he knew not why. Some strange sense of anxious alarm impelled him to undertake things previously unattempted, undreamt of, namely, to go upstairs to Albertine's rooms, at this totally unprecedented hour of the day.
As he entered, Albertine was saying, quite distinctly:
"Oh, yes, Edmund! I must always--always love you!" And she pressed Edmund to her heart, whilst a whole battery of "restoration of electrical equilibrium" began to go off, rushing and sparkling.
The Clerk of the Privy Chancery walked mechanically forward into the room, and then stood, dumb and speechless, like a man in a cataleptic fit. In the height of their blissfulness the two lovers had not heard the elephantine tread of Tussmann's peculiar boot-like shoes, nor his opening of the door, nor his coming in, and striding into the middle of the room.
He now squeaked out, in his high falsetto:
"But--Miss Albertine Bosswinkel!----"
Edmund and Albertine fled apart like lightning--he to his easel, she to the chair where she was supposed to be sitting for her portrait. Tussmann, after a short pause, during which he tried to get back his breath, resumed, saying--