"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!"