"My dear child, lay aside all grief and anxiety. Edmund Lehsen, whom, at present at all events, you believe you love, is a special protégé of mine; and I am helping him with all the power at my command. Let me further tell you that it was I who put the lottery idea into your father's head; that I am going to provide and prepare the caskets, and, of course, you see that no one but Edmund will find your portrait."
Albertine felt inclined to shout for joy. The Goldsmith continued:--
"I could have brought about the giving of your hand to Edmund in other ways; but I particularly wish to make the two rivals, Tussmann and the Baron, completely contented at the same time. So that that is going to be done, and you and your father will be quite sure to have no more trouble on their part."
Albertine poured forth the warmest expressions of gratitude. She almost fell at his feet, she pressed his hand to her heart, she declared that, notwithstanding all the magic tricks he had performed, nay, even after the way he had come into her room, she wasn't in the least afraid of him; and she concluded with the somewhat naive request that he would tell her all about himself, and who he really was.
"My dear child," he answered, "it would not be by any means an easy matter for me to tell you exactly who I am. Like many others, I know much better whom I take other people for than what I really and truly am myself. But I may tell you, my dear, that many think I am none other than that Leonhard Turnhäuser the Goldsmith, who was such a famous character at the court of the Elector Johann Georg, in the year 1580, and who disappeared, none knew how or where, when envy and calumny tried to ruin him; and if the members of the imaginative or romantic school say that I am this Turnhäuser, a spectral being, you may imagine what I have to suffer at the hands of the solid and enlightened portion of the community, the respectable citizens, and the men of business, who think they have something better to do than to bother their heads about poetry and romance. Then, even the aesthetic people want to watch me and dog my steps, just as the doctors and the divines did in Johann Georg's time, and try to embitter and spoil whatever little modicum of an existence I am able to lay claim to, as much as ever they can. My dear girl, I see well enough already, that though I take all this tremendous interest in young Edmund Lehsen and you, and turn up at every corner like a regular deux ex machina, there will be plenty of people of the same way of thinking with those of the aesthetic school, who will never be able to swallow me, historically speaking, who will never be able to bring themselves to believe that I ever really existed at all. So that, just that I might manage to get something like a more or less firm footing, I have never ventured to say, in so many words, that I am Leonard Turnhäuser, the Goldsmith of the sixteenth century. The folks in question are quite welcome to say, if they please, that I am a clever conjurer, and find the explanations of every one of my tricks (as they may style the phenomena and the results which I produce) in Wieglieb's 'Natural Magic,' or some book of the kind. I have still one more 'feat,' as they would call it, to perform, which neither Philidor, nor Philadelphia, nor Cagliostro, nor any other conjurer would be able to do, and which, being completely inexplicable, must always remain a stumbling-block to the kind of people in question. But I cannot help performing it, because it is indispensable to the dénouement of this Berlinese tale of the Choice of a Bride by three personages, suitors for the hand of Miss Albertine Bosswinkel. So keep up your heart, my dear child, rise to-morrow morning in good time, put on the dress which you like the best, because it is the most becoming you happen to have; do your hair in the way you think suits you best, and then await, as quietly and patiently as you can, what will happen."
He disappeared exactly as he had come.
On the next day--the Sunday--at eleven o'clock--the appointed time--there arrived at the place of rendezvous old Manasseh with his hopeful nephew--Tussmann--and Edmund Lehsen with the Goldsmith. The wooers, not excepting the Baron, were almost frightened when they saw Albertine, who had never seemed so lovely and taking. I am in a position to assure every lady, married or otherwise, who attaches the proper amount of importance to dress, that the way in which Albertine's was trimmed, and the material of the trimmings, were most elegant; that the frock itself was just the right length to show her pretty little feet in their white satin shoes; that the arms of it (short, of course), and the corsage were bordered with the richest Point; that her white French gloves came up to just the least little bit above her elbows, showing her beautiful arm; that the only thing she had on her head was a lovely gold comb set with jewels; in short, that her dress was quite that of a bride, except that she had no myrtle wreath in her bonny brown hair. But the reason why she was so much more beautiful than she ever had been before was that love and hope beamed in her eyes and bloomed on her cheeks.
Bosswinkel, in a burst of hospitality, had provided a splendid lunch. Old Manasseh glowered at the table laid out for this repast with malignant glances askance, and when the Commissionsrath begged him to fall to, on his countenance could be read the answer of Shylock:--
"Yes, to smell pork, to eat of the habitation which your prophet, the Nazarite, conjured the devil into. I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you."
The Baron was less conscientious, for he ate more beefsteak than was seemly, and talked a great deal of stupid nonsense, as was his wont.