What has past returns no more--
Earthly fate so willeth this.
All the joy which lies before
Gather from thy sweetheart's kiss."
And Edmund, like Bassanio, followed the counsel of the last line, and pressed his blushing sweetheart to his breast, and kissed her glowing lips; whilst the Commissionsrath greatly rejoiced, and was full of happiness over this happy dénouement of this most involved love-affair.
Meanwhile the Baron had been filing at ducats quite as eagerly and absorbedly as the Clerk of the Privy Chancery had been reading, neither of them taking the slightest notice of what had been going on, till the Commissionsrath announced, in a loud voice, that Edmund Lehsen had chosen the casket containing Albertine's portrait, and was, consequently, to be her husband. Tussmann seemed to be quite delighted to hear it, and expressed his satisfaction in his usual manner, by rubbing his hands, jumping a little way up and down for a moment or two, and giving a delicate little laugh. The Baron seemed to feel no further interest about the matter; but he embraced the Commissionsrath; said he was a real "gentleman" and had made him most utterly happy by his present of the file, and told him that he could always count upon him, in all circumstances. With which he took his departure.
Tussmann, too, thanked him, with tears of the most heartfelt emotion, for making him the happiest of men by this most rare and wonderful of all rare and wonderful books; and, after the most profuse expenditure of politeness to Albertine, Edmund, and the old Goldsmith, he followed the Baron as quickly as ever he could.
Benjie ceased to torture the world of letters with literary abortions, as he had formerly done, preferring to employ his time in filing ducats; and Tussmann no longer made the booksellers' lives a burden to them by pestering them to hunt out old forgotten books for him.
But when a few weeks of rapture and happiness had passed, a great and bitter sorrow took possession of the Commissionsrath's house. For the Goldsmith urged, in the strongest terms, upon Edmund that for his own sake, and for the sake of his art, he was bound to keep his solemn promise and go to Italy.
Edmund, notwithstanding the dreadful parting from Albertine, felt the strongest possible impulse urging him towards the country of the arts; and, although Albertine shed the bitterest tears, she could not help thinking how very nice it would be to be able to take out letters from her lover at Rome, and read them out--or extracts from them--at aesthetic teas of an afternoon.