"Be of courage, young man!" cried the Archivarius; "if thou hast sterling faith and true love, Serpentina will help thee."
His voice sounded like ringing metal; and as Anselmus looked up in utter terror, Archivarius Lindhorst was standing before him in the kingly form, which, during the first visit, he had assumed in the library. Anselmus felt as if in his deep reverence he could not but sink on his knee; but the Archivarius stepped up the trunk of a palm-tree, and vanished aloft among the emerald leaves. The student Anselmus understood that the Prince of the Spirits had been speaking with him, and was now gone up to his study; perhaps intending to advise with the beams which some of the planets had dispatched to him as envoys, on what was to become of Anselmus and Serpentina.
"It may be too," thought he further, "that he is expecting news from the Springs of the Nile; or that some magician from Lapland is paying him a visit; me it behooves to set diligently about my task." And with this, he began studying the foreign characters in the roll of parchment.
The strange music of the garden sounded over to him and encircled him with sweet lovely odors; the mocking-birds too he still heard chirping and twittering, but could not distinguish their words—a thing which greatly pleased him. At times also it was as if the emerald leaves of the palm-trees were rustling, and as if the clear crystal tones, which Anselmus on that fateful Ascension-day had heard under the elder-bush, were beaming and flitting through the room. Wonderfully strengthened by this shining and tinkling, the student Anselmus directed his eyes and thoughts more and more intensely on the superscription of the parchment roll; and ere long he felt, as it were from his inmost soul, that the characters could denote nothing else than these words: Of the marriage of the Salamander with the green Snake. Then resounded a louder triphony of clear crystal bells; "Anselmus! dear Anselmus!" floated to him from the leaves; and, O wonder! on the trunk of the palm-tree the green Snake came winding down.
"Serpentina! Serpentina!" cried Anselmus, in the madness of highest rapture; for as he gazed more earnestly, it was in truth a lovely, glorious maiden that, looking at him with those dark-blue eyes, full of inexpressible longing, as they lived in his heart, was hovering down to meet him. The leaves seemed to jut out and expand; on every hand were prickles sprouting from the trunks; but Serpentina twisted and wound herself deftly through them; and so drew her fluttering robe, framing her as if in changeful colors, along with her, that, playing round the dainty form, it nowhere caught on the projecting points and prickles of the palm-trees. She sat down by Anselmus on the same chair, clasping him with her arm, and pressing him toward her, so that he felt the breath which came from her lips, and the electric warmth of her frame.
"Dear Anselmus!" began Serpentina, "thou shalt now soon be wholly mine; by thy faith, by thy Love thou shalt obtain me, and I will bring thee the Golden Pot, which shall make us both happy forevermore."
"O thou kind, lovely Serpentina!" said Anselmus. "If I have but thee, what care I for all else! If thou art but mine, I will joyfully give in to all the wondrous mysteries that have beset me ever since the moment when I first saw thee."
"I know," continued Serpentina, "that the strange and mysterious things with which my father, often merely in the sport of his humor, has surrounded thee, have raised horror and dread in thy mind; but now, I hope, it shall be so no more; for I came now only to tell thee, dear Anselmus, from the bottom of my heart and soul, all and sundry to a tittle that thou needest to know for understanding my father, and so learn the real condition of both of us."
Anselmus felt as if he were so wholly clasped and encircled by the gentle, lovely form, that only with her could he move and stir, and as if it were but the beating of her pulse that throbbed through his nerves and fibres; he listened to each one of her words which penetrated his inmost heart, and, like a burning ray, kindled in him the rapture of Heaven. He had put his arm round that daintier than dainty waist; but the changeful glistering cloth of her robe was so smooth and slippery that it seemed to him as if she could at any moment wind herself from his arms, and glide away. He trembled at the thought.
"Ah, do not leave me, sweet Serpentina!" cried he involuntarily; "thou alone art my life."