At noon, as he walked through Archivarius Lindhorst's garden, he could not help wondering how all this had once appeared so strange and marvelous to him. He now saw nothing but common, earthen flowerpots, quantities of geraniums, myrtles, and the like. Instead of the glittering party-colored birds which used to flout him, there were only a few sparrows fluttering hither and thither, which raised an unpleasant, unintelligible cry at sight of Anselmus. The azure room also had quite a different look; and he could not understand how that glaring blue, and those unnatural golden trunks of palm-trees, with their shapeless glistening leaves, should ever have pleased him for a moment. The Archivarius looked at him with a most peculiar, ironical smile, and asked: "Well, how did you like the punch last night, good Anselmus?"
"Ah, doubtless you have heard from the gray Parrot how—" answered the student Anselmus, quite ashamed; but he stopped short, bethinking him that this appearance of the Parrot was all a piece of jugglery of the confused senses.
"I was there myself," said Archivarius Lindhorst; "did you not see me? But, among the mad pranks you were playing, I had nigh got lamed; for I was sitting in the punch-bowl, at the very moment when Registrator Heerbrand laid hands on it, to dash it against the ceiling; and I had to make a quick retreat into the Conrector's pipehead. Now, adieu, Herr Anselmus! Be diligent at your task; for the lost day also you shall have a speziesthaler, because you worked so well before."
"How can the Archivarius babble such mad stuff?" thought the student Anselmus, sitting down at the table to begin the copying of the manuscript, which Archivarius Lindhorst had as usual spread out before him. But on the parchment roll he perceived so many strange crabbed strokes and twirls all twisted together in inexplicable confusion, offering no resting-point for the eye, that it seemed to him well-nigh impossible to copy all this exactly. Nay, in glancing over the whole, you might have thought the parchment was nothing but a piece of thickly veined marble, or a stone sprinkled over with lichens. Nevertheless he determined to do his utmost, and boldly dipped in his pen; but the ink would not run, do what he would; impatiently he spirted the point of his pen against his nail, and—Heaven and Earth!—a huge blot fell on the out-spread original! Hissing and foaming, a blue flash rose from the blot, and, crackling and wavering, shot through the room to the ceiling. Then a thick vapor rolled from the walls; the leaves began to rustle, as if shaken by a tempest; and down out of them darted glaring basilisks in sparkling fire; these kindled the vapor, and the bickering masses of flame rolled round Anselmus. The golden trunks of the palm-trees became gigantic snakes, which knocked their frightful heads together with piercing metallic clang and wound their scaly bodies round Anselmus.
"Madman I suffer now the punishment of what, in insolent sacrilege, thou hast done!" So cried the frightful voice of the crowned Salamander, who appeared above the snakes like a glittering beam in the midst of the flame; and now the yawning jaws of the snakes poured forth cataracts of fire on Anselmus; and it was as if the fire-streams were congealing about his body and changing into a firm ice-cold mass. But while Anselmus' limbs, more and more pressed together and contracted, stiffened into powerlessness, his senses passed away. On returning to himself, he could not stir a joint; he was as if surrounded with a glistening brightness, on which he struck if he but tried to lift his hand or move otherwise.—Alas! He was sitting in a well-corked crystal bottle, on a shelf, in the library of Archivarius Lindhorst.
TENTH VIGIL
Sorrows of the student Anselmus in the Glass Bottle. Happy Life of the Cross Church Scholars and Law Clerks. The Battle in the Library of Archivarius Lindhorst. Victory of the Salamander, and Deliverance of the student Anselmus.
Justly may I doubt whether thou, kind reader, wert ever sealed up in a glass bottle; or even that any vivid tormenting dream ever oppressed thee with such a demon from fairyland. If such were the case, thou wouldst keenly enough figure out the poor student Anselmus' woe; but shouldst thou never have even dreamed such things, then will thy quick fancy, for Anselmus' sake and mine, be obliging enough to inclose itself for a few moments in the crystal. Thou art drowned in dazzling splendor; all objects about thee appear illuminated and begirt with beaming rainbow hues; all quivers and wavers, and clangs and drones, in the sheen; thou art floating motionless as in a firmly congealed ether, which so presses thee together that the spirit in vain gives orders to the dead and stiffened body. Weightier and weightier the mountain burden lies on thee; more and more does every breath exhaust the little handful of air, that still plays up and down in the narrow space; thy pulse throbs madly; and, cut through with horrid anguish, every nerve is quivering and bleeding in this deadly agony. Have pity, kind reader, on the student Anselmus of whom this inexpressible torture laid hold in his glass prison; but he felt too well that death could not relieve him; for did he not awake from the deep swoon into which the excess of pain had cast him, and open his eyes to new wretchedness, when the morning sun shone clear into the room? He could move no limb; but his thoughts struck against the glass, stupefying him with discordant clang; and instead of the words, which the spirit used to speak from within him, he now heard only the stifled din of madness. Then he exclaimed in his despair "O Serpentina! Serpentina! save me from this agony of Hell!" And it was as if faint sighs breathed around him, which spread like green transparent elder-leaves over the glass; the clanging ceased; the dazzling, perplexing glitter was gone, and he breathed more freely.
"Have not I myself solely to blame for my misery? Ah! Have not I sinned against thee, thou kind, beloved Serpentina? Have not I raised vile doubts of thee? Have not I lost my faith, and, with it, all, all that was to make me so blessed? Ah! Thou wilt now never, never be mine; for me the Golden Pot is lost, and I shall not behold its wonders any more. Ah, but once could I see thee, but once hear thy gentle sweet voice, thou lovely Serpentina!"
So wailed the student Anselmus, caught with deep piercing sorrow; then spoke a voice close by him: "What the devil ails you Herr Studiosus? What makes you lament so, out of all compass and measure?"