e, O Lord!"
About five minutes after the cry of the watchman, I saw Fledermausse
attracted, allured by my manikin (her exact image), spring from the
window, with a rope around her neck, and rest suspended from the
crossbeam.
I saw the shadow of death undulating through her body, while the moon,
calm, silent, majestic, inundated the summit of the roof, and her cold,
pale rays reposed upon the old, disheveled, hideous head.
Just as I had seen the poor young student of Heidelberg, just so did I
now see Fledermausse.
In the morning, all Nuremberg learned that the old wretch had hanged
herself, and this was the last event of that kind in the Street
Minnesaenger.
_The Waters of Death_
The warm mineral waters of Spinbronn, situated in the Hundsrueck,
several leagues from Pirmesens, formerly enjoyed a magnificent
reputation. All who were afflicted with gout or gravel in Germany
repaired thither; the savage aspect of the country did not deter them.
They lodged in pretty cottages at the head of the defile; they bathed
in the cascade, which fell in large sheets of foam from the summit of
the rocks; they drank one or two decanters of mineral water daily, and
the doctor of the place, Daniel Haselnoss, who distributed his
prescriptions clad in a great wig and chestnut coat, had an excellent
practice.
To-day the waters of Spinbronn figure no longer in the "Codex";[1] in
this poor village one no longer sees anyone but a few miserable
woodcutters, and, sad to say, Dr. Haselnoss has left!
[1] A collection of prescriptions indorsed by the Faculty of
Paris.--_Trans._
All this resulted from a series of very strange catastrophes which
lawyer Bremer of Pirmesens told me about the other day.
You should know, Master Frantz (said he), that the spring of Spinbronn
issues from a sort of cavern, about five feet high and twelve or
fifteen feet wide; the water has a warmth of sixty-seven degrees
Centigrade; it is salt. As for the cavern, entirely covered without
with moss, ivy, and brushwood, its depth is unknown because the hot
exhalations prevent all entrance.
Nevertheless, strangely enough, it was noticed early in the last
century that birds of the neighborhood--thrushes, doves, hawks--were
engulfed in it in full flight, and it was never known to what
mysterious influence to attribute this particular.
In 1801, at the height of the season, owing to some circumstance which
is still unexplained, the spring b
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