impulse I cannot resist to go on with the remarkable
history of the excellent Traugott, which I have undertaken to relate to
you.

That Herr Elias Roos wears a round wig you already know from what
has been stated above; and I have no need to add anything more; for
after what he has said, you can now see the round little man with his
liver-coloured coat, waistcoat, and trousers, with gilt buttons, quite
plainly before your eyes. Of Traugott I have a very great deal to say,
because this is his history which I am telling, and so of course he
occurs in it. If now it be true that a man's thoughts and feelings and
actions, making their influence felt from within him outwards, so model
and shape his bodily form as to give rise to that wonderful harmony of
the whole man, that is not to be explained but only felt, which we call
character, then my words will of themselves have already shown you
Traugott himself in the flesh. If this is not the case, then all my
gossip is wasted, and you may forthwith regard my story as unread. The
two strangers are uncle and nephew, formerly retail dealers, but now
merchants trading on their gains, and friends of Herr Elias Roos, that
is to say, they had a good many business transactions together. They
live at Koenigsberg, dress entirely in the English fashion, carry
about with them a mahogany boot-jack which has come from London,
possess considerable taste for art, and are, in a word, experienced,
well-educated people. The uncle has a gallery of art objects and
collects hand-sketches (witness the pilfered letter of advice).

But properly my chief business was to give you, kindly reader, a true
and life-like description of Christina; for her nimble person will, I
observe, soon disappear; and it will be as well for me to get a few
traits jotted down at once. Then she may willingly go! Picture to
yourself a medium-sized stoutish female of from two to three and twenty
years of age, with a round face, a short and rather turned-up nose, and
friendly light-blue eyes, which smile most prettily upon everybody,
saying, "I shall soon be married now." Her skin is dazzling white, her
hair is not altogether of a too reddish tinge; she has lips which were
certainly made to be kissed, and a mouth which, though indeed rather
wide, she yet screws up small in some extraordinary way, but so as to
display then two rows of pearly teeth. If we were to suppose that the
flames from the next-door neighbour's burning ho