m desire, into these
charming eyes, the crystal bells sounded louder in harmonious accord,
and the glittering emeralds fell down and encircled him, flickering
round him in thousand sparkles, and sporting in resplendent threads
of gold. The Elder-bush moved and spoke: "Thou layest in my shadow; my
perfume flowed round thee, but thou understoodst me not. The perfume
is my speech, when Love kindles it." The Evening-Wind came gliding
past, and said: "I played round thy temples, but thou understoodst me
not. Breath is my speech, when Love kindles it." The sunbeams broke
through the clouds, and the sheen of it burnt, as in words: "I
overflowed thee with glowing gold, but thou understoodst me not. Glow
is my speech, when Love kindles it."

And, still deeper and deeper sunk in the view of these glorious eyes,
his longing grew keener, his desire more warm. And all rose and moved
around him, as if awakening to joyous life. Flowers and blossoms shed
their odors round him; and their odor was like the lordly singing of
a thousand softest voices; and what they sung was borne, like an
echo, on the golden evening clouds, as they flitted away, into far-off
lands. But as the last sunbeam abruptly sank behind the hills, and
the twilight threw its veil over the scene, there came a hoarse deep
voice, as from a great distance:

"Hey! hey! what chattering and jingling is that up there? Hey! hey!
who catches me the ray behind the hills? Sunned enough, sung enough.
Hey! hey! through bush and grass, through grass and stream! Hey! hey!
Come dow-w-n, dow-w-w-n!"

So faded the voice away, as in murmurs of a distant thunder; but the
crystal bells broke off in sharp discords. All became mute; and
the student Anselmus observed how the three snakes, glittering and
sparkling, glided through the grass toward the river; rustling and
hustling, they rushed into the Elbe; and over the waves where they
vanished, there crackled up a green flame, which, gleaming forward
obliquely, vanished in the direction of the city.

SECOND VIGIL

How the student Anselmus was looked upon as drunk and mad. The
crossing of the Elbe. Bandmaster Graun's Bravura. Conradi's
Stomachic Liqueur, and the bronzed Apple-Woman.

"The gentleman seems not to be in his right wits!" said a respectable
burgher's wife, who, returning from a walk with her family, had paused
here, and, with crossed arms, was looking at the mad pranks of the
student Anselmus. Anselmus