the woman
and one another, and tittering as they looked at Anselmus. The student
felt as if he were standing on prickly thorns and burning needles. No
sooner had he recovered his pipe and tobacco-pouch, than he darted off
at the height of his speed.

All the strange things he had seen were clean gone from his memory; he
simply recollected having babbled all manner of foolish stuff beneath
the elder-tree. This was the more shocking to him, as he entertained
from of old an inward horror against all soliloquists. It is Satan
that chatters out of them, said his Rector; and Anselmus shared
honestly his belief. To be regarded as a _Candidatus Theologiae_,
overtaken with drink on Ascension-day! The thought was intolerable.

He was just about turning up the Poplar Alley, by the Kosel Garden,
when a voice behind him called out: "Herr Anselmus! Herr Anselmus!
for the love of Heaven, whither are you running in such haste?" The
student paused, as if rooted to the ground; for he was convinced that
now some new mischance would befall him. The voice rose again: "Herr
Anselmus, come back, then; we are waiting for you here at the water!"
And now the student perceived that it was his friend Conrector
Paulmann's voice; he went back to the Elbe, and found the Conrector,
with his two daughters, as well as Registrator Heerbrand, all on the
point of stepping into their gondola. Conrector Paulmann invited the
student to go with them across the Elbe, and then to pass the evening
at his house in the Pirna suburb. The student Anselmus very gladly
accepted this proposal, thinking thereby to escape the malignant
destiny which had ruled over him all day.

Now, as they were crossing the river, it chanced that, on the farther
bank, near the Anton Garden, fireworks were just going off. Sputtering
and hissing, the rockets went aloft, and their blazing stars flew
to pieces in the air, scattering a thousand vague shoots and flashes
round them. The student Anselmus was sitting by the steersman, sunk in
deep thought; but when he noticed in the water the reflection of
these darting and wavering sparks and flames, he felt as if it was the
little golden snakes that were sporting in the flood. All the strange
things he had seen at the elder-tree again started forth into his
heart and thoughts; and again that unspeakable longing, that glowing
desire, laid hold of him here, which had before agitated his bosom in
painful spasms of rapture.

"Ah! is it you ag