to dream with
your eyes wide open, and then, all at once, to start up for leaping
into the water! This, begging your pardon, is what only fools or
madmen could do."

The student Anselmus was deeply affected at his friend's hard saying;
then Veronica, Paulmann's eldest daughter, a most pretty blooming
girl of sixteen, addressed her father: "But, dear father, something
singular must have befallen Herr Anselmus; and perhaps he only thinks
he was awake, while he may really have been asleep, and so all
manner of wild stuff has come into his head and is still lying in his
thoughts."

"And, dearest Mademoiselle! Worthy Conrector!" interrupted Registrator
Heerbrand, "may one not, even when awake, sometimes sink into a sort
of dreaming state? I myself have had such fits. One afternoon, for
instance, during coffee, in a sort of brown study like this, in the
very moment of corporeal and spiritual digestion, the place where a
lost document was lying occurred to me, as if by inspiration; and last
night, no further gone, there came glorious large Latin WRIT tripping
out before my open eyes, in the very same way."

"Ah! most honored Registrator," answered Conrector Paulmann, "you
have always had a tendency to the _Poetica_; and thus one falls into
fantasies and romantic humors."

The student Anselmus, however, was particularly gratified that in this
most troublous situation, while in danger of being considered drunk or
crazy, any one should take his part; and though it was already fairly
dark, he thought he noticed, for the first time, that Veronica had
really very fine dark-blue eyes, and this too without remembering the
strange pair which he had looked at in the elder-bush. On the whole,
the adventure under the elder-bush had once more entirely vanished
from the thoughts of the student Anselmus; he felt himself at ease and
light of heart; nay, in the capriciousness of joy, he carried it so
far that he offered a helping hand to his fair advocate, Veronica, as
she was stepping from the gondola; and without more ado, as she put
her arm in his, escorted her home with so much dexterity and good luck
that he missed his footing only once, and this being the only wet spot
in the whole road, spattered Veronica's white gown only a very little
by the incident.

Conrector Paulmann failed not to observe this happy change in
the student Anselmus; he resumed his liking for him, and begged
forgiveness for the hard words which he had let fall