them to the Archivarius, in proof of his ability to do what he wished.
All prospered with the student; a peculiar happy star seemed to be
presiding over him; his neckcloth sat right at the very first trial;
no tack burst; no loop gave way in his black silk stockings; his hat
did not once fall to the dust after he had trimmed it. In a word,
precisely at half-past eleven, the student Anselmus, in his pike-gray
frock, and black satin lower habiliments, with a roll of calligraphics
and pen-drawings in his pocket, was standing in the Schlossgasse, in
Conradi's shop, and drinking one--two glasses of the best stomachic
liqueur; for here, thought he, slapping on the still empty pocket, for
here speziesthalers will be clinking soon.

Notwithstanding the distance of the solitary street where the
Archivarius Lindhorst's very ancient residence lay, the student
Anselmus was at the front door before the stroke of twelve. He stood
here, and was looking at the large fine bronze knocker; but now when,
as the last stroke tingled through the air with loud clang from the
steeple-clock of the Kreuzkirche, he lifted his hand to grasp this
same knocker, the metal visage twisted itself, with horrid rolling
of its blue-gleaming eyes, into a grinning smile. Alas, it was the
Apple-woman of the Black Gate! The pointed teeth gnashed together in
the loose jaws, and in their chattering through the skinny lips
there was a growl of: "Thou fool, fool, fool!--Wait, wait!--Why
didst run!--Fool!" Horror-struck, the student Anselmus flew back;
he clutched at the door-post, but his hand caught the bell-rope and
pulled it, and in piercing discords it rung stronger and stronger, and
through the whole empty house the echo repeated, as in mockery: "To
the crystal fall!" An unearthly terror seized the student Anselmus,
and quivered through all his limbs. The bell-rope lengthened downward,
and became a white, transparent, gigantic serpent, which encircled and
crushed him, and girded him straiter and straiter in its coils, till
his brittle, paralyzed limbs went crashing in pieces, and the blood
spouted from his veins, penetrating into the transparent body of the
serpent, and dyeing it red. "Kill me! Kill me!" he would have cried,
in his horrible agony; but the cry was only a stifled gurgle in his
throat. The serpent lifted its head, and laid its long peaked tongue
of glowing brass on the breast of Anselmus; then a fierce pang
suddenly cut asunder the artery of li