egan studying the foreign characters in the roll of
parchment.

The strange music of the garden sounded over to him and encircled him
with sweet lovely odors; the mocking-birds too he still heard chirping
and twittering, but could not distinguish their words--a thing which
greatly pleased him. At times also it was as if the emerald leaves of
the palm-trees were rustling, and as if the clear crystal tones, which
Anselmus on that fateful Ascension-day had heard under the elder-bush,
were beaming and flitting through the room. Wonderfully strengthened
by this shining and tinkling, the student Anselmus directed his eyes
and thoughts more and more intensely on the superscription of the
parchment roll; and ere long he felt, as it were from his inmost soul,
that the characters could denote nothing else than these words: _Of
the marriage of the Salamander with the green Snake_. Then resounded
a louder triphony of clear crystal bells; "Anselmus! dear Anselmus!"
floated to him from the leaves; and, O wonder! on the trunk of the
palm-tree the green Snake came winding down.

"Serpentina! Serpentina!" cried Anselmus, in the madness of highest
rapture; for as he gazed more earnestly, it was in truth a lovely,
glorious maiden that, looking at him with those dark-blue eyes, full
of inexpressible longing, as they lived in his heart, was hovering
down to meet him. The leaves seemed to jut out and expand; on every
hand were prickles sprouting from the trunks; but Serpentina twisted
and wound herself deftly through them; and so drew her fluttering
robe, framing her as if in changeful colors, along with her, that,
playing round the dainty form, it nowhere caught on the projecting
points and prickles of the palm-trees. She sat down by Anselmus on the
same chair, clasping him with her arm, and pressing him toward her,
so that he felt the breath which came from her lips, and the electric
warmth of her frame.

"Dear Anselmus!" began Serpentina, "thou shalt now soon be wholly
mine; by thy faith, by thy Love thou shalt obtain me, and I will bring
thee the Golden Pot, which shall make us both happy forevermore."

"O thou kind, lovely Serpentina!" said Anselmus. "If I have but thee,
what care I for all else! If thou art but mine, I will joyfully give
in to all the wondrous mysteries that have beset me ever since the
moment when I first saw thee."

"I know," continued Serpentina, "that the strange and mysterious
things with which my father, of