t makes you lament so, out of all compass and measure?"

The student Anselmus now noticed that on the same shelf with him were
five other bottles, in which he perceived three Cross Church Scholars,
and two Law Clerks.

"Ah, gentlemen, my fellows in misery," cried he, "how is it possible
for you to be so calm, nay so happy, as I read in your cheerful looks?
You are sitting here corked up in glass bottles, as well as I, and
cannot move a finger, nay, not think a reasonable thought but there
rises such a murder-tumult of clanging and droning and in your head
itself a tumbling and rumbling enough to drive one mad. But doubtless
you do not believe in the Salamander, or the green Snake."

"You are pleased to jest, Mein Herr Studiosus," replied a Cross Church
Scholar; "we have never been better off than at present; for the
speziesthalers which the mad Archivarius gave us for all manner of
pot-hook copies, are clinking in our pockets; we have now no Italian
choruses to learn by heart; we go every day to Joseph's or other inns,
where we do justice to the double-beer, we even look pretty girls in
their faces; and we sing, like real students, _Gaudeamus igitur_, and
are contented in spirit!"

"The gentlemen are quite right," added a Law Clerk; "I too am well
furnished with speziesthalers, like my dearest colleague beside me
here; and we now diligently walk about on the Weinberg, instead of
scurvy Act-writing within four walls."

"But, my best, worthiest gentlemen!" said the student Anselmus, "do
you not feel, then, that you are all and sundry corked up in glass
bottles, and cannot for your hearts walk a hair's-breadth?"

Here the Cross Church Scholars and the Law Clerks set up a loud laugh,
and cried: "The student is mad; he fancies himself to be sitting in
a glass bottle, and is standing on the Elbe-bridge and looking right
down into the water. Let us go along!"

"Ah!" sighed the student, "they have never seen the sweet Serpentina;
they know not what Freedom, and life in Love, and Faith, signify;
and so by reason of their folly and low-mindedness, they feel not
the oppression of the imprisonment into which the Salamander has cast
them. But I, unhappy I, must perish in want and woe, if she, whom I so
inexpressibly love, do not deliver me!"

Then, waving in faint tinkles, Serpentina's voice flitted through
the room: "Anselmus! believe, love, hope!" And every tone beamed
into Anselmus' prison; and the crystal yielded to his