nted soup had
grown cold, was a formal betrothment concluded. In a few weeks, Frau
Hofraetin Heerbrand was actually, as she had been in vision, sitting in
the balcony of a fine house in the Neumarkt, and looking down with a
smile on the beaux, who, passing by, turned their glasses up to her,
and said: "She is a heavenly woman, the Hofraetin Heerbrand."

TWELFTH VIGIL

Account of the Freehold Property to which Anselmus removed, as
son-in-law of Archivarius Lindhorst; and how he lives there with
Serpentina. Conclusion.

How deeply did I feel, in the depth of my heart, the blessedness of
the student Anselmus, who now, indissolubly united with his gentle
Serpentina, has withdrawn to the mysterious Land of Wonders,
recognized by him as the home toward which his bosom, filled with
strange forecastings, had always longed. But in vain was all my
striving to set before thee, kind reader, those glories with which
Anselmus is encompassed, or even in the faintest degree to shadow them
forth to thee in words. Reluctantly I could not but acknowledge the
feebleness of my every expression. I felt myself enthralled amid
the paltriness of every-day life; I sickened in tormenting
dissatisfaction; I glided about like a dreamer; in brief, I fell into
that condition of the student Anselmus, which, in the Fourth Vigil, I
have endeavored to set before thee. It grieved me to the heart, when I
glanced over the Eleven Vigils, now happily accomplished, and thought
that to insert the Twelfth, the keystone of the whole, would never be
vouchsafed me. For whensoever, in the night season, I set myself to
complete the work, it was as if mischievous Spirits (they might be
relations, perhaps cousins german, of the slain witch) held a polished
glittering piece of metal before me, in which I beheld my own mean
Self, pale, overwatched, and melancholic, like Registrator Heerbrand
after his bout of punch. Then I threw down my pen, and hastened to
bed, that I might behold the happy Anselmus and the fair Serpentina,
at least in my dreams. This had lasted for several days and nights,
when at length quite unexpectedly I received a note from Archivarius
Lindhorst, in which he addressed me as follows:

"Respected Sir--It is well known to me that you have written down, in
Eleven Vigils, the singular fortunes of my good son-in-law Anselmus,
whilom student, now poet; and are at present cudgeling your brains
very sore, that in the Twelfth and La