nna, or Fraeulein Aennchen, as the people call
her. "Yes; papa's study is up in the tower there, and he calls down
through the speaking trumpet." And you see Aennchen open the narrow
door of the old lower, with a similar _dejeuner a la fourchette_ to
that which you have had yourself, namely, a liberal helping of bread
and ham, not forgetting the beetroot brandy, and go briskly in at it.
But she is back directly, and taking you all over the charming
kitchen-garden, has so much to say about feather-sage, rapuntika,
English turnips, little greenheads, montrue, great yellow, and so
forth, that you have no idea that all these fine names merely mean
various descriptions of cabbages and salads.

I think, dear reader, that this little glimpse which you have had of
Dapsulheim is sufficient to enable you to understand all the outs and
ins of the establishment, concerning which I have to narrate to you all
manner of extraordinary, barely comprehensible, matters and
occurrences. Herr Dapsul von Zabelthau had, during his youth, very
rarely left his parents' country place. They had been people of
considerable means. His tutor, after teaching him foreign languages,
particularly those of the East, fostered a natural inclination which he
possessed towards mysticism, or rather, occupying himself with the
mysterious. This tutor died, leaving as a legacy to young Dapsul a
whole library of occult science, into the very depths of which he
proceeded to plunge. His parents dying, he betook himself to long
journeyings, and (as his tutor had impressed him with the necessity of
doing) to Egypt and India. When he got home again, after many years, a
cousin had looked after his affairs with such zeal that there was
nothing left to him but the little hamlet of Dapsulheim. Herr Dapsul
was too eagerly occupied in the pursuit of the sun-born gold of a
higher sphere to trouble himself about that which was earthly. He
rather felt obliged to his cousin for preserving to him the pleasant,
friendly Dapsulheim, with the fine, tall tower, which might have been
built expressly on purpose for astrological operations, and in the
upper storey and topmost height of which he at once established his
study. And indeed he thanked his said cousin from the bottom of his
heart.

This careful cousin now pointed out that Herr Dapsul von Zabelthau was
bound to marry. Dapsul immediately admitted the necessity, and, without
more ado, married at once the lady whom his cousin