statue. All the guests, however, laughed, and said: "Our Archivarius has got into his high key today: tomorrow, you shall see, he is mild as a lamb again, and speaks not a word, but looks into the smoke-vortexes of his pipe, or reads the newspapers: you must not mind these freaks."
"That is true too," thought the Student Anselmus: "who would mind such a thing, after all? Did not the Archivarius tell me he was most particularly glad to hear that I would undertake the copying of his manuscripts; and why did Registrator Heerbrand step directly in his way, when he was going home? No, no, he is a good man at bottom this Privy Archivarius Lindhorst, and surprisingly liberal. A little curious or so in his figures of speech; but what is that to me? Tomorrow by the stroke of twelve I go to him, though fifty bronzed Apple-wives should try to hinder me!"
FOURTH VIGIL
Melancholy of the Student Anselmus. The Emerald Mirror. How Archivarius Lindhorst flew off in the shape of a Kite, and the Student Anselmus met nobody
To thee thyself, favourable reader, I may well venture the question, Whether thou in thy time hast not had hours, nay, days and weeks, in which all thy customary trading and transacting raised a most vexing dissatisfaction in thy soul; and all that thou wert wont to look upon as worthy and important, now seemed paltry and unprofitable? Thou knewest not, at this season, what to do, or whither to turn; a dim feeling that somewhere, and some time or other, there must be a higher wish fulfilled, a wish overstepping the circle of all earthly joys, and which the spirit, like a strictly-nurtured and timid child, durst not even utter, still swelled thy breast; and in this longing for the unknown Somewhat, which, wherever thou wentest or stoodest, hovered round thee like an airy dream with thin translucent forms melting away
