Conrector Paulmann's sanitary
canaster and the gold-green snakes.
On Ascension-day, at three o'clock in the afternoon, a young man in
Dresden came running through the Black Gate, falling right into a
basket of apples and cakes, which an old and very ugly woman was
there exposing to sale. All that escaped being smashed to pieces was
scattered away, and the street-urchins joyfully divided the booty
which this quick gentleman had thrown in the way. At the murder-shriek
which the crone set up, her gossips, leaving their cake and
brandy-tables, encircled the young man, and with plebeian violence
stormfully scolded him, so that, for shame and vexation, he uttered
no word, but merely held out his small and by no means particularly
well-filled purse, which the crone eagerly clutched and stuck into her
pocket. The firm ring now opened; but as the young man started off,
the crone called after him: "Ay, run, run thy ways, thou Devil's bird!
To the crystal run--to the crystal!" The squealing, creaking voice
of the woman had something unearthly in it, so that the promenaders
paused in amazement, and the laugh, which at first had been universal,
instantly died away. The student Anselmus, for the young man was no
other, felt himself, though he did not in the least understand these
singular phrases, nevertheless seized with a certain involuntary
horror; and he quickened his steps still more, to escape the curious
looks of the multitude, which were all turned toward him.
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