The
poor student Anselmus was almost on the point of weeping; for he too
had expected, Ascension-day having always been a family-festival with
him, to participate in the felicities of the Linkean paradise; nay, he
had purposed even to go the length of a half "portion" of coffee with
rum, and a whole bottle of double beer, and, that he might carouse
at his ease, had put more money in his purse than was properly
permissible and feasible. And now, by this fatal step into the
apple-basket, all that he had about him had been swept away. Of
coffee, of double beer, of music, of looking at the bright damsels--in
a word, of all his fancied enjoyments, there was now nothing more to
be said. He glided slowly past, and at last turned down the Elbe road,
which at that time happened to be quite solitary.
[Illustration: Permission Berlin Photo Co., New York. HENSEL
ERNST THEODOR AMADEUS HOFFMANN]
Beneath an elder-tree, which had grown out through the wall, he found
a kind green resting-place; here he sat down, and filled a pipe from
the _Sanitaetsknaster_ or Health-tobacco, of which his friend the
Conrector Paulmann had lately made him a present. Close before him
rolled and chafed the gold-dyed waves of the fair Elbe-stream; behind
him rose lordly Dresden, stretching, bold and proud, its light towers
into the airy sky; which again, farther off, bent itself down toward
flowery meads and fresh springing woods; and in the dim distance, a
range of azure peaks gave notice of remote Bohemia.
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