He was sitting mute
in his place, and inwardly battling with himself, when Conrector
Paulman repeated, with still greater emphasis: "How are you, Herr
Anselmus?"
With the most rueful tone, Anselmus replied: "Ah! Herr Conrector, if
you knew what strange things I have been dreaming, quite awake,
with open eyes, just now, under an elder-tree at the wall of Linke's
garden, you would not take it amiss of me that I am a little absent,
or so."
"Ey, ey, Herr Anselmus!" interrupted Conrector Paulmann, "I have
always taken you for a solid young man; but to dream, to dream with
your eyes wide open, and then, all at once, to start up for leaping
into the water! This, begging your pardon, is what only fools or
madmen could do."
The student Anselmus was deeply affected at his friend's hard saying;
then Veronica, Paulmann's eldest daughter, a most pretty blooming
girl of sixteen, addressed her father: "But, dear father, something
singular must have befallen Herr Anselmus; and perhaps he only thinks
he was awake, while he may really have been asleep, and so all
manner of wild stuff has come into his head and is still lying in his
thoughts."
"And, dearest Mademoiselle! Worthy Conrector!" interrupted Registrator
Heerbrand, "may one not, even when awake, sometimes sink into a sort
of dreaming state? I myself have had such fits. One afternoon, for
instance, during coffee, in a sort of brown study like this, in the
very moment of corporeal and spiritual digestion, the place where a
lost document was lying occurred to me, as if by inspiration; and last
night, no further gone, there came glorious large Latin WRIT tripping
out before my open eyes, in the very same way.
Pages:
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520