The golden pot, p.9
The Golden Pot, page 9
But before long, it seemed to her as if she no longer saw his image, but rather Anselmus himself in the flesh. He sat in a high-ceilinged, strangely furnished room, and kept assiduously writing. Veronica wanted to join him, tap him on the shoulder and say, “Herr Anselmus, look around for heaven’s sake, it’s me standing here beside you!” But that was quite impossible, for it seemed as if he were surrounded by a bright ring of fire; yet when Veronica looked more closely, it was only the shimmer of large tomes with gilded bindings. Finally, Veronica managed to capture Anselmus’s attention. It was as if in order to see her, he first had to remember her existence; but eventually he smiled and said: “Ah— it’s you, my dear Mademoiselle Paulmann! But why, pray tell, do you sometimes slither like a little snake?”
Veronica had to laugh out loud at these strange words, whereupon she awakened as if from a deep dream. She quickly hid the little mirror, just as the door opened and Deputy Rector Paulmann entered with Dr. Eckstein. Dr. Eckstein immediately approached the bed, reached for Veronica’s wrist, took her pulse, lost in deep thought, and finally muttered, “Well! Well!” He wrote out a prescription, again took her pulse, again remarked, “Well! Well!” and left the room. But from the doctor’s terse remarks Deputy Rector Paulmann still had no clear idea of just what ailed his daughter.
Eighth Vigil
The library of palm trees. Fate of a disconsolate salamander. How a black quill blandished a beet and the Registrar Heerbrand got very intoxicated.
The student Anselmus had now been working at the home of the Archivarius Lindhorst for several days; these working hours were for him the happiest of his life, all the while serenaded as he was by the sweet sound of Serpentina’s soothing words, brushed by a passing breeze, infused by a never-before-felt sense of contentment, the overall effect often lifting him to a state of ecstasy. Every need, every little worry of his miserable existence dissolved, and in this new life that rose around him like a bright sunrise, he suddenly understood all the wonders of a higher being that had heretofore stunned and frightened him. The task of transcription went very quickly as he became ever more convinced that all he was doing was tracing long familiar characters on the parchment, and he hardly had to glance at the original to copy it with the greatest precision.
The archivarius seldom made an appearance aside from at mealtimes, but it was always at the very moment when Anselmus had put the last touches on a copied manuscript. The old man then slipped him another and, after stirring the ink with a little black stick and exchanging the used quills for others with sharpened tips, promptly departed in silence.
One day at the stroke of twelve, bounding up the steps, Anselmus found the door through which he ordinarily entered locked and, dressed in his wondrous flowery dressing gown, the Archivarius Lindhorst appeared from a door on the other side and called out, “Today you enter this way, my dear Anselmus, seeing as we are bound for the room in which Bhogovotgita’s master awaits us.” The archivarius led the way down the corridor and through the rooms and halls Anselmus recognized from his first visit. The student was astonished yet again by the wondrous splendor of the garden, but now he saw clearly that some curious blossoms hanging on the dark bushes were, in fact, flashy insects showing off their colors by fluttering their little wings and dancing around in a tizzy, seeming to caress each other with their proboscises. What he had previously taken to be blushand sky-blue-colored birds were fragrant flowers, and the scent they disseminated rose from their calyxes in sweet pulsations that mingled with the burble of distant fountains and the rustling of careening perennials and tall trees to produce mysterious chords of melancholy longing.
But the mocking birds, which had teased and taunted him that first time, once again fluttered round his head and cried incessantly with their fine-tuned beaks, “Herr Studiosus, Herr Studiosus, what’s the rush?— Don’t keep your head in the clouds or else you’ll fall and break your nose.— Ha ha, Herr Studiosus!— Put your scholar’s smock on!— Godfather Screech Owl will dress your wig!” Such was the serenade of stuff and nonsense that bombarded his ears until he left the garden.
Finally, the Archivarius Lindhorst strode into the azure-blue chamber; the porphyry with the golden pot had disappeared, and in its place in the middle of the room stood a table draped in violet-colored velvet, on top of which lay the familiar writing tools, with an armchair pulled up in front. “My dear Herr Anselmus,” said the Archivarius Lindhorst, “you have already faithfully copied a number of manuscripts at lightning speed and to my great satisfaction; you have earned my trust; the most important task is still to be accomplished. That is the copying, or rather painted reproduction, of certain works written in unusual characters that I keep stored in this room and that can only be copied on the spot. From now on you will therefore work here, but I must urge upon you the greatest care and concentration; one false stroke, or heaven forbid, a single inkstain dripped on the original will spell your doom.”
Anselmus noticed little emerald-green leaves growing from the golden stems of the palm trees; the archivarius plucked out one of these leaves and Anselmus realized that what he took for a leaf was, in fact, a rolled-up sheet of parchment, which the old man unraveled and spread out before him on the table. The student was quite surprised by the strangely convoluted characters, and at the sight of the many dots, strokes, faint lines, and curlicues that sometimes seemed to imitate plants, sometimes moss, sometimes animals, he almost lost faith in his capacity to precisely copy it all. The sight of it made him sink into deep thought.
“Courage, young man!” the archivarius chimed in. “If you have tried-and-tested faith and true love in your heart, Serpentina will help you!” His voice sounded like ringing metal, and as the petrified student looked up, he saw the Archivarius Lindhorst standing there before him in all his regal splendor, just as the old man had appeared in the library on his first visit. Anselmus felt impelled to fall down on his knees in veneration, but the archivarius promptly climbed the stem of a palm tree and disappeared among the emerald leaves. The student realized that the prince of spirits had spoken to him and thereupon arisen to his ethereal study, from whence, perhaps sending the beneficent rays of planets as celestial envoys, the prince might hold court and enlighten the student as to how to proceed with him and the lovely Serpentina. It may well also be, Anselmus thought, that news awaited the archivarius from the wellspring of the Nile or that a magus from Lapland sought an audience – in any case, he had best concentrate on the task at hand.
So resolving, he proceeded to study the strange characters on the parchment roll. The wondrous music came wafting in from the garden and he inhaled its sweet scents; the mocking birds kept snickering, but he no longer grasped their meaning, which suited him just fine. At times it also seemed as if the emerald leaves of the palm trees rustled quietly, and as if the lovely crystal bells he had first heard under the elderberry bush on that fateful Ascension Day resounded in the room. Marvelously fortified by the ringing and the glimmer, Anselmus applied himself ever more intently to the transcription of the parchment, and before long he knew, as if in his heart of hearts, that the characters conjoined to express nothing other than these words: “Announcing the wedding of the salamander with the green snake.” Then little crystal bells chimed a triad of notes, and the words “Anselmus, dear Anselmus!” were whispered from among the leaves, and – wonder of wonders! – the green snake slithered down the stem of the palm tree.
“Serpentina, lovely Serpentina!” Anselmus cried out, enraptured to the point of madness. For as he looked closer he saw that it was a charming, lovely girl gliding toward him, peering at him with inexpressible longing in her dark blue eyes, the like of which he could heretofore only dream of. The leaves appeared to droop and give way, thorns sprouting from the stem, but Serpentina twisted and twirled herself adroitly, drawing after her a fluttering robe shimmering in a brilliant blaze of color which, clinging to her slender body, slipped along unfettered, without catching on the spikes and thorns of the palm tree. She sat herself down beside Anselmus on the same chair, slung her arm around his shoulder and pressed him to her so that he felt the hot breath blowing from her lips and the electric warmth of her body.
“Dear Anselmus,” she whispered, “soon you will be all mine; having won me over with your faith and your love, I will grant you possession of the golden pot that will bring us both eternal bliss.”
“Oh, my sweet and lovely Serpentina,” Anselmus said, “if I can have you, nothing else matters; if only you’ll be mine I will gladly be swallowed up by all the wondrous and strange things that have befallen me ever since the moment I first saw you.”
“I know that the arcane and whimsical web my father often likes to weave in jest stirs terror and trembling in your heart, but I hope it won’t happen again now that I have come, my dear Anselmus, to set you straight from the bottom of my heart about everything down to the smallest detail, everything you need to know to get my father’s game and grasp what makes him and me tick.”
To Anselmus it seemed as if he were so completely entwined and entangled with her presence that he could only move in tandem with her, and as if it were her pulse coursing through his every fiber and nerve. He listened intently to her every word that resounded in his innermost self and, like a brilliant ray of light, sparked heavenly delight in him. He had his arm wrapped around her slenderer than slender waist, but the iridescent, glimmering material of her robe was so smooth, so slippery, that it seemed to him as if she could slip away, and he shuddered at the thought that she might at any moment slip free of his grip. “Don’t leave me, oh my lovely Serpentina,” he involuntarily cried out, “it’s you and you alone I live for!”
“I shan’t leave ere I’ve told you all that your love for me will let you comprehend,” added Serpentina. “Know then, my beloved, that my father hails from the wondrous species of the salamanders, and that I owe my existence to his love for the green snake. In ancient times, the mighty spirit-prince Phosphorus ruled over the enchanted land of Atlantis, and the elemental spirits were his subservient vassals. One day the salamander that Phosphorus loved best – it was my father – happened to go walking around in the splendid garden that Phosphorus’s mother had adorned with the most luxuriant flowers and flora, when he heard a tall lily sing softly, ‘Press your little eyelids shut till my lover, the morning wind, rouses you from sweet slumber.’ He stepped toward it, aroused by its scent, whereupon the lily spread its leaves and he espied her daughter, the little green snake, curled up asleep in its calyx. The salamander was gripped by burning love for the beautiful serpent and took her away, pursued in vain by the essence of the flower’s wordless lament, which called out to every corner of the garden in search of her beloved daughter. For the salamander had carried her off to Phosphorus’s castle and begged his father, ‘Marry me to my beloved, for she shall be mine forever.’
“ ‘Fool, what are you asking!’ cried the spirit-prince. ‘Know that the lily was once my lover and ruled at my side, but the spark I ignited in her threatened to consume her, and only the defeat of the dark dragon whom the earth spirits now keep shackled in chains saved the lily, allowing her leaves to grow strong enough to enclose and preserve the spark. But if you embrace the green snake, your hot blood will burn away her body, and a new being will arise from the ashes and fly off.’
“But the salamander did not heed the spirit-prince’s warning. With burning longing, he embraced the snake, who promptly moldered into a pile of ashes out of which a winged being was born and flew off. Overcome by despair, the salamander ran through the garden in a fit of fury, spewing fire and flames, laying waste to everything in his path, burning the most beautiful flowers and blossoms whose wailing filled the air. Infuriated, the spirit-prince grabbed the salamander and said: ‘Your fire is consumed— the flames are extinguished, the glare died out— you are banished to the realm of the terrestrial spirits. Let them tease and taunt you and keep you captive until the fire is rekindled and erupts from the belly of the earth, spewing forth your essence in the body of a new being.’ And the poor salamander sank down, its spark extinguished.
“But the surly old earth spirit, Phosphorus’s gardener, stepped up and said, ‘My Lord, who more than I should rage at the salamander’s excesses! Did I not polish all the lovely flower petals he burned down with traces of my rarest metals? Did I not painstakingly tend to and nurture their sprouts and squander some of my finest pigments? And still I stand by the poor salamander, for it was love alone that drove him to despoil the garden – the same force that so often consumed you too, my Lord, and drove you to despair. Spare him from this painful punishment!’
“ ‘His fire is extinguished,’ said the spirit-prince. ‘But in that unfortunate future, when the language of nature is no longer comprehensible to the human species, when the elemental spirits are banished to their remote realms and only still mutter in muffled echoes to the ears of man, when the last inkling of the harmonic sphere is reduced to an endless longing for that wondrous realm when faith and love still fueled the human spirit – in that unhappy time the salamander’s spark will be reignited, but only man will greet its glimmer, and the salamander will be compelled to endure the hardship of a tenuous existence. But he will retain more than just the memory of his original state, he will once again live in holy harmony with all of nature, he will fathom its wonders, and the power of his brother spirits will stand at his disposal. He will find the green snake again curled up in a bush of lilies, and the fruit of their union will be three daughters who will appear to man in the bodily shape of their mother. In springtime they will nestle in the branches of the dark elderberry bush and let their sweet crystalline voices ring. If in that spiritually wanting, destitute, hardhearted time, a young man should happen to overhear their song, if one of the little snakes should gaze upon him with her sweet and lovely eyes, the sight of her will awaken in him an inkling of that faraway, wondrous land, to which he can bravely strive to raise himself up and gain entry once he has cast off the burden of the ordinary. If his love for the snake rouses in him a faith in the wonders of nature, and his own existence can fully and passionately partake, then the snake will be his. But the salamander may not cast off his heavy burden and return to live with his brothers until three young men have been found to be wed to the three daughters.’
“ ‘Permit me, my Lord,’ said the earth spirit, ‘to give the three daughters a gift that will embellish their lives with the three found mates. Each will receive from me a pot made of the finest metal I possess, and I will polish it with rays emanating from a diamond; our wondrous realm as it presently exists in harmony with all of nature will be mirrored in its glimmer in a blinding burst of loveliness; but from inside the pot, the moment they wed, a fire lily will burst forth whose eternal blossoms will shower the youth deemed worthy with its sweet scent. In no time at all he will understand their language and fathom the wonders of their realm, and go with his beloved to live in Atlantis.’
“It must now be clear to you, dear Anselmus, that my father is that salamander of whom I spoke. Disregarding his higher nature, he has been obliged to submit to the petty constraints of ordinary life, hence the frequent moody fits that make him take it out on others. He often told me that we now have an expression for the state of mind that the prince of spirits Phosphorus set as a precondition for anyone seeking to wed my sisters and me; however, it is an expression which is all too often inappropriately misused nowadays: that such an individual need be of a childlike poetic disposition. This disposition is often found in youths who are scorned by the crowd on account of the great simplicity of their manner and because they are totally lacking in worldly sophistication. Oh, my dear Anselmus! You grasped the meaning of my song and my glance under the elderberry bush – you love the little green snake, you believe in me and want to be mine forever! The lovely lily will blossom from the golden pot and we will be united and live together in bountiful bliss in Atlantis! But I make no secret of the fact that in the terrible fight with the salamanders and the earth spirits the black dragon broke free and took flight. Phosphorus has once again taken the vile creature captive, but from the black feathers that fell to the earth in combat, evil spirits sprouted in opposition to the benevolent salamanders and their allied spirits. That old crone who is so hostile to you, dear Anselmus, and who, as my father well knows, seeks possession of the golden pot, owes her existence to the mating of a dragon feather fallen in combat and a wild beet. She is well aware of her origin and her power, for in the restless mutterings and convulsions of the captured dragon, many a mysterious secret constellation was revealed to her. She employs every means at her disposal to control from the outside in, which my father opposes with the bolts of light that shoot out of his salamander soul. She gathers all the hostile essences to be found in poison plants and venomous animals and, mixing them in a potion that maximizes their potency, arouses evil spirits that burden human minds with dread and horror and subject them to the wiles of the demons let loose in the dragon’s struggle. Beware of that old hag, dear Anselmus; she hates you because your childlike, pious disposition already circumvented some of her evil spells. Stay true – true to me – and soon you’ll get what you want.”
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