for then I meant to do as the heroes in
so many novels do, that is, look on at the ceremony concealed behind a
pillar in the church, and after the fatal "yes" fall down at full
length, with a tremendous crash, senseless on the floor; be carried out
by the sympathizing spectators, and so forth. Possessed with this idea,
I went to the house earlier than usual one day, like a man out of his
mind. I found Pauline alone in the drawing-room, and, before she had
time to be frightened at my agitated condition, I fell at her feet,
seized her hands, pressed them to my heart, vowed that I loved her to
distraction, and, pouring out a flood of tears, said I was the most
miserable of mankind, doomed to a cruel death, as she had given her
heart and promised her hand to another, before we had met. Pauline let
me rage out what I had to say; then, with a charming smile, she made me
rise and sit down by her on the sofa, and then she asked me, in a voice
of gentle concern:

"'"What's the matter with you? Please calm yourself, dear Mr. Marzell,
you're in a state which terrifies me."

"'I repeated all I had said before, more coherently however. Then
Pauline said:

"'"But how did you ever get it in your head that I'm in love with
anybody, or engaged to be married? There's not a word of truth in
either the one story or the other, I can assure you."

"'I maintained, on the other hand, that I had been quite certain ever
since the first moment I had set eyes on her that she was in love; and
as she kept pressing me to explain more clearly, I told her the whole
story of that first Monday of ours in the Webersche Zelt. Scarcely had
I finished it when Pauline got up and danced about the room with shouts
of laughter, crying:

"'"Oh! good gracious! It's too delicious altogether! Well! what dreams!
what ludicrous absurdities to take in one's head! Oh! I never heard
anything like it! it's really beyond everything!"

"'I sat nonplussed; Pauline came back to me, took me by the hands, and
shook me by them, as one does to rouse a person from a deep sleep.

"'"Now please to listen to what I'm going to tell you," she said,
trying hard, but not very successfully, to restrain her laughter. "The
young man whom you took for a messenger of love was a shopman from
Bramigk, the draper's; the note he gave me was from Bramigk himself.
He, like the most charming and courteous of shopkeepers as he is, had
promised to get me a hat from Paris (I had admired the pa