could answer himself no otherwise, and indeed his whole conduct
seemed silly in his own estimation. He remembered the moment when
he saw Doertje Elverdink for the first time. Some years before the
Flea-tamer had exhibited his arts in Berlin, and had found no slight
audiences as long as the thing was new. Soon, however, people had seen
enough of the educated and well-disciplined fleas; and even the
paraphernalia of the diminutive race began not to be thought so very
wonderful, although at first attributed almost to magic, and Leuwenhock
seemed to have fallen into total oblivion. On a sudden a report was
spread that a niece of the artist, who had not appeared before, now
attended the exhibitions--a beautiful, lovely little maiden, and withal
so strangely attired as to baffle description. The world of
fashionables, who, like leaders in a concert, are accustomed to give
the time and tune to society, now poured in; and, as in this world
every thing is in extremes, the niece excited unparalleled
astonishment. It soon became the mode to frequent the flea-tamer; he,
who had not seen his niece, could not join in the common talk; and thus
the artist was saved in his distress. As to the rest, no one could
comprehend the name "_Doertje_;" and as at this time a celebrated
actress was displaying, in the part of the Queen of Golconda, all those
high yet soft attractions which are peculiar to the sex, they called
the fair Hollander by the royal name, Alina.

When George Pepusch came to Berlin, Leuwenhock's fair niece was the
talk of the day; and hence at the table of the hotel, where he lodged,
scarcely any thing else was spoken of but the little wonder that
delighted all the men, young and old, and even the women themselves.
Every one pressed the new-comer to place himself on the pinnacle of the
existing mode at Berlin, and see the Hollandress. Pepusch had an
irritable, melancholy temperament; in every enjoyment he found too much
of the bitter after-taste, which, indeed, comes from the Stygian brook
that runs through our whole life, and this made him gloomy and often
unjust to all about him. It may be easily supposed, that in this mood
he was little inclined to run about after pretty girls; but he went
nevertheless to the flea-tamer's, less on account of the dangerous
wonder, than to confirm his preconceived opinion that here too, as so
often in life, a strange madness was predominating. He found the
Hollandress fair, indeed, and agre