and my voice died away in the air. I was getting desperate, when the
man came back, and, as he flew by me like a mad creature, chucked my
legs back to me, throwing them right into my face. I then picked myself
up, as speedily as, in my state of discomfiture, I could, and ran to
Spandau Street. But when I got to my own door (with my latchkey in my
hand), there was _I_--_I_, myself, standing there already, staring at
_me_, with the same big black eyes which you see in my head at this
moment. Starting back in terror, I fell against a man, who seized me
with a strong grip of his arms. By the halbert he was carrying, I
thought he was the watchman; so I said, 'Dearest watchman!--worthy
man!--please to drive away that wraith of Clerk of the Privy Chancery
Tussmann from that door there, so that _I_, the _real_ Tussmann, may
get into my lodgings.' But the man growled out, 'Why, Tussmann! you're
surely out of your senses!' in a hollow voice; and I saw it wasn't the
watchman at all, but that terrible Goldsmith who had got me in his
arms. Drops of cold perspiration stood on my forehead. I said: 'Most
respected Herr Professor, pray do not take it ill that I should have
thought you were the watchman, in the dark. Oh, Heavens! call me
whatever you choose; call me in the most uncourteous manner 'Tussmann,'
without the faintest adumbration of a title at all; or even 'My dear
fellow!' I will overlook anything. Only rid me of this terrible
enchantment--as you can, if you choose. 'Tussmann!' he said, in that
awful hollow voice of his, 'nothing shall annoy you more, if you will
take your solemn oath, here where we stand, to give up all idea of
marrying Miss Albertine Bosswinkel.' Commissionsrath! you may fancy
what I felt when this atrocious proposition was made to me. I said:
'Dearest Herr Professor! you make my very heart bleed. Waltzing is a
horrible and improper thing; and Miss Albertine Bosswinkel was waltzing
upstairs there--in her wedding-dress as my bride into the bargain--with
some young gentleman or other (I don't know who he was), in a manner
that made my sight and my hearing abandon me, out and out. But still,
for all that, I cannot let that exquisite creature go. I must cleave to
her, whatever happens, come what will.' The words were scarcely out of
my mouth, when that awful, abominable Goldsmith gave me a sort of shove
which made me begin immediately to spin round and round, and, as if
impelled by some irresistible power, I wen