dusky woodlands. "Come out!" he shouted, "and do your worst; be you man or devil!" There was no immediate reply, but listening attentively, the word "Devil," whispered at some distance, fell upon his startled ear, and the unhallowed sound was repeated in lower whispers, until it melted into distance. "This is beyond endurance," he exclaimed, as he rushed onward; "these cursed echoes will drive me mad."-" Mad! Mad! Mad!" replied a host of voices. At that moment he heard something rustling in the branches, and his foot struck against some object which uttered an inarticulate and moaning sound. He stepped hastily backwards, and looking down, discovered an enormous toad lying on its back, and struggling vainly to regain its legs. Yielding to a sudden impulse of uncontrolable disgust, he plunged the point of his stick into the bloated reptile, and hurled it into the adjacent underwood. The rays of a bright moon fell through an opening in the trees in the direction where he had thrown the toad, and Arnold shuddered with horror as he beheld the hideous features of the old stick-woman grinning at him like Medusa from the spotted toad.

"Accursed beldam! Avaunt!" he shouted; "am I to be dogged for ever by this old woman?" Rushing through the underwood, he aimed a blow at her horrid visage, but encountered only the pale and streaky stem of a birch-tree. He laughed aloud on discovering the cause of this delusion, and immediately his ears were stunned by the monstrous and reiterat ed peals of laughter which assailed him on all sides. "I am surely beset by a legion of devils," thought the agonized youth, while his hair stood erect, and cold drops of perspiration rolled down his face as he listened to this horrid burst of merriment. Collecting, by a sudden effort, his scattered energies, he brandished his stick, and rushed headlong through the tangled thicket, shouting, "Have at ye all! Sprites! Witches! Ghosts! and Devils!" He plunged forward

like a maniac trough the wood, until he stepped upon another toad, which yielded to the pressure; he lost his footing, fell breathless on the brink of a declivity, and rolled down the shelving side of a deep ravine, where he lay a considerable time, exhausted and senseless.

When restored to consciousness, he found himself reposing upon an embroidered sofa in a baron's hall, of antique and curious magnificence, and the soft rays of the morning sun were beaming brightly upon him through the arched and lofty windows. A lovely girl, of nymph-like hues and form, and robed with elegant simplicity, stood near his couch. Tresses of the brightest chesnut fell in waving luxuriance over her ivory neck and shoulders; her soft blue eye shot rays as mild as moonbeams upon the astonished Arnold; and around her bewitching mouth lurked a smile of indescribable archness and mystery. In short, she was the startling resemblance, the very counterpart, of the pretty Sphinx-head upon his stick.

"In the name of wonder, where am I?" exclaimed Arnold, starting from the sofa, and gazing upon the lovely stranger with delight and amazement. "Have the wheels of time rolled back again? Have the romantic splendors of the middle ages risen from the dead? Or have I been translated from that hellish forest to an angel's paradise? Or has my pretty Sphinx been gifted with life and motion, like Pygmalion's statue? Or have I lost my senses? Or,-pardon me, your ladyship!-You are surely no carved knob? I mean, my lady, no ivory Sphinx? I would say, that your lovely features are so mysterious and Sphinx-like, that I am perplexed and amazed beyond expression."

"Return to your couch, good youth!" replied the smiling fair one; "the fever paroxysms are not over. You are still raving; but I see symptoms of amendment. Be seated, I pray you, and endeavor to collect your wandering faculties. I can assure you,"

she continued, "that there is nothing supernatural about me or my castle, which is well known in Holstein as the country residence of the Countess Cordula. You approached it last night through my park, which is well wooded, and so intersected with rocks and ravines, as to be somewhat dangerous to night-walkers. Rambling, as is my wont, by sunrise, I discovered you lying senseless in a deep hollow, near the castle. The stick you rave about is at your elbow. How it came into your possession, I know not, but it once belonged to me; and the Sphinx-head was carved by my page Florestan, who is an ingenious little fellow, and amuses himself with carving my features, and applying them to every thing grotesque and fabulous in the animal world."

"Either my senses are the sport of dreams, or this world is altogether an enigma," replied the still bewildered Arnold; "I know very well that I live in the nineteenth century, and that I have studied at the University of Kiel. Common sense tells me that there are neither witches, ghosts, nor fairies, and yet I could almost swear that ever since yesterday noon, I have been the sport and victim of supernatural agency. If, therefore, noble lady! you are really no fairy, but, in good faith, the Countess Cordula, and a human being, I trust you will pardon my strange language and deportment, and attribute them to the real causemy unaccountable transition from the horrors of your park to this splendid hall, and the dazzling presence of its lovely owner."

"Singular being!" replied the blushing Countess, "you have introduced yourself to me and my castle in so abrupt and original a manner, that I feel somewhat curious to become better acquainted with such an oddity. If, therefore, your time and engagements permit you to remain here a few days, I shall be happy to retain you as a guest, and to share with you the summer amusements of my secluded residence. If you delight in music and in song, in fine old pictures,

32 ATHENEUM, VOL. 1. 3d series.

and the pleasant tales and legends of Scandinavia, you will find abundant resources under my roof."

"Your kindness and condescension enchant me, lovely Countess ! I seek no happier fate," exclaimed the enraptured Arnold, pressing the hand of his fair hostess to his lips with fervent and deep delight. She acknowledged her consciousness of his undisguised admiration by a blush and smile of such flattering, such thrilling potency, that her intoxicated guest already ventured to indulge in some audacious dreams of the possible consequences which might ensue from daily and incessant intercourse with this fascinating Countess. Sympathy, love, and marriage, might follow in natural succession, and make him the happiest, the most enviable of human beings.

In a glowing tumult of delightful anticipations, he obeyed an invitation of his hostess to accompany her in a stroll through the castle gardens. Here a romantic scene of hills, and woods, and waters, met the eye, and Arnold recognised, with amazement, in the extensive lake, margined with hanging woods, and dotted with green islands and temples, a scene connected with some floating reminiscences of his childhood, or of some vivid dream, he could not determine which; but he recollected having gazed, on a glorious morning, over the hedge which bounded a noble park, with its Gothic castle, reflected in the mirrored surface of a lake. Pleasant footpaths meandered through its groves and gardens, and a cavalier of noble presence was ranging with his fair one through the beauteous landscape. He well remembered with what curious longings he had seen and envied the happy lot of that loving pair; and now, ecstatic thought! he no longer gazed on a forbidden paradise, but walked a bidden guest over this fairy scene by the side of its beautiful mistress; and this fondest dream of his juvenile fancy was realized with a vividness and abruptness which, to his still bewildered senses, partook of Arabian enchantment.

Returning to the castle, the Countess led the happy student to her picture gallery, which contained some rare and admirable specimens of the old masters. Arnold was no painter, but he had a painter's eye for the beautiful in art and nature, and he gazed with delight upon the works of Raffaelle, Titian, Correggio, and Paul Veronese. The Countess pointed out to him some matchless portraits painted by these great men, and dilated upon their merits with such grace, spirit, and intelligence, that the figures seemed to breathe, and almost start from the canvass, when touched by the wand of this enchantress. One department of the gallery was occupied by the pictures of a modern German artist, who seemed to have drawn his inspiration from the eccentric etchings of the inimitable Jacques Callot. So wild and grotesque were his combinations of the imaginative and the supernatural, with the realities and commonplaces of every-day life, that Arnold, whose foible was a vivid and ill-regulated imagination, bestowed more earnest and admiring attention upon these ingenious caricatures, than he had devoted to the costly specimens of the old masters. Recollecting himself, he apologized to the Countess for this singular preference, and explained it, by acknowledging himself an admirer of the eccentric tales and visions of Hoffmann, whose intense sympathy with the extravaganzas and capriccios of Callot was abundantly notorious. The Countess replied only by a lifted forefinger, and an arch smile, which reminded him somewhat disagreeably of his ivory Sphinx, and he followed her in silence to the fine old gothic library, where she desired he would amuse himself for an hour, and left him to his reflections. These were unfavorable to study, and while he turned over many curious manuscripts and missals, unconscious of their contents, his memory was busily occupied in retracing every look and gesture of the fascinating Cordula. Wearied at length of studying so unprofitably the antique lore of this curious library, he

looked around for some book in a modern garb, and discovered a single tome in an elegant fancy binding. It was a volume of his favorite Hoffmann, and opened at the tale of the "Golden Vase." This narrative was new to him, and he devoured it with a relish so absorbing, that he had no difficulty in tracing a mysterious and startling resemblance in his own adventures to those of the student Anselmo. "Surely," he exclaimed, "that student must be my double, and he, or I, or both of us, are phantasms in the manner of Callot." The sudden entrance of the Countess dismounted him from his hobby, and although he felt a strong impulse to ask her if she thought he resembled a phantasm of Callot, the recollection that she had attributed his ravings about the Sphinx to temporary derangement, gave him a timely check, and the silver tones of her melodious voice dispelled entirely his delusion; he was again the happiest of men, and the blissful hours flew by unheeded, like moments.

Three days had vanished thus delightfully, and had appeared to our enamored student like a pleasant summer-night's dream, when, on the fourth morning, he heard with terror that the Countess was confined to her apartment by indisposition, and not visible to any one. Arnold's consternation and anxiety were for some time excessive, but they gradually yielded to a growing suspicion that the Countess was not altogether what she appeared. He recollected the story of the beautiful Melusina, who was at certain periods changed into a serpent, and carefully secluded herself when the hour of metamorphosis approached. His apprehension of a similar catastrophe was so enlivened by the fairy splendor which surrounded him in this mysterious castle, that he relapsed headlong into the fancies created by the strong resemblance of the Countess to his ivory Sphinx; and, forgetting alike the obligations of decorum and gratitude, he rushed onwards to her private apartment, push

ed aside the opposing servants, and abruptly entered the forbidden chamber. The curtains were closely drawn to exclude the glare of daylight, and the yellow rays of a large French lamp threw a soft and mysterious light around the spacious apartment. The lofty walls were decorated with a French landscape paper, on which were skilfully depicted the wondrous features of Egyptian scenery. In different compartments were seen the enormous pyramids and temples; the broad and venerable Nile, with here and there a crocodile reposing in long and scaly grandeur on its margin; and opposite the door was painted, in high and full relief, the mysterious head of the Sphinx, resting its vast proportions on the drifted sand, and gazing in mild majesty over the vestiges of Egyptian grandeur, like the surviving monarch of a shattered world. The elegant Parisian furniture of this apartment was in corresponding taste, and the Countess was reclining upon a couch, supported by two large and admirably sculptured Sphinxes, while all the tables and chiffoniers were resting on the same pleasant-looking monsters. The lovely Cordula looked pale as an ivory statue; her lips were flushed with the glow of fever, and there was in her eyes a dark and melancholy lustre. She was reclining on her side, her bosom supported by her left arm, and when the agitated youth approached her, she raised the forefinger of her right hand, and thus addressed him. "Arnold! Arnold! who are you? and who am I?" "My lovely Sphinx!" exclaimed the bewildered student, "what do I see and hear? You propose to me an enigma which it is impossible to solve. Do you think I am one of Callot's phantasms? or, do you take me for Edipus himself?"

"Arnold! Arnold !" continued the Countess, in tremulous tones and evident anxiety, "if you could solve my enigma, I should expire before you; and yet my cruel destiny compels me to ask, Who are you? and who am I?" At these dreadful words, the

unhappy Arnold felt his heart sink within him; his fairy visions vanished, his lips quivered with dismay, his knees smote together, his brain began to whirl, and all around him was mist and confusion. The sublime scenery

which adorned the walls appeared to move around him like a panoramic landscape; the pyramids of Memphis and Saccara, the giant obelisks and temples, threw up their awful forms from earth to heaven, and stalked before him in collossal march, like spectral visions of the past. The troubled waters of the Nile began to leave their bed, and the scaly monsters on its banks to creep with opening jaws around the chamber; while the numerous Sphinxes which adorned it, assuming suddenly the form and features of the Countess, pointed their warning fingers at the frenzied Arnold, and with smiles of boding mystery, screamed in his shrinking cars the fatal questions, "Who are you? and who am I?"

"Gracious Heaven!" exclaimed the agonized student, "I am hedged in by all the plagues of Egypt. Forbear! in mercy forbear!" he continued in delirious terror, while he covered his aching eyes and throbbing temples with his hands. "Forbear those horrid questions! I know not who I am.-Would I had never been!" Rousing, by a desperate effort, his expiring energies, he rushed out of the apartment, and fled from the castle to the adjacent wood. Winged with terror, he bounded through the tangled underwood, stumbled over the root of an oak tree, and rolled down the side of a declivity. He lay for some time stunned and dizzy with the shock, but gradually recovered his senses, and resumed his flight. After running with headlong speed for some hours, he looked up, and to his infinite amazement, found himself within a mile of the Holstein gate of Hamburg, and the ivory knob-stick in his hand. Slackening his pace to a sober walk, and gazing at the pretty Sphinx, he began to commune with himself.

days cannot have been a dream? No, impossible! They were far too lively and circumstantial for a vision. But, if no dream, my Holstein Countess must be well known in Hamburg. I will make diligent search, and on the spot." He began immediately to question every passenger he met where the Countess Cordula resided; but no one had ever heard the name, or knew the stately baronial castle he described so minutely, and the vehement language, flushed cheeks, and sparkling eyes of the questioner, excited amongst the more thinking passengers a suspicion that he had drunk too deeply at the maddening fount of poetry and romance. "Alas!" soliloquized the disappointed Arnold, "if such a countess and such a castle are unknown, my strange adventure must indeed have been a dream, and the less I say of it the better, lest my friends should pronounce me a visionary, and my prospects in life be blasted by a nickname. I would give one of my ears," he continued, as he strolled towards the city, "if I could banish that fatal enigma from my memory.- Who are you?'-Who I am indeed is more than I can tell. I am the natural son of somebody, but whether of a prince or a pedlar, I could never learn. The question would have puzzled Edipus himself. However, what has been may be again, and I have always the pleasant consciousness that I am possibly a prince incog., like a metamorphosed king in a fairy tale. The enchantment may be broken some day by a word, and I may find myself all at once betrothed to a princess, and heir apparent to a throne. But whatever I may turn out to be according to the flesh, I should like very much to know what I am in spirit and in truth; and, above all, whether I am a poet. Certainly my imagination is very prone to take wing, and fly away with me; and I have been often told that I am absent and eccentric. Surely these are indisputable tokens of a genius for poetry and romance.-By Heaven, I'll write a book! My own life and adventures will make an admirable epic,

and this laughing little Sphinx a delicious episode. The Countess Cordula; her matchless beauty and accomplishments; her stately castle, with its books and pictures, woods and waterswhat delightful materials! But that horrible Egyptian chamber with its dancing pyramids; and those gaping crocodiles and chattering SphinxesFaugh! the recollection turns my brain. And those cursed enigmas,

Who are you? and, Who am I?-Dear incomprehensible Countess!" sighed the still enamored student, “could I wish to solve these fatal questions at the risk of thy precious existence? No, my sweet Cordula !—Vision, or no vision! I shall never forget thee, and never cease to love thee."

On the following morning he hired an apartment in the suburb, overlooking the Holstein road. The house was in the centre of a pleasant garden, and commanded a view of the road and passengers without exposure to the dust and noise. He chose this situation in the latent hope that the Countess had deceived him by an assumed name, and that he might some day be so fortunate as to see her equipage on the road to or from Hamburg. The utmost efforts of his understanding had been unable to reach an entire conviction that his late adventure had been a dream, and the intense eagerness with which he began and pursued the story of his life, tended only to increase his delusion.

Prefixing the title of "Adventures of a Student, a Romance of Real Life, in the manner of Callot and Hoffmann," he compressed into a single chapter every precious incident as comparatively unworthy of his authorship; and, plunging with mad delight into the episode of " The Sphinx," he detailed, in glowing and impassioned language, his adventures in the haunted wood, and mysterious castle of the Countess. He wrote the earlier portion of this episode in the form and language of fiction, but the longer he wrote, the more confirmed was his belief in the truth of his romance; and