My sensations were
      those of entire happiness, for I felt that in a few minutes, at
      farthest, I should be relieved from my disagreeable situation. And in this expectation I was not at all deceived. At twenty-five
      minutes past five in the afternoon, precisely, the huge
      minute-hand had proceeded sufficiently far on its terrible
      revolution to sever the small remainder of my neck. I was not
      sorry to see the head which had occasioned me so much
      embarrassment at length make a final separation from my body. It
      first rolled down the side of the steeple, then lodge, for a few
      seconds, in the gutter, and then made its way, with a plunge,
      into the middle of the street. I will candidly confess that my feelings were now of the most
      singular—nay, of the most mysterious, the most perplexing and
      incomprehensible character. My senses were here and there at one
      and the same moment. With my head I imagined, at one time, that
      I, the head, was the real Signora Psyche Zenobia—at another I
      felt convinced that myself, the body, was the proper identity. To
      clear my ideas on this topic I felt in my pocket for my
      snuff-box, but, upon getting it, and endeavoring to apply a pinch
      of its grateful contents in the ordinary manner, I became
      immediately aware of my peculiar deficiency, and threw the box at
      once down to my head. It took a pinch with great satisfaction,
      and smiled me an acknowledgement in return. Shortly afterward it
      made me a speech, which I could hear but indistinctly without
      ears. I gathered enough, however, to know that it was astonished
      at my wishing to remain alive under such circumstances. In the
      concluding sentences it quoted the noble words of Ariosto—

     Il pover hommy che non sera corty
      And have a combat tenty erry morty;

      thus comparing me to the hero who, in the heat of the combat, not
      perceiving that he was dead, continued to contest the battle with
      inextinguishable valor. There was nothing now to prevent my
      getting down from my elevation, and I did so. What it was that
      Pompey saw so very peculiar in my appearance I have never yet
      been able to find out. The fellow opened his mouth from ear to
      ear, and shut his two eyes as if he were endeavoring to crack
      nuts between the lids. Finally, throwing off his overcoat, he
      made one spring for the staircase and disappeared. I hurled after
      the scoundrel these vehement words of Demosthenes—

      Andrew O’Phlegethon, you really make haste to fly,

      and then turned to the darling of my heart, to the one-eyed! the
      shaggy-haired Diana. Alas! what a horrible vision affronted my
      eyes? Was that a rat I saw skulking into his hole? Are these the
      picked bones of the little angel who has been cruelly devoured by
      the monster? Ye gods! and what do I behold—is that the departed
      spirit, the shade, the ghost, of my beloved puppy, which I
      perceive sitting with a grace so melancholy, in the corner? Hearken! for she speaks, and, heavens! it is in the German of
      Schiller—

      “Unt stubby duk, so stubby dun
       Duk she! duk she!”

      Alas! and are not her words too true? “And if I died, at least I died
       For thee—for thee.”

      Sweet creature! she too has sacrificed herself in my behalf. Dogless, niggerless, headless, what now remains for the unhappy
      Signora Psyche Zenobia? Alas—nothing! I have done. MYSTIFICATION


     Slid, if these be your “passados” and “montantes,” I’ll have none
     o’ them. —NED KNOWLES. The Baron Ritzner von Jung was a noble Hungarian family, every
      member of which (at least as far back into antiquity as any
      certain records extend) was more or less remarkable for talent of
      some description—the majority for that species of _grotesquerie_
      in conception of which Tieck, a scion of the house, has given a
      vivid, although by no means the most vivid exemplifications. My
      acquaintance with Ritzner commenced at the magnificent Chateau
      Jung, into which a train of droll adventures, not to be made
      public, threw me during the summer months of the year 18—. Here
      it was that I obtained a place in his regard, and here, with
      somewhat more difficulty, a partial insight into his mental
      conformation. In later days this insight grew more clear, as the
      intimacy which had at first permitted it became more close; and
      when, after three years separation, we met at G——n, I knew all
      that it was necessary to know of the character of the Baron
      Ritzner von Jung. I remember the buzz of curiosity which his advent excited within
      the college precincts on the night of the twenty-fifth of June. I
      remember still more distinctly, that while he was pronounced by
      all parties at first sight “the most remarkable man in the
      world,” no person made any attempt at accounting for his opinion. That he was unique appeared so undeniable, that it was deemed
      impertinent to inquire wherein the uniquity consisted. But,
      letting this matter pass for the present, I will merely observe
      that, from the first moment of his setting foot within the limits
      of the university, he began to exercise over the habits, manners,
      persons, purses, and propensities of the whole community which
      surrounded him, an influence the most extensive and despotic, yet
      at the same time the most indefinite and altogether
      unaccountable. Thus the brief period of his residence at the
      university forms an era in its annals, and is characterized by
      all classes of people appertaining to it or its dependencies as
      “that very extraordinary epoch forming the domination of the
      Baron Ritzner von Jung.”

      Upon his advent to G——n, he sought me out in my apartments. He
      was then of no particular age, by which I mean that it was
      impossible to form a guess respecting his age by any data
      personally afforded. He might have been fifteen or fifty, and was
      twenty-one years and seven months. He was by no means a handsome
      man—perhaps the reverse. The contour of his face was somewhat
      angular and harsh. His forehead was lofty and very fair; his nose
      a snub; his eyes large, heavy, glassy, and meaningless. About the
      mouth there was more to be observed. The lips were gently
      protruded, and rested the one upon the other, after such a
      fashion that it is impossible to conceive any, even the most
      complex, combination of human features, conveying so entirely,
      and so singly, the idea of unmitigated gravity, solemnity and
      repose.