Transcriber's notes: Source of scans: Google Books: "http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA2&dq=editions:UCALB4287293&id=ZYQFAQ AAIAAJ&as_brr=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false" THE SERAPION BRETHREN. VOLUME II. THE SERAPION BRETHREN. BY ERNST THEODOR WILHELM HOFFMANN Translated from the German BY LIEUT.-COLONEL ALEX. EWING, A.P.D., TRANSLATOR OF J. P. RICHTER'S "FLOWER, FRUIT, AND THORN PIECES," ETC. VOLUME II. LONDON: GEORGE BELL & SONS, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, AND NEW YORK. 1892. LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. CONTENTS. SECTION V. PAGE THE LIFE OF A WELL-KNOWN CHARACTER ALBERTINE'S WOOERS THE UNCANNY GUEST SECTION VI. MADEMOISELLE SCUDERI GAMBLERS' FORTUNE SECTION VII. SIGNOR FORMICA PHENOMENA SECTION VIII. THE MUTUAL INTERDEPENDENCE OF THINGS THE KING'S BETHROTHED THE SERAPION BRETHREN. SECTION V. The ever-fluctuating vicissitudes of human life had once more scattered our little group of friends asunder. Sylvester had gone back to his country home; Ottmar had travelled away on business, and so had Cyprian; Vincent was still in the town, but (after his accustomed fashion) he had disappeared in the turmoil, and was nowhere to be seen; Lothair was nursing Theodore, who had been laid on a bed of sickness by a malady long struggled against, which was destined to keep him there for a considerable time. Indeed, several months had gone by, when Ottmar (whose sudden and unlooked-for departure had been the chief cause of the breaking up of the "Club") came back, to find, in place of the full-fledged "Serapion Brotherhood," one friend, barely convalescent, and bearing the traces of a severe illness in his pale face, abandoned by the Brethren, with the exception of one, who was tasking him severely by constant outbreaks of a grim and capricious "humour."