stillness and twilight, so gentle, noiseless, that the Futterals could have
fancied it all a trick of Imagination, or some visit from an authentic
Spirit. Only that the green-silk Basket, such as neither Imagination nor
authentic Spirits are wont to carry, still stood visible and tangible on
their little parlor-table. Towards this the astonished couple, now with
lit candle, hastily turned their attention. Lifting the green veil, to see
what invaluable it hid, they descried there, amid down and rich white
wrappages, no Pitt Diamond or Hapsburg Regalia, but, in the softest sleep,
a little red-colored Infant! Beside it, lay a roll of gold Friedrichs, the
exact amount of which was never publicly known; also a _Taufschein_
(baptismal certificate), wherein unfortunately nothing but the Name was
decipherable, other document or indication none whatever.

"To wonder and conjecture was unavailing, then and always thenceforth.
Nowhere in Entepfuhl, on the morrow or next day, did tidings transpire of
any such figure as the Stranger; nor could the Traveller, who had passed
through the neighboring Town in coach-and-four, be connected with this
Apparition, except in the way of gratuitous surmise. Meanwhile, for
Andreas and his wife, the grand practical problem was: What to do with
this little sleeping red-colored Infant? Amid amazements and curiosities,
which had to die away without external satisfying, they resolved, as in
such circumstances charitable prudent people needs must, on nursing it,
though with spoon-meat, into whiteness, and if possible into manhood. The
Heavens smiled on their endeavor: thus has that same mysterious Individual
ever since had a status for himself in this visible Universe, some modicum
of victual and lodging and parade-ground; and now expanded in bulk, faculty
and knowledge of good and evil, he, as HERR DIOGENES TEUFELSDROCKH,
professes or is ready to profess, perhaps not altogether without effect, in
the new University of Weissnichtwo, the new Science of Things in General."