The interior of the hall was, when seen by daylight, not altogether unornamented. The inspired hand of some house-painter had covered the wall spaces between the windows with bold landscape conceptions al fresco, where were to be seen, amid fabulous castles, cities, river-gorges, and wooded ravines, blue wanderers strolling about in green hats, and horsemen careering on chargers of very questionable anatomy, followed by dogs that belonged to no known race. In the dazzling blue sky above these outgrowths of a cheery decorator's fantasy, sometimes through a tree-top or the slanting pinnacle of a robber-castle, a society of carpenters' apprentices, which met here once a week, had driven large nails that they might hang up symmetrically their various diplomas, decorated with pictures and mottoes, and dotted with little balls.
But, on the night of which we speak, all this splendor had disappeared behind a thick veil of growing plants. Tall evergreen bushes stood between the windows, and stretched their slender branches to the roof, so that the squalid walls seemed transformed into a tropical garden. A long, narrow table, with green, big-bellied flagons, occupied the middle of the room, and in a corner was a cask, about the polished tap of which hung a wreath of roses, while on a little table near by stood baskets with white rolls and a few plates of fruit.
Only a few dozen chairs surrounded the table, and these were not more than half occupied, when Jansen and Felix entered the room. Through the light haze of lamplight and tobacco-smoke they could discern the pale face of Elfinger beside the battle-painter's blooming countenance; the fez-covered head of Edward Rossel, comfortably reclining in an American rocking-chair and smoking a chibouque; then one and another of the artists who had occasionally shown themselves in Jansen's studio. Nothing like a servant was anywhere to be seen; and each, as soon as he had emptied his glass, went himself to the cask and filled it. Some strolled, chatting, along the green hedge up and down the hall; others sat, absent and expectant, in their places, as though in a theatre before the beginning of the play; and only Fat Rossel, who alone rejoiced in a comfortable seat, seemed to blow clouds of smoke up to the ceiling as if already in a true paradisaic frame of mind.
As Felix approached him, there arose at his side a tall, thin figure in a hunting-blouse, with high riding-boots, and a short French pipe between his lips. Once before, while walking in the street, Felix had caught a hasty glimpse of this singularly-shaped face, with its choleric complexion and its close-cropped hair, its coal-black imperial, and a broad scar across the right temple; its owner had been mounted on a handsome English horse, which had attracted his attention more than the rider. This man managed his lank limbs awkwardly and clumsily, as if he had lost his natural balance the moment that he ceased to feel his horse between his legs. Besides, he had a way of either continually pulling at his goatee, or of twitching the lobe of his right ear. Felix noticed that he wore a little gold ring in his left ear. The right one was disfigured; the earring, that had once been worn there, seemed to have been torn out by force at some time or other.
"I take the liberty of introducing myself," said the lank individual, bowing to Felix with soldierly formality. "My name is Aloys von Schnetz, a first-lieutenant on the retired list; as a friend of the seven liberal arts, I am allowed the honor of entering this Paradise. Inasmuch as amphibious creatures undoubtedly existed even in the garden of God, therefore a being like myself, who occupies a middle place, at once an aristocrat and a proletarian, no longer a soldier, for good reasons, and also not an artist--unfortunately for still better reasons--may be said not to be out of place among good people, of whom each has some pretty definite aims and powers. You, too, as Fat Rossel has just confided to me, belong, to a certain extent, to my class, although I hope and trust that you represent a somewhat more edifying species. Come, take a seat here by my side. There are people who declare that I put them out of humor. I am accused of giving myself great pains to see the world as it is, and to call things by their right names; sensitive natures call that cynicism, and find it unpleasant. But you shall see it is not so bad, and here in Paradise I try to forget, as far as possible, that we pick sour apples from the tree of knowledge. However, I ought, like a true amphibian, to conduct you, after so dry an introduction, into a moist element."
He set his long, Don-Quixote legs in motion toward the cask, filled two bumpers and brought them back to Felix.
"We have become converted to wine," he said, growling it out in a half ironical, half bitter tone; "although, strictly speaking, it is an anachronism, as it is well known that wine was given to mankind as a compensation for a lost Paradise. Beer, on the other hand, is entirely an invention of the darker middle ages, to make men mere idle slaves to the priests, and it has never yet occurred to any one to seek truth anywhere but in wine. So, then, here's to your health, and hoping that you may succeed better than I have in becoming one of these primitive men!"
Felix knocked glasses with his queer new friend, and then proceeded to observe the unknown persons who had in the mean while strolled in. Schnetz gave him their names. Most of them had passed their first youth. Only one boyish face, of a foreign cast, gazed dreamily with big, black eyes into the cloud of smoke that circled up from his cigarette. It was, Schnetz told his neighbor, that of a young Greek painter, twenty-two years old, who was, in spite of his delicate, almost girl-like appearance, a dangerous lady-killer. He was not really intimately acquainted with any of them, and only Rossel's intercession in his favor and his talent, which was by no means slight, had procured him the entrance into this circle.
A little, bent old man, with delicate features and snow-white hair, was the last to enter. He hung his hat and cloak on a nail, and took his seat in the only unoccupied chair at the upper end of the table near Jansen, who gave him a kindly welcome.
Felix was surprised at the presence of an old man amid this rising generation. To be sure, Schnetz, too, was no longer a youth--he might well be over forty. But in every muscle of his sinewy figure throbbed a suppressed energy, while it was evident that the quiet, white-haired old man, who sat at the upper end of the table, had long since left behind him the storms and struggles of life.
"I see that you are puzzling your head about our 'creator,'" said Schnetz, twisting his goatee. "For that matter I don't know much more about his intimate affairs than I do about the personal experiences of the real Deity. That he is an artist, or rather that he was once--of that there can be no doubt. Every word that he utters, when the conversation turns upon art, proves this. He undoubtedly belongs, however, to a geological stratum whose fauna has died out. Nor has any one of us ever seen one of his works, or known how or where or from what he lives. His name is Schöpf; and when, three years ago, while our Paradise was still in its infancy, he was introduced here by Jansen--whom he had visited in his studio, and whose interest he had speedily known how to enlist--we permitted ourselves the cheap joke of twisting Schöpf into Schöpfer,2 and at the same time of appointing him host and chief steward of the Paradise. At that time we still reveled in buffoonery of that sort, each of us bearing some kind of appropriate nickname; and we continued to keep this up until at last the cheap joke was run into the ground. But we had grown to like and respect the old man, who showed himself such a quiet and friendly providence that the first man could hardly have boasted of a better one. He looks after all our business affairs, takes charge of the society's treasury, selects our wine, and keeps an eye on the gardener who decorates our hall. With all this we see him but once a month. During the intervening period he vanishes. When we hold our masked ball, at which the daughters of Eve are also allowed to appear, he makes himself useful until the first stroke of the fiddle is given, and then he creeps off home again."
"It is hardly probable that he can be a native here, if he can play the rôle of a mysterious personage so easily."
"Don't you believe it. Here in Munich there are a large number of such subterranean existences, whose strange ways and dodges escape attention--ay, even common gossip--for the reason that here there is no society, in the true sense of the word. In every other city of equal, or even of greater size, one knows pretty well what his dear fellow-men are about; at least this is the case in regard to the notable ones who rise above the common level--one