Schnetz filled his glass for him, which he drained at one draught as if he were exhausted by his long oration. A painful silence had ensued; the depreciatory tone in which the words had been spoken had depressed even those who were of Rossel's way of thinking. At length a mild and somewhat husky voice was heard proceeding from the upper end of the table, and they saw that old Schöpf had taken upon himself to defend the cause of the party attacked.
"You are undoubtedly right in the main, Herr Rossel," said he. "In the great epochs of art--among the Greeks, and the Italians of the cinque-cento--mind and Nature were inseparably united. But, unfortunately, they have quarreled since then, and it is quite as rare to find a painter of the so-called fleshly school who knows how to give soul to his form as it is to find a poet among draughtsmen who succeeds perfectly in incorporating his conceptions. In fact it is a period of extremes, of specialties, and of strife. But is not strife the father of things? Shall we not hope that from this chaos a new and beautiful world will crystallize? And, until then, should we not give every one a chance who fights with honest weapons and open visor? What if there are artists who have more to say than can be shown? Who cannot look upon their inner life in such a spirit of tranquil beauty, but see in it a tragedy which must work itself out in discords? And, indeed, the life of man, as it is to-day, has passed out of the idyllic stage; on every side we see intellect leading the van, and enjoyment and pleasure limping after. An art that shows no traces of this, would that still be our art?"
"Let it be whatever it liked," cried Fat Rossel, leisurely rising; "it would be my art at all events. But, naturally, that need matter little to you. And by the way--I have not once shaken hands with you this evening, my lord and creator. I do so now, and at the same time I thank you for so bravely dragging my excellent godfather Kohle from out the fray. He himself likes to keep his best thoughts in his own breast, unless he has a chance to sketch them on a sheet of paper. And here in Paradise no one ought to fall upon his fellow-man in the murderous fashion that I just did. Kohle, I esteem you. You are a character, and have the courage of your convictions, in defiance of all the lusts of the flesh. I thank you, especially, for that poem of Hölderlin's, that I confess I did not know, and that is very fine; how does it go? … "
He seated himself with the greatest good-nature by the side of his "godfather," and began to go thoroughly over the sketch, and to make a number of keen criticisms of its details. In the mean time the young Greek had placed in position a large sketch in colors, dashed off in bold, strong lines; and now this took its turn of criticism.
It had for its subject, as the artist explained in broken German, in a soft, musical voice, a scene from Goethe's "Bride of Corinth." The youth had sunk back upon his couch, and his ghostly bride had thrown herself vampire-like upon him, "eagerly drinking in the flame of his lips," while the mother, standing outside the door, seemed to be listening to the suppressed voices, just ready to burst in and disturb the pair.
Over this work also criticism held its breath for a time, though for a very different reason. The whole picture breathed such a stifling spirit of sultry passion that even the members of the Paradise Club, who most certainly were not prudish, seem to feel that the bounds of what was permissible had been overstepped.
Once more Rosenbusch was the first to speak.
"There he sits over yonder in the realm of pure spirit," he cried to Fat Rossel, who was still studying Kohle's work, "while we here are dealing with pure flesh. Holla! You man of the silhouette and the beautiful decorative form, come over here and exorcise this demon!"
Edward nodded without looking round; he seemed to know the work already, and to have no desire to express himself concerning it.
As none of the others uttered a single word, the artist finally appealed directly to Jansen, and begged for his judgment.
"Hm!" growled the sculptor, "the work is full of talent. Only you have christened it wrongly--or have forgotten the two veils."
"Christened it wrongly?"
"In the name of Goethe; Saint Priapus stood godfather to it."
"But--the two veils!" stammered the youth, who had cast down his eyes.
"Beauty and horror. Only read the poem. You will see how artistically everything immodest in it is veiled by these two. And yet--a decidedly talented work. It will find admirers fast enough."
He turned away and went quietly back to his seat. At the same instant the young man tore the picture from the wall, and, without saying a word, held the gilt frame in which it was enclosed over the nearest lamp.
Perhaps he had expected that some one would seize him by the arm; but no one stirred. The flame seized eagerly upon the canvas. When a part was consumed, the young man swung himself upon the window-sill and hurled the burning picture through the upper part of the window, which was open, into the dark garden below, where it fell hissing on the damp gravel.
Upon springing down again he was greeted with general applause, which he received with a gloomy brow and compressed lips. His hasty act had evidently given him no inward relief. Nor could even Jansen's kind greeting succeed immediately in banishing his sinister mood. It was his innermost nature that he had consigned to this fiery death.
Felix, upon whom this curious incident had made a deep impression, was just on the point of going up to the youth, whom he saw standing apart from the others and enveloping himself in a dense cloud of tobacco smoke, when a clock in one of the church steeples near by announced, with its twelve slow strokes, that the hour of midnight had arrived.
On the instant all conversation was hushed, the chairs were drawn up in line; and it then occurred to Felix, for the first time, that Elfinger, whose "turn" it was this evening, had left the hall some little time before, in company with Rosenbusch.
The folding-doors that led into the central hall flew open, and disclosed on the threshold, illuminated by lamps at the sides, and standing on a framework draped in red, a puppet-theatre that occupied almost the entire width of the space. The table was quickly pushed to one side, and the chairs for the spectators were arranged in rows. After everybody had taken his place, a short prelude was played upon a flute behind the scenes; and then the curtain in front of the little stage rose, and a puppet in a dress-coat and black knee-breeches, carrying his hat in his hand--with the air of a director who has an official communication to make, or of a dramatic poet who has held himself in readiness behind the wings, to respond in case he should possibly be called before the footlights--delivered a rhymed prologue. In this he greeted the associates, and, after lamenting in half-satirical, half-serious stanzas, the decline of art and of the love of the beautiful, introduced his troop of players, of whom he especially boasted that no modern strifes or heartburnings ever invaded their temple, or kept them from a pure and lofty devotion to the Muses. His speech concluded, the little man made a dignified obeisance, and the curtain fell, to be again drawn up after a few moments, upon the little drama that had been prepared for the amusement of the company.
It bore the title of "The Wicked Brothers," and was in reality but the introduction to a longer play, designed to be produced upon some future evening. In rhyming verses it set forth the history of a musician, an artist, and a poet--three brothers who had been left at the foundling-asylum of a little village, and had grown up to become the curse of the region with their pranks; a very demon of evil-doing appearing to possess them, and their parentage remaining an impenetrable mystery to