The artist paused a moment. His voice seemed to fail him, but after a moment he continued:
"She has left me a daughter, who in many respects is very like her; in others not at all. She has far more independence, and often we do not understand each other, and that never happened with her mother. The child is nineteen years old, and—I will not praise her—but no one could have a better heart, to say nothing of such a talent for drawing and painting, that I only wonder how she came by it. In many things, flower-pieces for instance, I am a bungler to her. I ought, long ago, to have discountenanced her close application to it, that she might have had more time for other things, I mean for intellectual culture. But it gave her pleasure to think that she could earn something while yet so young, and besides I was vain of her progress. Now, however, the punishment has come. For some time she has been melancholy, because she fancied that she was ignorant, or as she expressed it, that she had no clear ideas. Now to me she seems clever and learned enough, and our old friend, the widow of Professor Valentin, cannot understand what fault she can find in herself, except perhaps, her somewhat singular opinions on religious subjects. But I see that it is secretly destroying her peace of mind, and, as I cannot help her myself, I have had recourse to you, Herr Doctor, and, just because you are no pedantic schoolmaster, I think you will soon discover what is the matter with the dear child."
Meantime they had walked down Friedrichstrasse to the Spree, and now turned the corner to the right. "My house is only a few hundred paces farther," said the artist. "It would be very difficult for me to make up my mind to live in any other part of the city. People are always speaking so contemptuously of our good Spree, and, to be sure, it is by no means the proudest of our German rivers, nor the poorest just here, in the midst of Berlin. But, to an artist's eye—apart from the impression it makes in the open country, and especially in a romantic spot like the Spreewald—can there be anything more charming than this view of the canal, bridges, places of lading, water steps, and the honest old Spree boats, lying so sleepily in the noonday sun, like great fat crocodiles on the banks of the Nile? Look; the sailors have already eaten their dinners; only here and there a thin blue column of smoke, circles upward from some cabin chimney; the husband is lying on deck, under a piece of sail near his cargo of coal, and his wife sits beside him holding the baby in her lap, and brushing away the water-flies. Notice how the brown wood is relieved against the pale surface of the water, and behind it all, the bright sunlight effect. See, too, the white Pomeranian, standing on the cabin stairs barking at the little grey cat in the other boat? Here, in the midst of our elegant capital, you have a fragment of Holland, as complete as you could desire."
"You have been in Holland?"
"No; I have never gone so far. But when one has seen their pictures and the excellent photographs that we have now—but stop a moment if you please, I must show you something else."
They had just passed some high houses and reached a place, where a narrow, ditch-like canal, bridged where the street crossed it, emptied into the Spree. On one side stood the blank wall of a three-story factory. Opposite was a low hut, very narrow in front, but extending along the canal to a considerable depth. It seemed to have formerly opened upon the quay, by a door beside its single window, but the door was now walled up, and the window covered on the inner side by a dark cloth. This decaying little house was connected by means of an iron railing with its massive neighbor.
The artist leaned over the railing and gazed up the canal, whose dirty brown water flowed so sluggishly, that it seemed stagnant and gave forth a mouldering exhalation.
"Of what does this remind you?" he asked, turning to Edwin.
"What do you mean by 'this'?"
"Why, the canal, and yonder little bridge that connects the two banks, the post to which the clothes-line is fastened, and the atmospheric effect and coloring of the stones, which we artists call tone."
"It bears a distant, but by no means flattering resemblance, to Venice and the Bridge of Sighs."
"Right!" cried the little man, who in his earnestness, failed to hear the tinge of sarcasm in Edwin's remark. "True, I have not been in Venice myself. But friends of mine, who have visited Italy, have likewise been compelled to confess that this view was completely Venetian, at least as the city is represented in Canaletto's pictures, which, however, are doubtless somewhat cooler in tone, than the reality. However, we are in Berlin, and it is only a harmless jest when I talk of my lagune."
"Your lagune?"
"Certainly. I live here."
"In this—"
"Yes, in this hut: you need not swallow the word. To be sure it is not a doge's palace, this place where I have lived these twenty years, but I would not exchange it for all the splendor of the old sposo del mare, as the Venetians called their ruler. Besides, it is pleasanter within than its exterior would lead one to expect. The door which is now walled up, was formerly the entrance to a sailor's tavern, a wretched, dirty wine-shop, and behind it were a few miserable rooms, and a hole of a kitchen. Then came the stable and the wood-dealer's shed, whose timber-yard, as you see, adjoins our little house. I had just been married, and with all my treasures of hope and happiness, was but a poor devil, when the host of this inn was arrested by the police for concealing stolen goods and for other bad practices. The lumber merchant would not have another dram-seller on his premises, and the place was not exactly suitable for any one else. So I got it at a very low price, had the door walled up to admit the light into my studio from above, and though it has cost both toil and money to efface the traces of the dirty inn—you shall judge for yourself if we have not at last succeeded."
Taking the lead, he conducted Edwin through a large gate across the spacious timber-yard. A narrow lane led between the huge piles of odorous pine and beech wood, directly to the "hut," whose side view was no more aristocratic than the front.
"These six windows belong to me," said the artist with modest pride. Then he opened the low door and invited Edwin to enter.
The interior of the old barrack, apart from a certain gloom and dampness, really did look more comfortable than one would have thought possible from its exterior. An entry, painted in some light color, was hung with etchings in plain wooden frames. A door, opposite, appeared to open upon the canal.
"Turn to the right, if you please," said the artist, "the apartments on the left are our sitting-room, my daughter's little room, a kitchen, and a bed-chamber. Everything on the right belongs to art—according to my modest style, for I sleep in my studio, and even in my dreams I remain only the zaun-könig, and never fancy myself a Canaletto because I live beside a lagune."
As he concluded he opened the door of his studio.
Certainly the low room no longer showed any trace of having previously sheltered drunken sailors, but to have painted Claude Lorraine atmospheres there on gloomy days would have been a difficult matter. Two windows opened upon the canal and the dark chimney of the next house interposed itself between them and every ray of sunlight. At one of these windows stood a low table, covered with the various tools of a wood-engraver; at the other, a desk-like stand, before which sat a young girl, absorbed in her work. Just in front of her a bouquet of fresh flowers stood in a little vase, and she was evidently employed in copying into the wreath which she was painting on a porcelain plate, leaves and flowers from nature. On the walls hung all sorts of sketches, interspersed with finished pictures which, even at a distance, could not fail to be recognized as "genuine zaun-königs," while on an easel not far from the first window, stood a new half-finished landscape, over which the artist instantly spread a cloth.
"You must not see me too much in négligé," he said blushing. "I usually begin very awkwardly, and make a great many strokes on my little piece of canvas, before any clear outlines appear. But here is my daughter, Leah. She bears her mother's name. What are you going to say, my child? You will be pleased with me, for I have brought you something that you have long been wishing for."
At her father's first words the young girl had arisen, but, on perceiving the stranger she bowed modestly without