Friedemann Bach [pp. 805-824]

822 Fri~dernann Bac/~.
The old man asked, at length, how ror of madness. They tell me I was
he came by such luck. a long time so."
"I sold my paintings to a lord tra- "No fear of that, old friend. We
velling through the city." are both too near a sure harbor.
"What a pity you could not exhi Come, fill up your glass! Hark to
bit them!" the music and shouting in the streets.
"Those sketches cost me seven Here we sit, like the gods on the
years of more than labor: all I have summit of Olympus, sipping nectar,
thought, lived, suffered; the early and laughing at the fools below us.
dreams of youth; the stern repose Drink as I do. No more? Well,
after the struggle with fate! I sacri- yonder is your bed, and here is mine.
ficed all. I spared not even the glim. Good-night to you."
iflering spark of life; and thought They retired to rest. The storm
when the work was finished the lau- ceased to beat on the windowtanes;
rel would deck my brow in death. but the bell-ringing and music continuAll fancies Wherever I offered my ed throughout the night.
work, I was repulsed. The publishers The bright sunshine of mofl~ing
thought the undertaking too expen flooded the d~amber. The old man
sive. Some advised me to paint arose and went to the window. It
scenes from the Seven Years' War; was a clear, cold morning; the air
others called my sketches wild and was keen, the sky cloudless; the frost
f~~tastic." had wrought delicate tracery on the
Ay, ay!" murmured the old panes.
man. "Lessing, who died three years The old man threw his cloak over
ago, said to me righfly,`All the ar- his shoulders, and stood some time at
tist accomplishes beyond the appre- the window. Then he went to awakciation of the multitude, brings him en his young friend.
neither profit nor honor! The high- He touched the hand that lay outest must grovel with the worm.'" side the bed-covering; it was cold
"As long as I can remember, old and stiff! Poor Theodore had faintfriend, I have had but one passion- ed in the struggle with destiny. Long
for my art. Yet must I degrade art the prey of heart-disease, he had died
to the rabble; must paint apish faces, in the night.
while visions of divine loveliness float The old man stood as if paralyzed,
before me; must feel the genius witli- gazing on the face of his dead friend.
in me comprehended by none; must His last stay was broken!
be driven to despair of myself! With Sitting down by the body, he reall my gifts, I must ask myself, at mained motionless the whole day.
five and twenty, Wherefore have I Late in the afternoon, the woman
lived?" who kept the house came in with a
"Live on; the answer will come." message to Theodore, and found the
"Has it come to you? Had I old man exhausted and shivering with
gained the prize, I might have been the cold. She led him into a warm
like Raphael; you, like some great room, and gave him nourishment.
master of your art. Success was not When Theodore was buried, the
for us; and we are doomed to insigni gold he left was given to the old
ficance." man, with whom he had lived two
Silence!" cried the old man; "that years, supplying the wants of both
leads to madness. I know the hor- by his scanty earnings as a portrait