indow, 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--yo