"Cheer up, dear Baron. You have only helped to prove his favorite
saying, that to those who love God all things are for the best. His
passion for art really emerged again, rejuvenated and vigorous, from
the lagune where he had expected to bury it. Since he has lived in the
suburbs, where in spite of his new and easier circumstances, he
continues his old modest mode of life and industriously pursues his
engraving, he has, it is true, made no attempt to return to his former
'specialty.' He says that now, when he daily sees the green fields, he
perceives for the first time the full extent of the frivolous boldness,
with which he daubed these wonders of God on his miserable canvass. To
make amends, since what is denied always charms the soul and excites
the fancy, he has how set up a new kind of _genre_ picture; he paints
views of the Spree and the green ditches, bridges, and steps leading to
the water, not without skill, as it seems to me. You may suppose that
he is more successful in reproducing the straight lines and grey tone,
than the succulent weeds and bright sky of his former zaunkoenigs. If
you would come out to his house--he has just finished something--"

"_Col sommo piacere!_ With the greatest pleasure. You take a hundred
pound weight from my heart. But what was I going to say--what were we
talking about just now? My head is growing old, friend, and nothing
makes one more confused and forgetful, than intercourse with silent
pictures."

"You were saying that you had been scolding about me yesterday for two
hours. I am curious--"

"Yes, that was it: your book was the subject of conversation, everybody
is talking about it now, so that I was at last ashamed of not having
read it, though I don't exactly feel compelled to be familiar with all
the new books that are talked about, not even those written by my
friends. But, my dear fellow, what have you done?"

"Nothing very bad, I hope. At the worst only written a bad book."

"Something far worse, my friend--a good book, a book which in all main
points is perfectly right and has the great majority of thinking men on
its side. You laugh. Oh! these young people! You think it is easy to be
in the right in this world. As if there could be any thing more
repulsive, uncomfortable, and contrary to police regulations, than
a person who looks neither to the right nor left, knows neither
caution nor discretion, but calls things by their right names. Such a
fool-hardy man h