er voice broke forth.
'No! All this striving, this constant endeavour, is but the uncertain,
deceptive groping of the blind. Away with all that has hitherto
dazzled me.' He was not in a condition to accomplish a single other
stroke. He left his master, and wandered about full of wild
uneasiness, loudly imploring that the high knowledge of which the
Maltese had spoken might be revealed to him.

"'Only in sweet dreams was I happy--yes, truly blessed! Then every
thing that the Maltese had spoken became true. I lay in the green
hedge, while magical exhalations played around me, and the voice of
nature sounded audibly and melodiously through the dark forest.
'Listen, listen, oh! thou initiated one. Hear the original tones of
creation, which fashion themselves to beings accessible to thy mind.'
And when I heard the chords sound plainer and plainer, I felt as though
a new sense was awakened in me, and apprehended with wonderful
perspicuity, that which had appeared unfathomable. As if in strange
hieroglyphics I drew in the air the secrets that had been revealed to
me with characters of fire; and this hieroglyphic writing was a strange
landscape, upon which trees, hedges, flowers, and waters moved, as it
seemed, in loud delightful sounds.'

"But it was only in dreams that poor Berthold felt real happiness, for
his strength was broken, and his mind was more disturbed than it had
been in Rome, when he wished to be an historical painter. If he strode
through the dark wood, an unpleasant sensation of awe came over him; if
he went out and looked into the distant mountains, he felt as though
icy cold claws grasped his heart--his breath was stopped--and he felt
as if he perished from internal anguish. All nature, which used to
smile kindly upon him, became a threatening monster, and her voice,
which used to greet him sweetly in the murmuring of the evening breeze,
in the bubbling of the brook, in the rustling of the leaves, now told
him of nothing but perdition. At last, however, the more these lively
dreams consoled him, the calmer he became; nevertheless, he avoided
being alone in the open air, and hence he associated himself with a
couple of cheerful German painters, and took with them many a trip to
the loveliest spots of Naples.

"One of them, whom we will call Florentin, was at this moment more
intent upon the enjoyment of life, than upon the serious study of his
art, as his portfolio sufficiently testified. Groups