duty to draw a curtain
between my lord and sorrow; instead of that, my own person brings
incarnate suffering before his eyes. The elector was as wise as if he
were his own fool, when he turned me out of the house."

"He graciously gave you leave of absence."

"And Gugelkopf is already installed in the palace as my successor! My
gracious master knows that he won't have to pay the pension long. He
would willingly have supported me up yonder till I died; but my wish to
go to Genoa suited him exactly. The more distance there is between his
healthy highness and the miserable invalid, the better."

"Why didn't you wait till spring, before taking your departure?"

"Because Genoa is a hot-house, that the poor consumptive does not need in
summer. It is pleasant to be there in winter. I learned that three years
ago, when we visited the duke. Even in January the sun in Liguria warms
your back, and makes it easier to breathe. I'm going by way of
Marseilles. Will you give me the corner in your carriage as far as
Avignon?"

"With pleasure! Your health, Pellicanus! A good wish on Christmas day is
apt to be fulfilled."

The artist's deep voice sounded full and cordial, as he uttered the
words. The young soldier heard them, and as Moor and the jester touched
glasses, he raised his own goblet, drained it to the dregs, and asked
modestly: "Will you listen to a few lines of mine, kind sir?"

"Say them, say them!" cried the artist, filling his glass again, while
the lansquenet, approaching the table, fixed his eyes steadily on the
beaker, and in an embarrassed manner, repeated:

"On Christmas-day, when Jesus Christ,
To save us sinners came,
A poor, sore-wounded soldier dared
To call upon his name.
'Oh! hear,' he said, 'my earnest prayer,
For the kind, generous man,
Who gave the wounded soldier aid,
And bore him through the land.
So, in Thy shining chariot,
I pray, dear Jesus mine,
Thou'lt bear him through a happy life
To Paradise divine.'"

"Capital, capital!" cried the artist, pledging the lansquenet and
insisting that he should sit down between him and the jester.

Pellicanus now gazed thoughtfully into vacancy, for what the wounded man
could do, he too might surely accomplish. It was not only ambition, and
the habit of answering every good saying he heard with a better one, but
kindly feeling, that urged him to honor the genero