t are burned, to be
sure--I was as neat and attractive a young person as thousands of
others. I had plenty of mother wit, you could read in my eyes that I
had a good heart, and, besides, I was by no means poor. Why should I
have lacked suitors? No, my dear, I even had a choice; and although I
do not now understand why I preferred one particular mortal to all
others, I must have known well enough at the time. I dimly remember how
wonderfully happy, joyous, and in love I was! If all had gone on in the
beaten track, I should probably have always been as happy and as much
in love--constancy is my chief fault--even if no longer so joyous. But
this was not to be. My betrothed was drowned while bathing--just think
of it, what an absurd misfortune! I was driven into a brain fever by
the shock and grief; when I got up from it my little _beaute du diable_
had gone to the _diable_. The next few years were spent as a widowed
bride, in tears; and, when these gradually ceased to flow, I was a
plain, prematurely-faded person, with a heart to be sure that had never
yet fairly blossomed out, but about which no one troubled himself
particularly. It was at that time also that we lost our little
property, and I was obliged to take up with some pursuit or other; then
it turned out to be good luck that even as a child at school I had
wasted much time on drawing and painting. Do you believe, dear friend,
that a virtue which one makes in this way out of a necessity--no matter
how deserving it may be--can ever make a mortal thoroughly happy at
heart?"

"Why not, when all kinds of happiness come with it, as has been the
case with you? You visited Italy with that kind old lady about whom you
told me such nice stories the other day; you can work at your art here
in perfect freedom, without anxiety, thanks to the legacy of your
motherly friend; you live in this beautiful city, in the society of
friends and colleagues in art by whom you are respected--is all that
nothing?"

"True, it is a great deal, and yet--I will whisper something in your
ear--let it be entirely between ourselves, and if I did not love you so
unreasonably that you might ask anything of me I would sooner bite off
my tongue than confess it to any living mortal--if I should become, in
the course of time, as celebrated as my namesake (whose pictures, it
must be confessed, always appear to me to be very stupid), or even
should in so far succeed as to become contented with myself as