She shook her head earnestly. "No, no, no!" she said. "No self-imposed banishments! It is a good thing I have my thirty-one years behind me. Else this youthful enthusiast might succeed in the end in carrying me off with him, and we should make a great mistake that would soon make both him and me very unhappy. The land across the ocean is no place for you, my beloved master. You have never cared to take part in the modern, sentimental nonsense in our Old World; what sort of a figure would you cut in the midst of all the humbug of the New? And as for your giving up your art, and living only for your wife and child--how long do you suppose you could bear that? How long would it take for the woman for whose sake you had done this to become a burden to you? And even if you could rest content with such a life, do you think I would be satisfied with it? True, I have confessed that I love this man--this violent, wicked, good, precious Hans Jansen--but I want to see him as great, as famous, as proud, and as happy as it is possible for any one to be in this wretched world; to love in him not only the husband and father, but also the great master, who compels the whole world to join with me in love and admiration. Oblige me, my dearest friend, by throwing that correspondence there into the stove, and promise me not to write any more. In return I promise you that I will ponder day and night upon the best way for us to free ourselves. And if our year of probation should pass away without our having succeeded before God and man--here is my hand upon it! I will be yours--if not in the eyes of men, certainly in the sight of God; and I believe I am old enough to know what an honorable woman ought to do and to answer for."
Our other friends, too, had lost in the autumn mists more and more of that sunny, paradisiacal frame of mind which they enjoyed when we first knew them.
Rosenbusch went daily to his studio; but he did little there except to feed his mice, and to take his flute out of its case, oil and clean it, without making any attempt to call forth a sound. He would stand for an hour before the "Battle of Lützen," which was now completed, and heave sighs that sounded anything but triumphant. He had long since prepared a new canvas, on which he was intending to paint the entry of Gustavus Adolphus into Munich, a theme which he hoped would interest even the "Art Association." But not a stroke of the brush had he done as yet. To tell the truth, the temperature in his studio was well calculated to scare away the muses, and to freeze up the sweet tones of his flute. Even the mice, who were more accustomed to it, squealed uncomfortably in their little wire cage; while their friend and master, wrapping the mediæval horse-blanket about his painter's jacket, strode thoughtfully up and down, casting a look of displeasure at the cold stove every time he passed it, as if he despised it as a friend who only remained faithful as long as it was kept warm itself. The money he had last received, for illustrating a book of soldiers' songs, had long since been spent. It is true, a dealer in antiquities had made him a very considerable offer for an old casket with a skillfully-ornamented silver cover, which was said to have originally belonged to no less a person than General Illo. But he could not make up his mind to barter this valuable old relic for vulgar fire-wood. He was too proud to borrow of Elfinger, who had hard work to live himself; or to reveal the state of his circumstances to the other inmates of the house. If any one chanced to come across him wandering about alone in his strange disguise, he declared, with a beaming face, that he was too full-blooded to bear the heat of a stove. Besides, he was in one of his poetical moods, and was brooding over an epic poem which was to treat of the astonishing and pitiful love-adventure of the Swedish commander with Gustel von Blasewitz. And composing a poem was a very heating occupation, unless the "shade of a laurel-wreath" was there to cool the forehead on which stood the anxious sweat of the muses.