Imhof stopped again. He stood there, with his legs far apart and his trunk bent forward, and rested on his cane. “My wife!” he said. “What a sound that has! I have a wife. Ah, yes. I give you my word, my dear man, I should have clean forgotten it to-night, if you hadn’t reminded me. It’s not her fault, to be sure. She’s a born Wahnschaffe; that means something! But somehow.... God knows what it is--the damned rush and hurry, I suppose. You’re quite right. She’s not the sort to be neglected or pushed to the wall. She creates her own spaces, and within these”--he described great circles in the air with his cane--“she dwells, cool to her fingertips, tense as a wire of steel. A magnificent character--energetic, but with a strong sense for decorative effects. She’s to be respected, my dear man.”
Weikhardt had no answer ready for this outburst. Its mixture of boasting and irony, cynicism and ecstatic excitement disarmed and wearied him at once. They had reached a side street, which led to the Englischer Garten, and in which stood the painter’s little house. He wanted to say good-night. But Imhof, who seemed still unwilling to be alone, asked: “Are you working at anything?”
Weikhardt hesitated before answering. That was enough to make Imhof accompany him. The sky grew grey with dawn.
“Where the knights repose, and streaming Banners fold at last their gleaming, Towers rise to the way-farers, And the wanderers seek a spring; And the lovely water-bearers Lift a goblet to the dreaming Shadow of the fleeing king.”
Weikhardt, who would not yield to Imhof in a knowledge or love of the poet Stefan George, continued the quotation in a caressing voice:
“With a smile serene he watches, Yet flits on with shyer seeming, For beneath him fades the height, And he fears all mortal touches, And he almost dreads the light.”
They entered the studio. Weikhardt lit the lamp, and let its glow fall upon a picture that was not quite completed. It was a Descent from the Cross.
“Rather old-fashioned, isn’t it?” Weikhardt asked, with a sly smile. He had grown pale.
Imhof looked. He was a connoisseur through and through. No other had his eye. The painters knew it.
The picture, which reminded one of the visionary power as well as of the brushwork of El Greco, was bizarre in composition, intense in movement, and filled with an ecstatic passion. The forms of an old master, through which the painter had expressed himself, were but an appearance. The vision had been flung upon the canvas with a burning splendour. The figures had nothing old-fashioned about them; there was no _cliché_; they were like clouds, and the clouds like architecture. There were no concrete things. There was a chaos, which drew meaning and order only from the concentrated perceptions of the beholder.