"Dost thou permit me then to marry a Catholic?"
"What right would I have to forbid? So often as I pass the square on which was spilt the blood of my friend, the very stones cry out to me, 'thou hypocrite, in what art thou better than the Caraffas?' The officium of the Calvinists has rendered me lenient towards index and inquisition."
"And wilt thou be equally lenient," asked Lydia timidly, "if I marry Paul?"
Erastus looked at her in amazement: "How? After that he plunged us all in this misery, can'st thou not sever thy heart from him?"
"Ask this flower why it follows the course of the sun," said Lydia, "it cannot do otherwise."
"But how can'st thou prefer the horrible Priest, this pale man broken down in health to the straightforward, happy young Maestro?"
"I know not," said the maiden thoughtfully. "This love has deeper roots than those of reason. In what does it consist? Merely in my love for him, in that I cannot tear myself away from him. Not because he is handsomer or wiser than others am I his, but only because I cannot live away from him, because he is my Sun, without whom I should wither away as does this flower in winter;" and she silently dried the tears which rose to her eyes.
"He has suffered too severely for our sakes," answered Erastus after a few moments of thought, "for me to say nay. It is God's decree, His will be done."
Slowly was the patient of the gable-house moving towards convalescence. His wounds still smarted, and any motion caused him pain, but he bore all his sufferings with the greatest composure, and to his brother's inquiry he answered with a grateful look: "_Sta bene._" Klytia also who continued to nurse him with a certain diffidence, he ever greeted with a look of deep gratitude. In the weak condition in which he now found himself all natural passion, force of character, and love of the artificial seemed to have left him; he was kinder and more simple than he had ever been before; fictitiousness, nonsense and bombast had fallen away from him. The brilliant personality of the Italian savant, which spreads a shimmer of eloquence over the most unimportant theme, and loves to express epigrammatically the most common place subject, had been replaced by a poor suffering man. He was no longer the _primus omnium_ of the college at Venice whose mouth overflowed with wisdom. Rather was there something childlike in his helplessness. He modestly held back, although all interest was centred on him. His gratitude for any attention, his respect for Belier's and Erastus' learning, his unassuming attention caused him to resemble a mere boy. Now only could one perceive how young he really was. When Frau Belier passionately exclaimed at the sight of his wounds he meekly answered: "I wished to do the same to others, who were better than I, noble Lady, and whose sins were less clear of proof than mine." He took part in conversation only when directly questioned, but listened eagerly when Erastus or Belier discussed Church matters, or when Felix and the mistress of the house violently argued about nothing, whilst Lydia quietly glided through the room like a sunbeam and by her noiseless activity gave to the whole a tone of beauty and individual coloring. When Paul at last supported by Erastus and his brother was led to an armchair and thus enabled to join for hours the family circle, they all expected that his former originality and mental superiority would show itself once again. But he remained silent, gentle and as if apparently inwardly crushed. This resignation on the part of his brother finally appeared serious to Felix. It was something so utterly opposed to the fiery disposition of the young artist that he said to himself: "His limbs will be cured, of that Erastus is certain, but his nature is broken, like those of the few victims of the inquisition I saw in Rome, who were suffered to return to public life."