He set his long, Don-Quixote legs in motion toward the cask, filled two bumpers and brought them back to Felix.
"We have become converted to wine," he said, growling it out in a half ironical, half bitter tone; "although, strictly speaking, it is an anachronism, as it is well known that wine was given to mankind as a compensation for a lost Paradise. Beer, on the other hand, is entirely an invention of the darker middle ages, to make men mere idle slaves to the priests, and it has never yet occurred to any one to seek truth anywhere but in wine. So, then, here's to your health, and hoping that you may succeed better than I have in becoming one of these primitive men!"
Felix knocked glasses with his queer new friend, and then proceeded to observe the unknown persons who had in the mean while strolled in. Schnetz gave him their names. Most of them had passed their first youth. Only one boyish face, of a foreign cast, gazed dreamily with big, black eyes into the cloud of smoke that circled up from his cigarette. It was, Schnetz told his neighbor, that of a young Greek painter, twenty-two years old, who was, in spite of his delicate, almost girl-like appearance, a dangerous lady-killer. He was not really intimately acquainted with any of them, and only Rossel's intercession in his favor and his talent, which was by no means slight, had procured him the entrance into this circle.
A little, bent old man, with delicate features and snow-white hair, was the last to enter. He hung his hat and cloak on a nail, and took his seat in the only unoccupied chair at the upper end of the table near Jansen, who gave him a kindly welcome.
Felix was surprised at the presence of an old man amid this rising generation. To be sure, Schnetz, too, was no longer a youth--he might well be over forty. But in every muscle of his sinewy figure throbbed a suppressed energy, while it was evident that the quiet, white-haired old man, who sat at the upper end of the table, had long since left behind him the storms and struggles of life.
"I see that you are puzzling your head about our 'creator,'" said Schnetz, twisting his goatee. "For that matter I don't know much more about his intimate affairs than I do about the personal experiences of the real Deity. That he is an artist, or rather that he was once--of that there can be no doubt. Every word that he utters, when the conversation turns upon art, proves this. He undoubtedly belongs, however, to a geological stratum whose fauna has died out. Nor has any one of us ever seen one of his works, or known how or where or from what he lives. His name is Schöpf; and when, three years ago, while our Paradise was still in its infancy, he was introduced here by Jansen--whom he had visited in his studio, and whose interest he had speedily known how to enlist--we permitted ourselves the cheap joke of twisting Schöpf into Schöpfer,[2] and at the same time of appointing him host and chief steward of the Paradise. At that time we still reveled in buffoonery of that sort, each of us bearing some kind of appropriate nickname; and we continued to keep this up until at last the cheap joke was run into the ground. But we had grown to like and respect the old man, who showed himself such a quiet and friendly providence that the first man could hardly have boasted of a better one. He looks after all our business affairs, takes charge of the society's treasury, selects our wine, and keeps an eye on the gardener who decorates our hall. With all this we see him but once a month. During the intervening period he vanishes. When we hold our masked ball, at which the _daughters_ of Eve are also allowed to appear, he makes himself useful until the first stroke of the fiddle is given, and then he creeps off home again."