Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/173

 being signed by the name of the artist to give it value, and that we possess enough here to make the richest amateurs envious."

The father was right; and it seemed to me that even the canvas of Dominiquin was inferior to the other paintings. One of them was carefully veiled. I asked the reason of this.

"That is," said Aloysius, "the best one that we have; we are indebted for this work to a young artist, who perhaps will never make any others. And without giving me time to insist, he drew me along, as if to avoid any more questions on this subject. We reëntered the college buildings, and the obliging professor proposed to me to go on a visit, that same day, to the country seat of the fathers. We returned from this excursion at a pretty late hour. A storm was gathering, and I had hardly returned to my hotel when the rain commenced like a deluge. Towards midnight the weather cleared up; the stars became visible in the blue sky, and, leaning on the sill of my window, I breathed with delight the emanations of the earth. Little by little, my feelings became so excited, that I could not resist the desire to go out and walk around the place whilst waiting the inclination to sleep. I passed again before the church of the Jesuits: as a feeble light struggled through the windows, I approached nearer; the little side door was not shut; I glided behind a pillar, and from there I perceived a wax taper lighted in front of a niche over which a netting was suspended. In the shadow there was a man busy ascending and descending the steps of a ladder. I recognized Berthold, who was tracing in black on the interior wall of the niche all the lines of shade projected by the netting. A little farther, on a large easel, was the design of an altar. I comprehended immediately the ingenious process which Berthold was making use of. Having to paint in the niche an altar in relief, on a curved, instead of a plane surface, he had applied a net, whose uniform squares cast curved shadows on the concavity of the wall; 15