Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/63

Rh said to him, softly, with a happy smile on his face—"What do you think of this picture?"

"Oh! thou art a superior man; thou art a great artist," answered Frederick, embracing Reinhold. "Now all is clear to me; thou hast well deserved the prize that I had the madness to envy thee. And yet, dear friend, I also had a fine artist's project. I had dreamed that it would be nice to cast a silver statuette in the divine likeness of Rosa; but I feel that it was the dream of foolish pride. It is thou alone who art happy; thou alone who hast created the masterpiece. Look, how her smile is animated with heavenly life! and what an angelic glance! Ah! we have both wrestled for the same victory; but to thee, Reinhold—to thee, the triumph and the love! For me, to quit this house, this country! I feel that I can never see Rosa again; it would be beyond my strength. Pardon me, dear friend—pardon me, for this very day I am going to re-commence my sad pilgrimage through the world, and I shall carry nothing away with me except my love and my misery!"

With these words Frederick was about to depart, when Reinhold stopped him. "Thou shalt not leave us," said he, with affectionate entreaty; "for all may turn otherwise than thou thinkest here, and I will no longer hide from thee the secret of my life. Thou hast already seen that I was not born to follow the trade of a cooper, and the sight of this picture may prove to thee that I am not in the last rank among painters. In my tenderest youth, I travelled through Italy to study the masterpieces of the great masters. My talents, developed by a natural inclination, made rapid progress. Soon fortune came to me, as well as glory; and the duke of Florence called me to his court. I was ignorant at that time of all that German art has produced, and I spoke, without knowledge of the cause, of the defects, of the coldness, of the dryness of your Dürer and your Cranach, when one day a picture seller showed me a little canvass of old Albert. It was a portrait of the Virgin, the sublime and the finished