Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/337



3rd of May, in the afternoon, when almost everything was green in the gardens and in the public park, I took my usual walk out to Grosser Garten.

At the beginning of Bürgerwiese, my eye was attracted by a portrait, which hung in the window of a curio-shop. I rushed across: yes, indeed, it was Stephensen's pastel picture of Minna. But how dreadful it looked now! The pastel powder had fallen away in big patches, especially off the hair, but also on a spot of the forehead and on the cheek; where the one eye ought to have been, the canvas showed light through. It had been put into a worm-eaten, shabby frame in bad rococo style, and under it was written on a scrap of paper: "Unknown master, middle of the eighteenth century."

I stepped into a dark booth, where one could hardly move for old rubbish. The curio-dealer, a tall thin old man, who surely from my German detected the foreigner, and perhaps even suspected something English, mentioned an exorbitant price; it was, he explained, one of those genuine pictures, which now grew more and more scarce, very likely a Mengs. I soon disillusioned him, and bought the picture, certainly for a good deal more than it was worth.

In Grosser Garten, I did not care to walk with a big parcel under my arm, but I needed exercise, and strolled about down the Johannes' street. Of course I had not bought the picture in order to possess it, but only because 329