Page:Tales from the German - Oxenford.djvu/455

 the puny efforts of a senseless child. Whatever he painted was stiff and inanimate, and even Angiola,—Angiola his ideal, became, when she sat to him, and he tried to paint her, a mere wax image on the canvass, staring at him with its glassy eyes. His soul became more and more the prey of a despondency, that consumed all the happiness of his life. He would not, nay, he could not, work any more; and thus he fell into a state of poverty, which was the more crushing, because Angiola did not utter a word of complaint.

"'The grief that gnawed more and more into my soul, that grief that was the offspring of a hope, invariably deceived, when I summoned powers that were no longer mine, soon reduced me to a state that might be compared to madness. My wife bore me a son,—that increased my misery, and my long suppressed discontent broke out into open, burning hate. She—she alone had been the cause of my unhappiness. She was not the ideal which had appeared to me, but had only assumed the form and face of that heavenly woman. In wild despair I cursed her and her innocent child. I wished them both dead, that I might be freed from the insupportable pains that tortured me, like so many burning knives. Thoughts of hell arose in my mind. In vain did I read in Angiola's corpse-like face, and in her tears, the madness and impiety of my conduct. 'Thou hast cheated me out of my life, cursed woman!' I thundered forth, and thrust her away with my foot, when she fell fainting to the ground and clasped my knees.'

"Berthold's mad, cruel conduct towards his wife and child excited the attention of the neighbours, who informed the magistrates of the circumstance. They wished to imprison him; but when the police entered his dwelling, he had vanished with his wife and child, without leaving so much as a trace behind. Soon afterwards he appeared at N——, in Upper Silesia; he had got rid of his wife and child, and cheerfully began to paint the picture which he had vainly attempted at M——. However he could only finish the Virgin Mary, and the children—Christ and John—for he fell into a dreadful illness, which brought him near the death he desired. Every thing that belonged to him, including the unfinished picture, was sold for his subsistence; and, after he had recovered, in some measure, he departed, a sick, miserable beggar. He afterwards gained a poor livelihood by a few jobs of wall-painting."

"There is something terrible in the history of Berthold," said I to the professor. "Although so much is not plainly expressed, I believe that he was the reckless murderer of his innocent wife and child."

"He is a mad fool," replied the professor, "to whom I do not give credit for enough courage to perform such an act. On this point he never speaks plainly; and the question is, whether it be not a mere