Part 59

“Friend stranger,” he began, in a solemn, indistinct voice, “thou speakest profanely, when thou endeavourest to arrange the different branches of art according to rank, like the vassals of some proud king. And still more profane is it, when thou only esteemest those presumptuous fools who, being deaf to the clang of the fetters that enslave them, and being without feeling for the pressure of the earthy, wish to think themselves free--yea, even to be gods--and to rule light and life after their own fashion. Dost thou know the fable of Prometheus, who wished to be a creator, and stole fire from heaven to animate his lifeless figures? He succeeded; the forms stalked living along, and from their eyes beamed forth that heavenly fire that burned within them; but the impious being, who had dared to attempt the divine, was condemned to fearful, endless torment, without redemption. The heart which had felt the divine, in which the desire after the unearthly had awakened, was torn by the vulture, to which revenge had given birth, and which now fed upon the vitals of the presumptuous one. He who has attempted the heavenly, feels earthly pain for ever.”

The painter stood absorbed in his own reflections.

“Berthold,” I exclaimed, “what has all this to do with your art? I do not think that any one can deem it presumption to present the human form, either by painting or sculpture.”

“Um, ha,” laughed Berthold, in wild derision; “child’s play is no presumption. It is all child’s play with those folks, who comfortably dip their pencils into colour-pots, and daub a canvass with the veritable desire of producing human beings; but it always turns out as if some drudge of nature had undertaken to make men, as it stands in that tragedy, and had failed. Such as those are no presumptuous sinners, but poor innocent fools. But if one strives to attain the highest, not the mere sensual, like Titian--no, the highest in divine nature, the Promethean spark in man--that is a precipice--a narrow edge on which we stand--the abyss is open! The bold sailor soars above him, and a devilish deceit lets him perceive _that_ below, which he wished to see above the stars.” The painter uttered a deep sigh, passed his hand over his forehead, and then looked upwards. “But why do I talk all this mad stuff to you, comrade, and leave off painting? Look here, mate, this is what I call well and honestly drawn. How noble is the rule! All the lines combine to a determined end--a determined, clearly conceived effect. Only that which is done by measure is purely human;--what is beyond, is of evil. Can we not conceive that the Deity has expressly created us, to manage for his own good purpose that which is exhibited according to measured, appreciable rules;--in a word, the purely commeasurable, just as we, in our turn build saw-mills and spinning-machines, as the mechanical superintendents of our wants? Professor Walter lately maintained, that certain beasts were merely created to be eaten by others, and that this in the end, conduced to our own utility. Thus, for example, cats, he said, had an innate propensity to devour mice, that they might not nibble the sugar placed ready for our breakfast. And the professor was right in the end;--animals, and we ourselves are but well-ordered machines, made to work up and knead certain materials for the table of the unknown king.--Come, come, mate, hand me up the pots. I prepared all the tones yesterday by daylight, that this candlelight might not deceive us, and they all stand numbered in yonder corner. Hand me up No. 1, young friend. Gray with gray!--What would dry, weary life be, if the Lord of Heaven had not put so many motley playthings into our hands. He who demeans himself well does not, like the curious boy, try to break the box from which the music comes when he turns the handle. It is just natural, they say, that it sounds inside, for I turn the handle. Because I have drawn this intellective correctly according to the point of view, I know that it will have the effect of actual sculpture on the spectator.--Now, boy, reach me No. 2, now I paint in colours that are toned down according to rule, and it appears receding five yards. All that I know well enough--oh, we are amazingly clever! How is it that objects diminish in the distance? This one stupid question of a Chinese could put to confusion Professor Eytelwein himself; but he could help himself out with the music-box, and say he had often turned the handle, and always experienced the same result.--Violet, No. 2, youngster! Another rule, and a thick washed-out brush! Ah, what is all our striving and struggling after the higher, but the helpless, unconscious act of an infant who hurts the nurse that feeds him. Violet, No. 2! Quick, young man! The ideal is an evil, lying dream, produced by fermented blood. Take away the pot, young man, I am coming down. The devil lures us with puppets, to which he glues angel’s wings.”

I am unable to repeat literally, what Berthold said, while he went on painting rapidly, and treated me only as his fag. He went on in the tone in which he had begun, scoffing at the limited nature of every human effort. Ah, I was inspecting the depth of a mind that had received its death-wound, and that only uttered its complaints in bitter irony. Morning dawned, and the glimmer of the taper grew pale before the entrance of sunlight. Berthold painted on zealously, but he became more and more silent, and only single sounds--ultimately, only sighs--escaped his burdened breast. He had planned the entire altar with all its gradation of colour, and even now the picture stood out quite prominently.

“Admirable! admirable!” I cried out with delight.

“Do you think,” said Berthold, faintly, “that I shall make something of it? I at least took great pains to make my drawing correct, but now I can do no more.”

“No, no, not a stroke more, dear Berthold,” I exclaimed, “it is almost incredible how you have made so much progress in such a work within a few hours. But you exert yourself too much, and are quite lavish of your power.”

“And yet,” said Berthold, “these are my happiest hours. Perhaps I talked too much, but it is only in words that the pain which consumes my vitals finds a vent.”

“You seem to feel very unhappy, my poor friend,” said I, “some frightful event has had an evil influence on your life.”

The painter slowly took his materials into the chapel, extinguished the lights, and coming up to me, seized my hand, and said, in a faltering voice, “Could you be cheerful, nay, could you have one quiet moment, if you were conscious of a fearful, irreparable crime?”

I stood perfectly amazed. The bright sunbeams fell on the painter’s pallid, agitated countenance, and he almost looked like a spectre as he staggered through the little door into the interior of the college.

I could scarcely wait for the hour on the following day, when Professor Walter had appointed to see me. I told him the whole affair of the previous night, which had excited me not a little; I described in the most lively colours the strange conduct of the painter, and did not suppress a word that he had uttered--not even those, which related to himself. But the more I hoped for the professor’s sympathy, the more indifferent he appeared; nay, he smiled upon me in a most unpleasant manner when I continued to talk of Berthold, and pressed him to tell me all he knew about this unfortunate man.

“He is a strange creature that painter,” said the professor, “mild, good-tempered, sober, industrious, as I told you before, but weak in his intellect. If he had been otherwise he would never have descended, even though he did commit a crime, from a great historical painter, to a poor dauber of walls.”

This expression, “dauber of walls,” annoyed me as much as the professor’s general indifference. I tried to convince him that Berthold was even now a most estimable artist, and deserving of the highest, the most active sympathy.

“Well,” said the professor at last, “since you take so much interest in Berthold you shall hear all that I know of him, and that is not a little. By way of introduction we will go into the church at once. As Berthold has worked hard throughout the night he will rest during the forenoon. If we found him in the church my design would fail.”

We went to the church, the professor had the cloth removed from the covered picture, and a work of the most magical splendour, such as I had never seen, was revealed to me. The composition was in the style of Raffaelle, simple and of heavenly sublimity. Mary and Elizabeth were sitting on the grass in a beautiful garden; the children, Jesus and John, were before them, playing with flowers, and in the background towards the side, a male figure was praying. Mary’s lovely, heavenly face, the dignity and elevation of her entire figure, filled me with astonishment and the deepest admiration. She was beautiful, more beautiful than an earthly woman, and her glance indicated the higher power of the mother of God, like that of Raffaelle’s Mary in the Dresden Gallery. Ah! was not the deepest thirst for eternity awakened perforce in the human heart, by those wondrous eyes round which a deep shadow was floating? Did not those soft, half-opened lips speak in consolatory language, as in the sweet melody of angels, of the infinite happiness of heaven? An indescribable feeling impelled me to cast myself down in the dust before her, the Queen of Heaven. I had lost the power of speech, and could not turn my eyes from the incomparable figure. Only Mary and the children were quite finished; the last touch had not, apparently, been given to the figure of Elizabeth, and the praying man was not yet painted over. Approaching nearer, I perceived in this man the features of Berthold, and already anticipated in my mind what the professor presently said: “This picture is Berthold’s last work. We got it several years ago from N----, in Upper Silesia, where one of our colleagues bought it at an auction. Although unfinished, we had it fitted in here, in the place of the wretched altar-piece which we had formerly. When Berthold first came and saw the picture, he uttered a loud shriek and fell senseless to the ground. Afterwards he carefully avoided looking at it, and told me in confidence that it was his last work of this class. I hoped that I should gradually persuade him to finish it, but every proposal of the sort he rejected with the utmost abhorrence, and to keep him in good spirits, and in the full possession of his powers, I was forced to cover up the picture so long as he remained in the church. If it met his eye only by accident, he ran as if impelled by some irresistible power, cast himself sobbing on the ground, a paroxysm seized him, and he was for many days quite unfit for work.”

“Poor unfortunate man!” exclaimed I, “how did the hand of the devil take such a deadly hold of thy life?”

“Oh!” cried the professor, “the hand as well as the arm grew in his own body: he was his own demon, his own Lucifer, flashing the infernal torch upon his own life. That is plain enough to those who know his biography.”

I entreated the professor at once to tell me all that he knew about the life of the unfortunate painter.

“That would be much too prolix, and cost too much breath,” replied the professor. “Do not let us spoil the cheerful day by such gloomy stuff. We will take breakfast and then go to the mill, where an excellent dinner awaits us.”

I did not desist from my requests to the professor, and after much talk on both sides, it came out that, immediately after Berthold’s arrival, a youth who was studying at the college, devotedly attached himself to him, and that Berthold, by degrees, communicated the particulars of his life to this youth, who had carefully written them down, and had given the manuscript to the professor.

“He was,” said the professor, “much such an enthusiast as--pardon me--you are! But this work of writing down the strange events in the painter’s life served him as a capital exercise for style.”

With much trouble I obtained from the professor a promise that he would lend me the manuscript after the close of our pleasure-party. Whether it proceeded from my own violent curiosity, or whether it was the professor’s fault, I never felt more uneasy than during this day. The icy coldness of the professor when speaking of Berthold had been repulsive to me, but his conversation with his colleagues who

## participated in the repast, convinced me, that in spite of all his

learning, and all his knowledge of the world, he had no sense for the sublime, and was as gross a materialist as possible. The system of consuming and being consumed, as Berthold called it, he had actually adopted. All mental endeavours, all the powers of creation and invention, he deduced from certain states of the stomach and the entrails, uttering on this subject all sorts of monstrous conceits. Thus, for instance, he very seriously maintained that every thought proceeded from the marriage of two fibres in the human brain. I perceived how the professor, with all this absurd stuff, must torment poor Berthold, who, in the irony of despair, attacked the notion of any favourable influence from a higher region, and how he must plunge pointed daggers into wounds still fresh and bleeding. The evening at last came, and the professor put a few sheets of manuscript into my hand, with the words: “There, my dear enthusiast, is the student’s handy work. It is not badly written but very odd, and the author, against all rule, thrusts in discourses of the painter, word for word, without any notice to the reader. I will make you a present of the work, of which I have a right to dispose by virtue of my office, for I know perfectly well that you are no writer. The author of the “Fantasie-Stücke in Callot’s Manier,”[1] (fancy pieces in the style of Callot) would have cut it according to his own mad fashion, and would have printed it at once. I have nothing of the sort to expect from you.”

Professor Aloysius Walter did not know that he really stood before the “travelling enthusiast,” although he might have found it out, and thus, gentle reader, I am enabled to give you the Jesuit-student’s short history of the painter, Berthold. It thoroughly explains the manner in which he conducted himself in my presence, and thou, reader, wilt be able to see how the strange spirit of destiny often plunges us into destructive error.

* * * * *

“‘Only let your son make up his mind and go to Italy. He is already a clever artist, and here at D---- there is no lack of opportunity for studying after excellent originals in every class, but here he must not stay. The free life of an artist must dawn upon him in the cheerful land of art, his studies will there first take a living form, and produce individual thoughts. Mere copying is now of no further use to him. The growing plant requires more sun to thrive and bring forth its blossoms and fruit. Your son has a really artistical temperament, so you may be perfectly satisfied about all the rest!’ Thus said the old painter, Stephan Birkner, to Berthold’s parents. The latter scraped together all that their slender means would allow to fit out the youth for his long journey, and thus was Berthold’s warmest wish--that of travelling to Italy--accomplished.

“‘When Birkner told me the decision of my parents, I literally jumped for joy. I wandered about as in a dream till the time of my departure. I was not able to make a single stroke with my pencil in the gallery. I made the inspector, and all the artists who had been to Italy, tell me of the land where art flourishes. The day and hour at length arrived. The parting from my parents was painful, as they felt a gloomy presentiment that they should not see me again. Even my father, generally a firm, resolute man, had difficulty in containing his feelings. ‘Italy! you will see Italy!’ cried my brother artists, and then my wish shone forth with greater power, from my deep melancholy, and I stepped boldly forth, for the path of an artist seemed to begin even at my parents’ door.’

“Berthold had studied every department of painting, but he had especially devoted himself to landscapes, at which he worked with ardent love and zeal. In Rome he expected to find abundant nurture for this branch of art, but it proved otherwise. The very circle of artists and _dilettanti_ in which he moved, continually told him that the historical painter alone stood on the highest point, and that all the rest were but subordinate. He was advised, if he wished to become an artist of eminence, to abandon at once the department he had chosen, and to devote himself to the higher branch; and this advice, coupled with the novel impression which Raffaelle’s mighty frescoes in the Vatican had made upon him, determined him to give up landscape painting altogether. He sketched after the Raffaelles, and he copied small oil paintings by other celebrated masters. All these things were very cleverly done by his practised hand; but he plainly felt that the praise of the artists and _dilettanti_ should only solace him, and encourage him to further efforts. He himself saw that his sketches and copies wanted all the fire of the originals. Raffaelle’s and Correggio’s heavenly thoughts--so he thought--inspired him to creations of his own, but he wished to hold them fast in his fancy, they vanished as in a mist, and all that he sketched was like every obscure, confused thought, without motion and significance. During his vain endeavours deep melancholy took possession of his soul, and he often escaped from his friends, privately to sketch and paint in the vicinity of Rome, groups of trees--single pieces of landscape. But even these attempts were less successful than formerly; and, for the first time in his life, he doubted the truth of his calling as an artist. His proudest hopes seemed on the point of vanishing. ‘Ah, my revered friend and instructor,’ wrote Berthold to Birkner, ‘you gave me credit for great things; but here, when a light should have risen in my soul, I have learned that that which you termed real artistical genius was nothing but a sort of _talent_--mere dexterity of hand. Tell my parents that I shall soon return, and learn some trade that I may get my living,’ &c. Birkner wrote back: ‘Oh! would I could be with you, my son, to support you in your depression. It is your very doubts that prove your calling as an artist. He who with steady immoveable confidence in his powers believes that he will always progress, is a blind fool, who only deceives himself, for he wants the proper spur to endeavour, which only consists in the thought of deficiency. Persevere and you will soon gain strength; and then, no longer fettered by the opinion or the advice of friends, who are, perhaps, unable to appreciate you, you will quietly pursue the path which your own nature has designed for you. It will then be left to your own decision whether you become a painter of landscapes or historical pieces, and you will cease to think of a hostile separation of the branches of one trunk.’