Hoffmann's Strange Stories/Chapter 5
BERTHOLD, THE MADMAN.
At the end of a long journey, jolted in an old coach, in which the worms found nothing more to eat, I arrived before the only inn of the borough of G. This little locality was not without its charms, and I should have been pleased to make some stay there, had it not been for the annoyance forced upon me by a detention hurtful to my interests; for the unfortunate coach in question was so dilapidated that the curious people in G, standing at their doors, cried in my ears, in an almost unanimous voice, that two or three days would hardly suffice to put my paltry equipage in a state to proceed. Do you understand, friend reader, the pleasure of a traveller stuck in the mud? As for myself, I was on that day in a terrible humor, when I recollected suddenly, by chance, of a certain person, concerning whom one of my friends had spoken to me some years before. This person was called Aloysius Walter; he was an educated man, of excellent reputation, professor of humanities in the Jesuit College at G. I thought that to kill time, I could not do better than to pay a visit to the professor; but at the door of the college I learned that he was busy with his class in philosophy; it was necessary to come back at another time, or wait in the stranger's parlor. I waited. The gallery, in whose architecture I observed a mixed style of Roman and the reformed, did not offer to the eye the severe harmony of religious constructions. Portraits of the dignitaries of the Jesuit society, clothed in their black robes, contrasted singularly with the Greek ornaments of the pillars and ceiling, where the decorator's had figured little flying angels, surrounded by garlands of flowers and baskets of fruit. When master Aloysius presented himself to me, I excused the indiscretion of my visit on account of the intimacy of my friend, whose name the Rev. father gladly welcomed. This Jesuit was an elegant talker, a priest without austere manners, and who must have
seen wordly life more than once through the window of his convent. He conducted me into his cell, a coquettishly furnished room, which would not have been discreditable to one of our modern elegants, and as he guessed my surprise at the sight of these little elegances of agreeable existence, the taste for which had been able to slip into a place destined for the accomplishment of such grave duties, he hastened to take up the conversation.
"Sir," said he with a polished smile, "we have, as you see, banished from our houses the shadowy poetry of the Gothic style. The Gothic applied to a religious edifice, saddens the soul with mysterious terrors, instead of raising it to hope; God, who has made nature so beautiful and rich to the eye of man, wishes us to come to him by paths of love, instead of bowing himself under the arid vaults of these forests of stone and iron which represent the cathedrals of the north.
If the true country of man is in heaven, and God has strewn the sky with marvels of his power, why should it not be permitted us to enjoy, whilst passing along, the flowers which spring here and there in the paths of our valley of exile? As for the rest, do not imagine that this apparent richness of our houses can make us deserve an accusation of luxury and prodigality. Marble, in this country, would be enormously expensive; thus we have known how to content ourselves with clothing in stucco our humble stone walls, and it is the brush of the painter which often creates those varied marblings with which ignorant Puritanism becomes offended."
Whilst talking thus, father Aloysius had conducted me to the chapel, whose nave was supported by a magnificent colonade of the Corinthian order. On the left of the great altar arose a vast scaffolding, on which a painter was busy repairing frescoes painted in the old French style.
"Well, master Berthold," said Aloysius, "how goes on the work?"
The painter hardly turned to look at us, and recommenced his labor, murmuring, so as to be heard with difficulty.
"Bad work! confused lines—a mixed mass of figures of men, animals, monkeys, demons! Miserable madman that I am!"
The plaintive accent with which the painter dropped these words made my heart ache: I saw before me, doubtlessly, a poor unknown artist, whose talent was made use of for a bit of bread which hardly sufficed to keep him from want. This man carried in his features the marks of forty years of age; and in spite of the dilapidation visible in his costume, there was in the whole of his appearance a singular nobility of expression, which neither age nor grief had been able to destroy. I asked, concerning him, some questions of my guide.
"He is," answered Aloysius, "a strange painter who came to us at the time when we were thinking of repairing our church. This circumstance was for him, as well as ourselves, very fortunate, for the poor devil was destitute of everything, and we would have found with difficulty, and even then at great expense, a man so capable as he is, to undertake and perform successfully so difficult a piece of work. On this account we pay him particular attention; besides his pay, he sits at table with the superiors. This is a favor which he does not abuse. I have never seen so sober a man; he is nearly an anchorite. But come with me and look at some valuable paintings with which we have ornamented the lower side of the nave. With the exception of the painting of Dominiquin, these are masterpieces of unknown painters of the Italian school; but you will agree, I am sure, that a work has not always need of 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; and, by this means, the altar drawn in perspective, offered itself to the eye in relief. During this labor, which absorbed all his faculties, Berthold appeared quite otherwise, than I had formerly seen him. His face was animated, his looks expressed a satisfaction without alloy; and when he had finished tracing on the wall the shadow of the net, he stood some minutes before this sketch; and, notwithstanding the holiness of the place, commenced humming the chorus of a very lively air; then as he turned to detach the net, which fell to the floor, he perceived me standing immovably in the place that I had not quitted.
"Hallo! hallo, there!" cried he; "is that you, Christian?"
I thought, then, that it was my duty to approach and apologize for my intrusion, paying Berthold at the same time the most eulogistic compliments on the exquisite art with which he had made use of the net. But without replying a single word to my graciousness, he said:
"Christian is an idle fellow, with whom I can do nothing; he was to have come to pass the whole night with me, and I will lay a wager that he has gone and hid himself in some corner to sleep at his ease, without care for my labor. Tomorrow, in the day time, I can no longer paint in this niche; and yet I cannot work alone now."
I then offered my services.
"Zounds!" replied Berthold, laughing, and laying both his hands rudely on my shoulders; "Zounds, that was well said; and Christian, to-morrow, will make a strange face at seeing that we can do without him. To work, then, fine journeyman that chance lends to the artist; to work!—and first let us set about raising a scaffolding."
It was done as soon as said, thanks to the dexterity of Berthold and to the zeal which I showed in my functions of amateur assistant. I could not but sufficiently admire the precision, the boldness of touch, and the sureness of hand which advanced surprisingly the work of the artist.
"Master," said I to him, "it is easy to guess, on seeing you, that you are not ignorant of any of the secrets of your art; but have you never executed paintings of other kinds than frescoes? Historical and landscape pieces are in the first rank in the domain of the painter's art; imagination enriches them with all its charms, and the cold severity of mathematical lines does not stop at every step the soaring of the artist, as in this false animation that you give to stone by the illusions of perspective."
Berthold, whilst listening to me, laid aside his pencil; he leaned his burning forehead upon his hand, and replied to me in a slow and grave tone of voice:
"Do not profane the holiness of art, by establishing among its works those degrees of inferiority which degrade the humble subjects of a despot. The true artist is not always he who, overstepping the limits traced by rule, loses himself in the spheres of the unknown. It is dangerous to attempt to wrestle with the Creator. Recollect, my young friend, the fable of Prometheus. This great artist of the ancient world had stolen the fire of heaven to animate men of clay; but you know what his punishment was. God does not allow the mystery of his power to be penetrated with impunity."
"But, Berthold," replied I, "what guilty temerity can you find in the re-production of beauty and exterior life, by painting, sculpture, and the other arts of imitation?"
"Those are, in truth, but child's play," replied the painter with a bitter smile; "that is a pitiful simplicity which imagines that anything is created by daubing, with brushes dipped in colors, squares of cloth of all dimensions. Poor madmen are they who allow themselves to be absorbed by such labors! But when the soul of the artist quits terrestrial regions to spring towards the ideal world, when, a new Prometheus, he attempts to imprison in the work of his hands some spark ravished from the world of spirits, it is then that an irresistible force draws him into the quicksands, and by a fatal illusion, the devil Pride makes him see at the bottom of a gulf the deceitful reflection of the star that his imprudent eye sought for in heaven."
Berthold made a pause, passed his hand over his forehead, as if to brush off a cloud; then, raising his head, he continued:—"What am I talking about! would I not be better employed in finishing my task, instead of discussing such vain subtleties? Look, my friend, look at this work; rule has conducted each line of it; hence what neatness! what exactness! all this enters into geometrical calculation, whose application the mind of man can exercise. All which goes beyond this measure, all which rises to the fantastic, is either a special gift of God or an hallucination of hell. God has communicated to us the secrets of art in proportion to the wants felt by poor humanity. Thus, mechanics produce the movement and the life to create mills and time-pieces, or machines to make cloth. All that is in rule, because it is all useful. And so, quite recently, the professor Aloysius maintained that certain animals were created for the purpose of eating others, and he took for example the cat, whose voracious appetite for mice prevents them from eating up all our candles, and all our sugar. And by my faith, the reverend father was right. I say, myself, that men are, in spite of their vanity, only animals, more skilfully organized than others, to create various products, whose contemplation pleases the unknown master of all that exist. But enough of metaphysics. Hallo! my friend, pass me those colors; I yesterday took considerable time to mix them, and I have numbered them with care, so that the flickering of the torches that light my work during the night, should not make me commit errors. Give me number one."
I hastened to obey. Berthold made me pass in review all his colors, which I handed to him one after another,—a tiresome labor, which would not have preserved me from the desire to sleep, if the artist had not sweetened the toil with one of the most original dissertations, and which he alone bore the burden of, on the subject of all kinds of questions, which he destroyed by a running fire of paradoxes, each more strange than the other. When his arm was fatigued more than his tongue, he descended from his scaffolding. The dawn of day began to pierce the shadows, and the light of the wax candles began to grow pale. I cast a last look at Berthold's painting; it was truly something admirable;—"You are," said I to him, "a strange man, and your work of a night is a thousand times more perfect than the fruits of long studies by our first masters. But one feels, in looking at it, that a burning fever guides your pencil; you are wearing out your strength."
"Good God!" exclaimed Berthold, "these hours of labor which are taking away my days are the only happy ones that I count in my sorrowful life."
"What!" said I, "can you be tormented by any grief, or pursued by the remembrance of any misfortune?"
Berthold gathered together, without saying a word, all his utensils; he then extinguished the wax candles which had furnished him with light, and, coming back to me, he pressed my hand forcibly, and said, with a fixed look, and in a voice trembling with emotion:—"Would you be able to live a single moment without suffering, if your soul was burthened with the remembrance of an ineffacable crime?"
I felt myself chilled with fear on hearing these words, which opened to me revelations hidden from sight in the life of this man. The first light of the rising sun illuminated his face with its ruddy beams, which brought out with more fascination his supernatural paleness. I dared not question him more, and he went out of the church staggering like a drunken man, through a little door which communicated with the college yard.
When I found again the professor Aloysius Walter, I hastily related to him my adventure of the past night, the emotion occasioned by which was still impressed on my countenance. He listened to me coldly, and ended by laughing at what he called my sensibility. However, as I earnestly pressed him, for it seemed to me that he knew more than he wished to tell, concerning Berthold,
"My friend," said he, "this man who appears to you, at present, so mysterious, is a very mild being, a good workman, and of very regular habits; but it may be that to his good qualities is joined a weak mind. Formerly he enjoyed quite a reputation as a painter of historical subjects, but since he has got his head crammed with metaphysical nonsense, he is reduced to the poor part of dauber of frescoes. Thus terminate, in one manner or another, all those restless minds that attempt to measure the height of intelligence. But since you wish to know something of his private life, come to the church whilst Berthold is resting from his night of labor; I wish, before all, to show you the preface of my narration."
The professor Aloysius then conducted me in front of the veiled picture that I had remarked the evening before; it was a composition in the style of Raphael,—Mary the Virgin, and Elizabeth, seated in a garden, with Jesus and John, who were playing with flowers at their feet. In the second part, on one side is seen Joseph praying. No words could express the ravishing grace and wholly celestial character of this painting. Unfortunately, the work was unfinished. The face of the Virgin and those of the two children were alone finished; but that of Elizabeth seemed to await the last touches of the artist: the man who was praying was only sketched.
"This picture," said father Aloysius, "was sent to us, some years ago, from Upper Silesia; one of our fathers, who was travelling in that country, bought it, by chance, at an auction sale; and, although it was not finished, we have placed it in this frame, in the place of a poor painting which did not fit it. When Berthold came here to work on the frescoes, he perceived this picture, uttered a cry and fainted. We could not obtain from him any revelation of the reason of its making so powerful an impression on him. But since that time, he never passes near it, and I am the only one to whom he has confided that this painting is his last work of the kind. I have several times tried, but without success, to make him decide upon finishing it; but he has always repulsed my entreaties with marks of a singular aversion; and as it has even been necessary to distract his attention whilst working here, from a cruel anguish which seems never to leave him, it has been necessary to have this frame veiled, whose aspect caused him, even at a distance, frightful fainting fits."
"Poor unfortunate!" exclaimed I, with a deep sensation of pity.
"I think that he is very little to be pitied," gravely continued father Aloysius. "This man, I am sure, has been himself his own demon; for the story of his life does not excuse him. Berthold has made the acquaintance of a young student here; and in friendly confidence, has told him the greatest part of the secrets of his life. This young man had drawn up a kind of a journal of it, that I found on inspecting his papers; for, in our college, it is neither permitted nor possible to hide anything. I have kept this manuscript, and this evening, not only will I show it to you, but I with pleasure make you a gift of it, although I do not suppose that you will find in it any powerful interest."
Here, kind reader, is what this manuscript contained:—
"Let your son follow the fancy that urges him towards Italy. His hand is practised enough, his imagination ardent enough, to make the study of the great models of art profitable to him. Dresden has been the cradle of the painter; it is time that Home should be the school where his young inspirations shall be purified; he must go and live the free life of the artist, in the bosom of the country in which all the conceptions of the genius of man flourish. The classic soil of the great masters is necessary to the painter, as the influence of the warm sun is necessary to the shrub to develope its foliage and gild its ripe fruits. Your son carries within him the sacred fire; let him take a noble flight towards the future."
"Lo que ha de ser no puede faltar."
"What is to be cannot fail."
Thus spoke one day the old painter, Stephen Birkner, to the parents of Berthold. They sold all that they possessed to furnish the valise of their son with the modest baggage that he needed; and soon this Raphael in embryo found himself at the height of his wishes. His first essays had given preference to landscape paintings; but when he found himself at Home, in the midst of artists and amateurs, he heard constantly repeated that historical painting was the only style that merited the name of art, and that all others signified nothing. These exalted opinions, in the midst of which lived young Berthold, joined to the magic effect produced on him by the contemplation of the Vatican frescoes, masterpieces of Raphael Sanzio, decided his new vocation. He set himself about copying, on a reduced scale, the works of the best masters, and was not without encouragement in this dry labor; but he was unceasingly pursued by the thought that the artist only exists by the originality and life with which he stamps his works. Did he try to sketch a creation, he felt his strength fail him; the idea, seen for an instant, suddenly fled, and was lost in the misty distance, as soon as he thought that he could seize it, and he found nothing on his canvas but features without character and immovable scenes. The result of these useless strugglings was to throw Berthold into a savage melancholy; and he went out alone, every day, far from the city, in desert places, and there, in secret, he tried to draw his sketches; and his grief increased to find that he had even lost much of his facility in this style; and he began to doubt his vocation and despair for the future. He wrote a very sorrowful letter to Birkner: but the old artist remembered that he had himself passed many days of anxiety and discouragement.
"Have patience, my son," replied he to Berthold: "he who, filled with a blind presumption, imagines that he can advance in the career of arts progressively, is a poor madman, from whom there is nothing more to hope. Leave routine to the timid, clear with one bound the common track, and when thou shalt have created a path where none can follow thee, when thou shalt have given life to a free work, loosened from the fetters of ordinary rule, thy place will be fixed, and thou wilt see coming towards thee with an even step, both glory and fortune."
When Berthold received Birkner's letter, an idea suddenly pervaded his mind like a flash of lightning. The reputation of the German landscape painter, Phillip Hackert, was at its height, and the historical painters themselves, envious and exclusive as they might have been, recognized without hesitation the extent of his talent. Berthold resolved to go to Naples to become the pupil of so distinguished a master. Hackert welcomed him with that kindness which is the character of true genius, and his young countryman profited so well by his lessons, that he was not long in becoming his rival. Only this, poor Berthold could not hide from himself, that it does not suffice to give exactly the details of trees, of foliage and perspective, or mix skilfully the tints of a sky fringed with warm and gilded vapors; he understood that his landscapes wanted that something which is admired in the scenes of Claude Lorraine and the beautiful deserts of Salvator Rosa. Berthold inquired of himself every day, if the reputation of Hackert was not greater than its value, and if the lessons of the master would not guide the student in a false direction. However, he carefully combatted these doubts which seemed culpable, and resolutely condemned himself to walk in the footsteps of his model. It happened one day that Hackert requested, that amongst some of his own compositions, Berthold should expose in public a landscape of considerable dimensions, faithfully copied from nature. All the persons who visited the museum were of unanimous opinion concerning the exquisite perfection of the pictures exposed to their criticism. One man alone, middle aged, and singularly dressed, distinguished himself by his silence from the crowd of lookers on, who distributed their fulsome praises.
Berthold, who followed his look, observed that when he arrived before his picture the unknown shook his head doubtfully, and passed disdainfully on. Vexed, in spite of his natural modesty, by this kind of depreciation, Berthold went and placed himself before this person, whom he looked upon as an adversary, and said to him, in a tone which showed plainly his ill humor,
"Would you have the kindness, sir, to point out what you find that shocks you in this composition, so that by the assistance of your opinion I may be able to correct it?"
The unknown fixed a penetrating glance upon Berthold, and contented himself with replying:
"Young man, there was in you the material for a great artist!"
These words froze the poor pupil of Hackert; he could not find words to reply, and remained for a long time nailed to the spot. Master Hackert found him still bewildered at this speech. But when Berthold had described the person to him:
"Ah, good!" exclaimed the painter, "is that all that grieves thee? Console thyself, quickly; for the man who has just spoken to thee is an old grumbler that we are accustomed to seeing periodically strolling about. He is a Greek, born at Malta; he is as rich as he is singular, and understands himself passably well in painting; but the works that he has produced himself, bear the stamp of such singularity, that it can only be attributed to his mania for putting forth at all times the most exaggerated paradoxes. That is the deplorable system which has rendered both his judgment and his taste false. But I care, indeed, as little for his blame as his praise. My reputation is too old to meet with a check from his caprice."
Berthold soon forgot the kind of warning of the Maltese; he set himself to work with renewed vigor; and to double the success, which his great landscape had obtained, he resolved to paint its companion. Hackert chose for a subject, one of the finest views in Naples, illumined by the rising sun, to contrast with the first landscape, which offered an evening scene. Now, one morning that Berthold, seated on the capital of a ruined column, was finishing, in bold outline, his sketch, he heard a voice near him exclaim,
"That is well done! The drawing is perfect!"
He raised his eyes, and they met those of the Maltese.
"You have forgotten only one thing," continued the latter; "look, that wall, draped with a wild vine, has a gate half open in it; it would he prodigious to draw skilfully the shadow of that half opened door."
"You are joking, sir, I see very well," said Berthold in an offended tone: "But know that the most trifling details are not to be neglected in a landscape carefully painted. I know, besides, that it is the part you assume, to ridicule this kind of compositions; so, I beg of you, to cut short all useless discussions, to leave me to pursue my work in peace."
"Young man," replied the stranger, "your assurance pleases me, and well becomes you; but remember my first words; yes, there was in you the material for a great artist, but you are following the wrong direction. I am not the enemy of any branch of art; both landscape and historical paintings require an equal degree of special qualities. The aim of painters is always the same; to seize nature, and in fact reproduce at the moment when is best manifested its relation with the infinite world; such is the mission of art; but servile imitation will never fulfil this condition. A copied painting resembles the transcribing of a text in a foreign language, in which an ignorant copyist would be obliged to imitate the letters of words which he could not read. But the true artist, that is to say the man who feels, draws towards him the divine essence, is penetrated through all his pores by it, and gives a mysterious life to scenes that he spreads out upon his canvas. Look at the pictures of the old masters; truly, in admiring them, the spectator does not examine closely to see if the leaves of the pine or linden trees are well distinguished by all the details of their tissues; it is the appearance of the whole which touches and entrances him. The mean detail, to his eyes, is no longer art, it is imitation without color, it is mechanism deprived of movement. As to the rest, my friend, I do not seek to turn you from what you believe to be your vocation. I have guessed in you the slumbering fire of genius, and I have tried to light it up into a real flame. Farewell!"
A sudden revolution took place in the thoughts of Berthold, after hearing these words from the mouth of the Maltese, denouncing the direction which he had followed until then, he quitted his master, and gave himself up, without reserve, to all the vagabond habits of a savage life. Seeking to break, by fatigue of the body, the anguish of his mind, he wandered from morning until night over the mountain and plain. This forced exercise dissipating gradually the vapors by which he was possessed, he found again the calm which had so long fled from him. In one of these excursions, he became acquainted with two young artists, who, like him, had come from Dresden. One of them, who was named Florentin, occupied himself much less with serious studies than with enriching his portfolio with a quantity of agreeable sketches full of spirit and dramatic movement, in spite of the rapidity of their execution. In looking over these drawings, Berthold felt his soul illumined by a light which he had never before been aware of. The picturesque method of Florentin singularly pleased his intelligence, greedy of knowing and realizing artistic truth. He set about copying, with a lively pleasure, the sketches of his friend, and succeeded pretty well in reproducing them, although it was impossible for him to give them the life and animation of the originals. What the Maltese had told him came back to his mind, and he related it to Florentin.
"I am of his opinion," answered Florentin; "I believe, that to arrive at producing the artistic resemblance, it is necessary at first, to familiarize oneself with the types which come the most frequently under our observation. Resign thyself to drawing faces, until thou hast acquired assurance enough to seize the features at once. Thou wilt pass from that more easily to the reproduction of other objects, and difficulties which afflict thee now, will vanish imperceptibly."
Berthold profited by the advice of his new friend, and was not long in finding himself better for it. But the ardor with which he labored brought on a nervous enthusiasm, during which he could only produce faces strangely and infinitely varied; the type which was in his thought, manifested itself on the canvas by a kind of moving profile, whose features he could not succeed in fixing. In despair at this excess of activity, which made his hands operate in spite of his will he threw aside both pencil and brush, and returned to his wandering life.
Not far from the city of Naples arose the country house of a rich lord, who declared himself the patron of foreign painters, and above all of landscape painters. Berthold had been several times to visit this fine domain, from which might be seen the magnificent panorama of the sea and Mount Vesuvius. One day that, leaning on the marble balustrade overlooking the park, he was yielding up his thoughts in vain aspirations for fame, he heard a light foot rustling amongst the foliage, and nearly at the same time a woman of admirable beauty appeared before him as if by enchantment.
A shudder pervaded the veins of Berthold before this apparition, which realized for him the ideal of beauty that his dreams had until then vainly pursued. He fell on his knees, with his hands extended towards this supernatural being who had come to smile upon him; a cloud passed before his eyes When he recovered his senses, the apparition, angel, woman or demon, had vanished. But in its place, Berthold perceived Florentin.
"Oh, my friend!" exclaimed he, "I have found her at last, I have seen, and nearly touched, the heavenly unknown who made my thoughts delirious!"
At these words, he escaped, before Florentin had been able to ask him a single question,—he runs, he flies, and returning to his studio, he throws upon the canvas the features which had so strongly moved his soul. This time, guided by enthusiasm, his hand goes not astray; the sketch is completed, and Berthold recognizes his ideal. Since that day he is no longer the same man. The joy of success has poured into all his senses a new life. His mind, purified from its discouragements, re-attaches itself with vigor to the study of models; from copying masterpieces he passes to invention, and the results that he obtains are not less fortunate; decidedly, he excels in painting portraits. Landscape was abandoned, and Hackert, abandoned, was obliged to confess that his student had finally found his only vocation. From that time fortune showered her favors upon Berthold. He had orders for church paintings, and great lords disputed amongst themselves for his pictures, at the price of gold. In all the fancy pieces that he executed, Berthold always reproduced the features of his marvellous apparition. It was found that this face bore a striking resemblance to the princess Angiola T; and the critics took very little care to conceal from those who would listen to their opinion, that the young and fashionable painter was desperately in love with this beautiful lady. Berthold often became irritated at these pleasantries, which seemed to abase his ideal to the mean proportions of a mortal being.
"Do you believe," said he, "that there can exist, under the sky, so perfect a creature? No, it is in infinite space that my eye has caught a glimpse of this angel of an unknown world; it is from that hour of ecstacy that my vocation of painter dates!"
When the French army, overrunning Italy, from victory to victory, following the footsteps of Bonaparte, arrived at the gates of Naples, a revolutionary movement, caused by the imminence of the danger, overthrew the whole city. The King and Queen retreated before the sedition. The prime minister of the kingdom concluded a dishonorable capitulation with the French general, in consequence of which the commissaries of the enemy's army raised enormous contributions. The people arose, the houses of the nobility, suspected of treachery, were pillaged with the cry of "Long live the holy faith!" Moliterno and Rocca Romana, who directed the municipality, made vain efforts to oppose anarchy. The Duke, de la Torre and Clemens Filomarino, two detested patricians, had just served as victims to the insurrection, and nothing could be foreseen of the time of duration of this popular reaction. Berthold, escaped, nearly naked, from his house devoured by the flames, found himself carried forward by a crowd of the armed populace who were going with frightful howlings to the palace of prince T. Nothing could withstand these furious men. In a few moments, the prince, his servants and a few friends who had joined him were massacred without pity, and the flames finished what the knife had commenced. Berthold still carried on by this band of robbers, had traversed many rooms in the palace, which a black smoke already filled; he tried to fly, but found no outlet, when a cry of distress struck upon his ear. He sprang towards it, burst open a door, and sees a woman who is struggling beneath the dagger of a beggar.
"Great God! it is the princess! it is the heavenly apparition which Berthold had seen but once. A superhuman strength exalted the courage of the exhausted artist; after a short struggle he overthrows the beggar and stabs him with his own poignard; then raising in his nervous arms, the beautiful Angiola, he traverses again all the rooms of the palace devoured by the fire, reaches the door, makes his way through the crowd, who gave way before his bloody dagger, and, after having walked a long time at the mercy of chance, he reaches a quarter of the city rendered desert by the affray; he deposits his precious burden in the corner of a shed, and, broken by so many emotions, fells senseless by the side of Angiola. When he opened his eyes again, the beautiful princess, on her knees at his side, was bathing with water his forehead, blackened by the fire and covered with blood and dust. Berthold thought that he was dreaming, but Angiola said to him:
"My friend, my savior, I recognize thee, thou art Berthold, the celebrated German painter; thou hast seen me but once before, and thou hast loved me so much, that my features were reproduced under thy pencil in all thy works. Then a great distance separated us, and I could not be thine; but now, in Naples, destroyed by fire, there is no longer any patricians nor separations required by the pride of rank. Come, Berthold, let us fly, let us go and seek a home in thy country: I am thine forever!"
The artist was beside himself; so much unexpected happiness exceeded his strength; but love performs miracles, and after many dangers the two fugitives succeeded in escaping from the city without being recognized or pursued. They approached gradually the south of Germany, where Berthold hoped to create, by his talents, a rich and happy life for Angiola. Arrived in the city of M, he resolved to establish, at one trial, his reputation, by painting a large church picture. He chose for his subject, the Virgin Mary and Elizabeth having at their feet the child Jesus and St. John. This composition was very simple; but this time the artist had lost his power. His ideas had become confused again; he did nothing but commence and efface without any success. The face of the Virgin had, in spite of him, features of terrestrial beauty; it was the face of Angiola, but deprived of all its poetry. The beautiful Neapolitan sat to him in all the brilliancy of her charms; the painter only succeeded in fixing on the canvas nothing but waxen tints, with mournful and glassy eyes. Then his melancholy attacked him again with unheard of pains; the loss of his talent plunged him into frightful misery, which was augmented by the birth of a son. Misery leads, by a fatal drag, either to crime or madness. Berthold took an aversion to his poor wife, who nevertheless, did not complain; and as suffering and privations had faded her attractions:
"No;" said he to himself one day, "this is not the ideal being that I saw; this cursed creature took for a time her celestial form to seduce me and draw me into her snares! This is not a woman, it is a demon!"
And the miserable man, a prey to fits of delirium, made use of such cruel treatment towards Angiola and her child, that the neighbors became indignant and denounced him to the magistrate. Berthold, warned that they were coming to arrest him, disappeared from his garret with his wife and child. They were unable, at first, to find out what had become of him. Sometime afterwards he came to N, in Upper Silesia. But he was alone then, and he undertook to recommence the picture of the Virgin; but he could not succeed in finishing it. A languishing disease was carrying him to the grave step by step. It was necessary for him, in order to exist, and pay for some remedies, to sell the last of his property, and even his unfinished picture, which were sold at auction by a picture dealer. Death was not yet ready for Berthold. When he had recovered some strength, he went away begging his bread, from door to door, and paying his trifling expenses by painting signs.
Here the manuscript given me by professor Aloysius Walter ended. I concluded that the unfortunate Berthold, become mad with misery, had assinated his wife and child, to get rid of their support. However, as nothing after all, authorized such a belief, I felt a lively curiosity to interrogate him adroitly in one of his moments of good humor, to which he sometimes gave himself up when his labor went to his liking.
I went back to the church; he was, as formerly, perched on his scaffolding, looking gloomy and absent; he was sketching on the wall tints of rose marbling. I went up and placed myself beside him, to officiously hand him his colors; and as he looked at me with surprise:—"Am I not," said I to him in a low voice, "your last night's companion, whom you accepted in the place of that lazy fellow Christian?"
At these words, I saw his lips contract into a smile. This appearing to me to be a good omen, I risked the conversation on the adventures of his life. I reached, by long turnings, that I considered very adroit, to the confidence so greedily hoped for, of the fatal winding up, and to lead to an avowal, I said to him suddenly:—It was then in a fit of fever that you killed your wife and child?
The thunder falling from heaven, would not have produced a like effect. Berthold dropped his brushes, and, after throwing on me a horrible look, raised his hands towards heaven and cried out:
"I am pure of the blood of my wife and my child. But if you say another word more, I will throw myself with you down to the floor of the church!"
At this threat, feeling very little reassured, and fearing that in a fit of remorse he might wish to kill himself, and draw me with him to the tomb, I rapidly turned the conversation.
"Good God!" exclaimed I, with all the assurance I could affect, "look Berthold, how that ugly yellow color runs down the wall!" And whilst master Berthold turned round to wipe off the color with his largest brush, I gained the ladder, to put myself out of the reach of the dangerous caprices of the Jesuit painter. Some hours after, I took leave of the professor Aloysius Walter, making him promise to keep me informed by letter, of what he could learn new concerning Berthold.
Six months after my journey, he wrote to me:
"Our strange artist has finished his reparations of the church, and put the last touches to the picture of the Virgin Mary, of which he has made a finished piece. Then he disappeared; and as two days after his departure they found his hat and stick on the banks of the river O———, everybody here believes that the poor devil put an end to his misery by suicide. Pray for him."