Meanwhile, the work progressed. A brief visit to Naples and Sicily was part of Goethe’s well-pondered campaign, and he was to set forth from Rome (taking Tischbein with him) immediately after the close of the Carnival--but not a moment before. Needless to say, he had no idea of flinging himself into the Carnival, after the fashion of lesser and lighter tourists. But the Carnival was a great phenomenon to be studied. All-embracing Goethe, remember, was nearly as keen on science as on art. He had ever been patient in poring over plants botanically, and fishes ichthyologically, and minerals mineralogically. And now, day by day, he studied the Carnival from a strictly carnivalogical standpoint, taking notes on which he founded later a classic treatise. His presence was not needed in the studio during these days, for the life-sized portrait ‘begins already to stand out from the canvas,’ and Tischbein was now painting the folds of the mantle, which were swathed around a clay figure. ‘He is working away diligently, for the work must, he says, be brought to a certain point before we start for Naples.’ Besides the mantle, Tischbein was doing the Campagna. I remember that some years ago an acquaintance of mine, a painter who was neither successful nor talented, but always buoyant, told me he was starting for Italy next day. ‘I am going,’ he said, ‘to paint the Campagna. The Campagna WANTS painting.’ Tischbein was evidently giving it a good dose of what it wanted. ‘It takes no little time,’ writes Goethe to Frau von Stein, ‘merely to cover so large a field of canvas with colours. Ash Wednesday ushered itself in, and ushered the Carnival out. The curtain falls, rising a few days later on the Bay of Naples. Re-enter Goethe and Tischbein. Bright blue back-cloth. Incidental music of barcaroles, etc. For a while, all goes splendidly well. Sane Quixote and aesthetic Sancho visit the churches, the museums; visit Pompeii; visit our Ambassador, Sir William Hamilton, that accomplished man. Vesuvius is visited too; thrice by Goethe, but (here, for the first time, we feel a vague uneasiness) only once by Tischbein. To Goethe, as you may well imagine, Vesuvius was strongly attractive. At his every ascent he was very brave, going as near as possible to the crater, which he approached very much as he had approached the Carnival, not with any wish to fling himself into it, but as a resolute scientific inquirer. Tischbein, on the other hand, merely disliked and feared Vesuvius. He said it had no aesthetic value, and at his one ascent did not accompany Goethe to the crater’s edge. He seems to have regarded Goethe’s bravery as rashness. Here, you see, is a rift, ever so slight, but of evil omen; what seismologists call ‘a fault.’