Over this work also criticism held its breath for a time, though for a very different reason. The whole picture breathed such a stifling spirit of sultry passion that even the members of the Paradise Club, who most certainly were not prudish, seem to feel that the bounds of what was permissible had been overstepped. Once more Rosenbusch was the first to speak. "There he sits over yonder in the realm of pure spirit," he cried to Fat Rossel, who was still studying Kohle's work, "while we here are dealing with pure flesh. Holla! You man of the silhouette and the beautiful decorative form, come over here and exorcise this demon!" Edward nodded without looking round; he seemed to know the work already, and to have no desire to express himself concerning it. As none of the others uttered a single word, the artist finally appealed directly to Jansen, and begged for his judgment. "Hm!" growled the sculptor, "the work is full of talent. Only you have christened it wrongly--or have forgotten the two veils." "Christened it wrongly?" "In the name of Goethe; Saint Priapus stood godfather to it." "But--the two veils!" stammered the youth, who had cast down his eyes. "Beauty and horror. Only read the poem. You will see how artistically everything immodest in it is veiled by these two. And yet--a decidedly talented work. It will find admirers fast enough." He turned away and went quietly back to his seat. At the same instant the young man tore the picture from the wall, and, without saying a word, held the gilt frame in which it was enclosed over the nearest lamp. Perhaps he had expected that some one would seize him by the arm; but no one stirred. The flame seized eagerly upon the canvas. When a part was consumed, the young man swung himself upon the window-sill and hurled the burning picture through the upper part of the window, which was open, into the dark garden below, where it fell hissing on the damp gravel. Upon springing down again he was greeted with general applause, which he received with a gloomy brow and compressed lips. His hasty act had evidently given him no inward relief. Nor could even Jansen's kind greeting succeed immediately in banishing his sinister mood. It was his innermost nature that he had consigned to this fiery death. Felix, upon whom this curious incident had made a deep impression, was just on the point of going up to the youth, whom he saw standing apart from the others and enveloping himself in a dense cloud of tobacco smoke, when a clock in one of the church steeples near by announced, with its twelve slow strokes, that the hour of midnight had arrived. On the instant all conversation was hushed, the chairs were drawn up in line; and it then occurred to Felix, for the first time, that Elfinger, whose "turn" it was this evening, had left the hall some little time before, in company with Rosenbusch.