Heggen looked at the pictures. He felt he had a firm ground to stand upon again. “I should really like to have your frank opinion on—that piggish stuff,” she said provokingly. “I must admit that they are not particularly good.” He stood with his hands in his trouser pockets looking at them. “But that happens to every one of us—I mean that there are certain times when you cannot produce anything, and you ought to know that it is only for a time. I don’t think one can lose one’s talent even if one has been ever so unhappy. You have left off painting for such a long time, besides; you will have to work it up again—to master the means of action, so to say. Take life study, for instance—I am sure it is three years since you drew a live model. One cannot neglect those things without being punished for it. I know from my own experience.” He went to a shelf and searched among Jenny’s sketch-books: “You ought to remember how much you improved in Paris—let me show you.” “No, no, not that one,” said Jenny, reaching her hand for it. Heggen stood with the book in his hand, looking amazed at her. She turned her face away: “I don’t mind if you look at it—I tried to draw the boy one day.” Heggen turned the leaves slowly. Jenny was sitting in the sofa again. He looked at the pencil sketches of the sleeping infant for a moment, then put the book carefully away. “It was a great pity that you lost your little boy,” he said gently. “Yes. If he had lived, all the rest would not have mattered. You speak about will, but when one’s will cannot keep one’s child alive, what is the good of it? I don’t care to try to make anything of my life now, because it seemed to me the only thing I was good for and cared about was to be a mother to my little boy. Oh, I could have loved him! I suppose I am an egoist at heart, for whenever I tried to love the others, my own self rose like a wall between us. But the boy was mine alone. I could have worked if he had been spared to me. I could have worked hard. “I had made so many plans. On the way down here they all came back to my mind. I had decided to live in Bavaria with him in the summer, because I was afraid the sea air would be too strong for him. He was going to lie in his pram under the apple trees while I painted. There is not a place in the world I could go to where I have not been in my dreams with the boy. There is nothing good or beautiful in all the world that I did not think, while I had him, he should learn and see. I have not a thing that was not his too. I used to wrap him up in the red rug I have. The black dress you are painting me in was made in Warnemünde when I was out of bed again, and I had it cut so that it would be easy to nurse him.