"Pooh!" said Pilgrim, carelessly plunging both hands into his wide pockets. "I benefit myself by it. It is so desperately tiresome, year after year, to paint our primitive village; the church, with its mitre for a church tower, and so large a hole that a dial-plate might go into it; and the mower with his scythe stands there always on the same spot everlastingly; and the woman with the child going to meet him never reaches him; the child stretches out its hands, but it never joins its father; and the booby of a man stands there with his back to them, and I have no notion what kind of face he has--and yet hundreds and hundreds of times, I have been obliged to paint this confounded landscape of verdigris hue. So it is: the world will always have the same thing over and over again. I do believe I could paint the thing blindfold, and yet I must go at it again and again. Now I have pleased myself by painting your mother, though I no longer take portraits, for I have no fancy for any of the faces round here, and I would not be so spiteful towards generations yet unborn, as to force them to look at such physiognomies. Your uncle is right in positively refusing to be painted. Not long ago, when a travelling artist applied to him, he said--'No, no, or I shall probably be hung up in some pawnbroker's shop, at some distant day, along with Napoleon and old Fritz.' That man has most singular, quaint ideas!" "What have you to do with my uncle just now? You painted my mother's picture for me, I know." "Certainly, if you choose to accept of it Come, place yourself here. I am not quite satisfied with the eyes--I cannot catch the right expression. You have exactly your mother's eyes; so sit down there--so--just there. Now sit still, and think of something pleasant, or of giving away something. It was famous in you to become security for Faller, Think of that, and then you will have your mother's look that warmed the heart. Don't smile. But she was so good, so sincere, so--so----. Now, now I have it. Don't move an eyelash.--Now I can't paint any more when you are crying." "My eyes overflowed," said Lenz, in an apologetic tone, "for I could not help thinking that my mother's eyes----" "Never mind!--I have finished. I know now what to do. Come, let us be done working--besides, it is noon already. You will dine with me, I hope?" "No--don't take it amiss; but I must dine with uncle Petrowitsch. "I am never angry with you. Now tell me your plans." Lenz explained--that he had half a mind to go from home for a couple of years; and he implored his friend to fulfil their former project, which they had been obliged to renounce, and to accompany him. Perhaps they might now conquer fortune in the same way they had hoped then.