Edward laid his head on the table, from which the painter hastily wiped a slop of wine away, that the youth might not dip his sleeve in it. "The dear good Salvator," he then said thoughtfully, "is supposed himself not to have led the best of lives; they even charge him with having been a bandit. When Rembrandt gave himself out for dead in his life-time, in order to raise the price of his works, he did not quite adhere to truth neither, though he died in reality some years afterwards, and so had only miscalculated a little. Suppose then, I, in all love and humility, paint a little piece like this, and gently and gradually identify myself in fancy with the old master, and all his delightful peculiarities, so that I feel as if the spirit of the dear departed guided my hand and pencil, and the thing is then finished, and affectionately winks to me its gratitude, for having executed another piece of the old virtuoso, who after all could not do every thing himself, nor live for ever, and I now, especially after a glass of wine, inspecting it with more profound attention, convince myself in right earnest that it actually is a production of the old master, and so hand it over to another lover of his, and desire only a fair recompense for my pains, in having let my hand be guided and my own genius suppressed for the time, to the detriment of my own reputation as an artist:--Is this then an offence, my darling, that cries to Heaven, to sacrifice myself in this child-like simplicity?" He raised the recumbent head, but changed his grin of good-humour into a gravity equally distorted, on seeing the cheeks of the youth full of tears, which were gushing out of his eyes in a hot incessant stream. "Oh, my lost youth!" sobbed Edward; "oh, ye golden days, ye weeks, and years! how sinfully have I squandered you away, as though there lay not in your hours the germ of virtue, of honour, and of happiness; as though this precious treasure of time were ever to be redeemed. Like a glass of stale water have I poured forth my life and the essence of my heart. Oh! what a state of being might have opened on me, what happiness for myself and others, had not an evil genius blinded my eyes! Trees of blessing were growing and spreading a shade around me and over me, in which a friend, a wife, and the afflicted, might have found help, comfort, home, and peace; and I, in giddy wantonness, have laid the axe to this grove, and must now endure frost, storm, and heat!" Eulenböck did not know what sort of face to make, still less what to say; for in this mood, with such sentiments, he had never seen his young friend before. At last he was glad to escape observation, and to be able snugly to empty his bottle.