to be drunk, tasted, sipped, or palated; but the man who is blest with
it unfolds a new organ, which may not be described to the ignorant and
sober."--Here he broke off with emotion, and dried his eyes.
"So then my presentiment was right," cried Dietrich with enthusiasm:
"this is in the realm of wine, what old Eyck or Hemling, perhaps too
brother Giovanni di Fiesole, are among painters. Such is the relish of
that sweetly moving and deep colouring, which without shade is still so
true, without white so dazzling and thrilling. So does the purple of
their drapery satiate and intoxicate, and so is its fire allayed and
softened by the mild blue, the fancy breeding violet. All is one, and
harmonizes in our souls."
"Except Eulenböck's nose," cried the librarian, quite drunk: "that has
no touch of scarlet, no transitions in its tones, to blend it with the
face; the dark red purple roasts in its magic kitchen, as the beet-root
waxes red under ground in the realms of damp night, though quite
secluded from the sun. Can this excrescence belong to the life? Can the
god of wine so have pampered it? Never! It is a clumsy shell, an ugly
case for malice and lies."
"Puffy emptiness," cried the Bookseller, "brittle splendour, frail
mortality! And there it stands, curved and tottering on the undermined
face, so that with its bulk it may soon press down the whole man in
ruins. Man! whence didst get this unconscionably wry nose?"
"Peace, Crocodile!" bawled Eulenböck, violently thumping the table:
"will this vermin reform the world? Every nose has its history, ye
nostrum-mongers! Do the addle-headed creatures suppose, that the
smallest event is not subservient as a link to the necessity of eternal
laws? For my nose, as it is, I am indebted to my barber."
"Tell us, old boy," cried the young people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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