Meantime, the condition of things in the painter’s household continued
much the same for Wolkenlicht--work all day; no communication between
the young people; the dinner and the wine; silent reading when work was
done, with stolen glances many over the top of the book, glances that
were never returned; the cold good-night; the locking of the door; the
wakeful night and the drowsy morning. But at length a change came, and
sooner than any of the party had expected. For, whether it was that the
impatience of Teufelsbürst had urged him to yet more dangerous
experiments, or that the continuance of those he had been so long
employing had overcome at length the vitality of Wolkenlicht--one
afternoon, as he was sitting at his work, he suddenly dropped from his
chair, and his master hurrying to him in some alarm, found him rigid and
apparently lifeless. Lilith was not in the study when this took place.
In justice to Teufelsbürst, it must be confessed that he employed all
the skill he was master of, which for beneficent purposes was not very
great, to restore the youth; but without avail. At last, hearing the
footsteps of Lilith, he desisted in some consternation; and that she
might escape being shocked by the sight of a dead body where she had
been accustomed to see a living one, he removed the lay figure from the
couch, and laid Karl in its place, covering him with a black velvet
pall. He was just in time. She started at seeing no one in Karl’s place
and said--
“Where is your pupil, father?”
“Gone home,” he answered, with a kind of convulsive grin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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