[This fragment--newly translated--is taken from the _Memoiren des Herrn von Schnabelwopski_, which was written in 1831, and published in 1834, in the first volume of the _Salon_. The _Memoirs of Schnabelwopski_ consist simply of the hero's light sketches of Hamburg, Amsterdam, and Leyden, and his experiences in those towns; they have generally excited the anger of Heine's German critics and biographers, who appear to detect a tone of irreverent levity about them, which they attribute to Parisian influences. Wagner obtained the story of his _Flying Dutchman_ from a chapter of _Schnabelwopski's Memoirs_.] In the house I lodged at in Leyden there once lived Jan Steen, the great Jan Steen, whom I hold to be as great as Raphael. Even as a sacred painter Jan was as great, and that will be clearly seen when the religion of sorrow has passed away, and the religion of joy has torn off the thick veil that covers the rose-bushes of the earth, and the nightingales dare at last to sing joyously out their long-concealed raptures. But no nightingale will ever sing so joyously as Jan Steen painted. No one has understood so profoundly as he that there shall be an eternal festival on the earth; he comprehended that our life is only the pictured kiss of God, and he felt that the Holy Ghost is revealed most gloriously in light and in laughter. His eye laughed into the light, and the light mirrored itself in his laughing eye. And Jan remained always a dear, good child. The stern old Pastor of Leyden sat near him by the hearth, and delivered a lengthy discourse concerning his jovial life, his laughing, unchristian conduct, his love of drinking, his disorderly domestic affairs, his obdurate gaiety; and Jan listened quietly for two long hours, and betrayed not the slightest impatience at the lengthy sermon; only once he broke in with the words--"Yes, Domine, that light is far better; yes, Domine, I beg of you to draw your stool a little nearer to the fire, so that the flame may cast its red gleam over your whole face, and leave the rest of the figure in shade----" The Domine stood up wrathful and departed. But Jan seized his palate and painted the stern old man, just as in that sermon on vice he had unconsciously furnished a model. The picture is excellent, and hung in my bed-room at Leyden.