I.
Among my many good comrades, there was one, Julius Lange, with whom comradeship had developed into friendship, and this friendship again assumed a passionate character. We were the two, who, of them all, were most exactly suited to one another, completed one another. Fundamentally different though we were, we could always teach each other something. We grew indispensable to one another; for years there seldom a day went by that we did not meet. The association with his junior cannot possibly have given Julius Lange a delight corresponding to that which his society gave me. Intellectually equal, we were of temperaments diametrically opposed. Having the same love of Art and the same enthusiasm for Art,--save that the one cared more for its pictorial and the other for its literary expression,--we were of mutual assistance to one another in the interchange of thoughts and information. Entirely at variance in our attitude towards religious tradition, in our frequent collisions we were both perpetually being challenged to a critical inspection of our intellectual furniture. But I was the one who did the worshipping.
When Julius Lange, on December 17, 1861, after having twice been to see me and found me out, the third time met with me and informed me: "I have received an invitation to go to Italy on Saturday and be away five months," was, though surprised, exceedingly glad for my friend's sake, but at the same time I felt as if I had received a blow in the face. What would become of me, not only during the interval, but afterwards? Who could say whether Lange would ever come back, or whether he would not come back changed? How should I be able to endure my life! I should have to work tremendously hard, to be able to bear the loss of him. I could hardly understand how I should be able to exist when I could no longer, evening after evening, slip up to my friend's little room to sit there in calm, quiet contentment, seeing pictures and exchanging thoughts! It was as though a nerve had been cut. I only then realised that I had never loved any man so much. I had had four eyes; now I had only two again; I had had two brains; now I had only one; in my heart I had felt the happiness of two human beings; now only the melancholy of one was left behind.
There was not a painting, a drawing, a statue or a bas-relief in the galleries and museums of Copenhagen that we had not studied together and compared our impressions of. We had been to Thorwaldsen's Museum together, we went together to Bissen's studio, where in November, 1861, I met for the first time my subsequent friends, Vilhelm Bissen and Walter Runeberg. The memory of Julius Lange was associated in my mind with every picture of Hobbema, Dubbels or Ruysdael, Rembrandt or Rubens, every reproduction of Italian Renaissance art, every photograph of church or castle. And I myself loved pictures even more ardently than poetry. I was fond of comparing my relations with literature to affection for a being of the same sex; my passion for pictures to the stormy passion of a youth for a woman. It is true that I knew much less about Art than about Poetry, but that made no difference. I worshipped my favourite artists with a more impetuous enthusiasm than any of my favourite authors. And this affection for pictures and statuary was a link between my friend and myself. When we were sitting in my room together, and another visitor happened to be there, I positively suffered over the sacrifice of an hour's enjoyment and when Lange got up to go, I felt as though a window had been slammed to, and the fresh air shut out.