Slowly was the patient of the gable-house moving towards convalescence. His wounds still smarted, and any motion caused him pain, but he bore all his sufferings with the greatest composure, and to his brother's inquiry he answered with a grateful look: "Sta bene." Klytia also who continued to nurse him with a certain diffidence, he ever greeted with a look of deep gratitude. In the weak condition in which he now found himself all natural passion, force of character, and love of the artificial seemed to have left him; he was kinder and more simple than he had ever been before; fictitiousness, nonsense and bombast had fallen away from him. The brilliant personality of the Italian savant, which spreads a shimmer of eloquence over the most unimportant theme, and loves to express epigrammatically the most common place subject, had been replaced by a poor suffering man. He was no longer the primus omnium of the college at Venice whose mouth overflowed with wisdom. Rather was there something childlike in his helplessness. He modestly held back, although all interest was centred on him. His gratitude for any attention, his respect for Belier's and Erastus' learning, his unassuming attention caused him to resemble a mere boy. Now only could one perceive how young he really was. When Frau Belier passionately exclaimed at the sight of his wounds he meekly answered: "I wished to do the same to others, who were better than I, noble Lady, and whose sins were less clear of proof than mine." He took part in conversation only when directly questioned, but listened eagerly when Erastus or Belier discussed Church matters, or when Felix and the mistress of the house violently argued about nothing, whilst Lydia quietly glided through the room like a sunbeam and by her noiseless activity gave to the whole a tone of beauty and individual coloring. When Paul at last supported by Erastus and his brother was led to an armchair and thus enabled to join for hours the family circle, they all expected that his former originality and mental superiority would show itself once again. But he remained silent, gentle and as if apparently inwardly crushed. This resignation on the part of his brother finally appeared serious to Felix. It was something so utterly opposed to the fiery disposition of the young artist that he said to himself: "His limbs will be cured, of that Erastus is certain, but his nature is broken, like those of the few victims of the inquisition I saw in Rome, who were suffered to return to public life."
"I do not like to see thee so wise and genuine," he said one day to Paul, as the family were expending their wrath on the subject of some fresh molestation on the part of the Theologians, whilst Paul endeavored kindly and quietly to place their intentions in a better light. "It seems as if thou couldest no longer punish evil."
"That may be the case," answered the sick man. "I see no crime committed that I myself might not have committed. What should our failings teach us, but charity towards others?"
Klytia herself had become another person, since Paul had so retired within himself. Quiet and reserved she went her way. She seemed to be satisfied with being able to serve him, to provide for all things, but the joyous childish smile had left her face. Felix who was working at her marble bust, found, when she sat for him, a melancholy trait in her reverie, which had formerly not existed. "She looks like some young widow, who mournfully ponders over her departed joy. But I will soon rouse the foolish children out of their unbearable reserve and self-sacrifice." One day that he found his brother sitting alone near the window of his oaken-panelled room, gazing with longing look out of the diamond panes over the gables of the houses towards the Heiligenberg, as if counting each individual pine, which seemed to detach itself from the white clouds behind, the opportunity appeared favorable to the artist.
"Thou must be digging out a new philosophy, Paolo," he said laughing, "that thou gazest up for hours at the blue October sky."
"I see no necessity for one," replied Paul wearily. "Resignation is true philosophy and life itself teaches us that."
"Why must thou be resigned? Thou seemest to have made a pact with Lydia of mutual self-sacrifice."
A flaming color spread suddenly over the patient's pale face. "Why dost thou hide thyself behind the clouds, thou love-sick Apollo, and sufferest thy flower to mourn? Must I take her by the hand and lead her to thee?"
Paul made a motion of grief. "Thou would'st sacrifice thyself, my good Felix," he cried, "but how could I accept such a sacrifice?"
"Sacrifice," said the Maestro, merrily cocking his Raphael cap to one side. "We artists are terrible sinners. Since I have modelled the pure face, since I have caught the determined look on her lips and have spitted it in marble, like a butterfly stuck through with a pin, my heart has as much abandoned her as any other model with which I have succeeded, and it seems to me as if I had almost too much of the dear child. I dream of a less gentle, less pliant being, allotted to me by heaven, a Neapolitan woman with hooked nose, black eyes, and sharp claws at the end of her forepaws. In a word I will paint Lydia on a church banner for the Scalzi, but will as soon marry her as the Madonna. I want a wife with whom I can quarrel."