"Yes, I know that, and I know, too, that you have a boy. Let me see, who could it have been that told me?"
"I wonder who?"
"Well, it'll come back to me presently. It is new to me, though, that you are interested in pictures."
Bertha smiled.
"Well, it wasn't really on account of the pictures alone. But you mustn't think that I am quite so silly as all that. I do take an interest in pictures."
"And so do I. If the truth must be told, I think I would rather be a painter than anything else."
"Yet you ought to be quite satisfied with what you have attained."
"Well, that's a question that can't be disposed of in one word. Of course, I find it a very pleasant thing to be able to play the violin so well, but what does it all lead to? Only to this, I think: that when I am dead my name will endure for a short time. That—" his eyes indicated the picture before which they were standing—"that, on the other hand, is something different."
"You are awfully ambitious, Emil!"
He looked at her, but without evincing the slightest interest in her.