"Ah, my dear sir, you take me for something much higher and better than I really am. I must tell you candidly that I learnt the craft of a cooper, and I wish to go and work with a well-known master of that craft in Nürnberg. You will despise me that I do not model and cast glorious images, figures, groups, and only shape hoops for casks and barrels."
"This is delightful," cried Reinhold, laughing aloud. "The idea of my despising you for being a cooper, when I am nothing else myself!"
Friedrich looked at him fixedly; he did not know what to think. Reinhold's dress was like anything rather than that of a journeyman cooper on his travels. The doublet of fine black cloth trimmed with velvet, the delicate lace cravat, short sword, barret cap, with long drooping feather, seemed more appropriate to a well-to-do merchant; and yet there was a certain wonderful something in the face and whole bearing of the lad which excluded the idea of a merchant. Reinhold saw Friedrich's doubts; he opened his knapsack, and brought out his cooper's leather apron and case of tools, crying, "Look there, friend; have you any doubt now as to my being your comrade? I dare say my clothes may strike you a little; but I come from Strassburg, where the coopers dress like gentry. Certainly, like yourself, I once had ideas of something different; but now I think the cooper's craft the finest in the world, and I have based many of my fairest life-hopes on it. Is not this your case, too, comrade? But it almost seems to me as if some dark cloud-shadow had come over the happiness of your life, preventing you from looking around you with any gladness. Your song was all love-longing and sorrow; but there were tones in it which seemed to come shining out of my own breast, and I feel as though I knew everything which is imprisoned within you. That is all the more reason why you should tell me all about it. As we are going to be intimate friends and companions in Nürnberg, confide in me." Reinhold put an arm about Friedrich, and looked him kindly in the eyes.
"The more I look at you, you charming fellow," Friedrich said, "the more I am drawn to you. I distinctly hear a wondrous voice within me echoing a monition of my soul, which tells me you are my true friend. So I must tell you everything. Not that a poor fellow such as I has anything really important to confide to you, but merely because the breast of a true friend has room for a man's sorrows; and, from the first moment of our acquaintance, I felt that you are the truest friend I possess. I am a cooper now, and I may say I know my craft well. But all my devotion was given to another--perhaps a better--art. From my childhood my desire was to be a silversmith, a great Master in the art of modelling and working in silver, such as Peter Fischer, or the Italian, Benvenuto Cellini. I worked at this with fervent zeal, under Master Johannes Holzschuer, the famous silversmith in my native town, who, although he did not himself cast images of the kind I refer to, had it in his power to give me instruction in that direction and province. Into Herr Holzschuer's house came, not seldom, Herr Tobias Martin, the master cooper, with his daughter, the beautiful charming Rosa. I fell in love with her, without quite being aware of it myself. I left home, and went to Augsburg, to learn image-casting properly, and it was not till then that the love-flames blazed up in my heart. I saw and heard only Rosa. I loathed every effort, every endeavour that did not lead to her; so I started off upon the only path which did lead to her. Master Martin will give his daughter to no man save the cooper who, in his house, shall make the most perfect masterpiece which a cooper can produce, and whom at the same time his daughter shall look upon favourably into the bargain. I cast my own art on one side, I learned the cooper's craft, and I am going to Nürnberg to work in Master Martin's workshop. That is my object and intention. But now that my home lies before me, and Rosa's image glows vividly before my eyes, I could swoon for hesitation, anxiety, dread. I see now the folly of my undertaking clearly. Can I tell whether Rosa loves me, or ever will love me?"
Reinhold had listened with even closer attention. He now rested his head on his arm, and, placing his hand over his eyes, asked, in a hollow, gloomy voice:
"Has Rosa ever given you any sign that she cares for you?"
"Ah," said Friedrich, "when I left Nürnberg, Rosa was more a child than a girl. She certainly did not dislike me. She used to smile charmingly on me when I never wearied of gathering flowers and making wreaths in Herr Holzschuer's garden. But----"
"Well, there is some hope in that case," Reinhold cried out suddenly, so violently, and in such an unpleasant, yelling tone, that Friedrich felt almost frightened. Reinhold started to his feet, the sword at his side rattled, and as he stood drawn up to his full height, the evening shadows fell on his pale face, and distorted his gentle features in such an ill-favoured sort that Friedrich cried, in real anxiety:
"What has come to you so suddenly?"
As he spoke he stepped backward, touching Reinhold's bundle with his foot. A sound of strings rang forth of it, and Reinhold cried, angrily: