"I know," said Reinhold, "and you are a fortunate man; stick to your own art; very probably it is better suited to domesticity and the like, than mine."
At the wedding dinner Friedrich sat between the two Rosas, with Master Martin opposite to him, between Reinhold and Conrad. Paumgartner filled Friedrich's goblet to the brim with noble wine, and drank to the health of Master Martin and his grand journeymen. The goblet went round, and first Baron von Spangenburg, and after him all the worthy masters drained it to the same toast.
When Sylvester had finished his reading, the friends were unanimous in their opinion that the tale was worthy of the Serapion Club, and they particularly admired the pleasingness of the general tone which characterised it.
"I suppose," said Lothair, "that I am fated always to be the one to pick a hole or two. But I can't help it. To my mind, Master Martin smacks too much of his origin; I mean, of the picture which suggested him. Sylvester, inspired by our great Kolbe's painting, has shown us a splendid collection of other pictures; and, though the colouring of them is delightful, still, they are nothing but pictures; they never could become situations, in living movement, as the narrative of the drama demands that they should do. Conrad, with his Rosa, and Reinhold as well, come in at the end merely that Friedrich's wedding feast may be pleasant and proper, as it ought to be. On the whole--as far as Conrad is concerned--if I did not know your simpleness of heart, Sylvester--if you had not, all through your tale, striven with good success to be always true and straight-forward, well! I should have been inclined to say that--in your Conrad--you had wished to be ironical over those wondrous characters who, in many of our modern novels, play leading parts--a sort of hash-up of loutishness, 'galanterie,' barbarism, and sentimentality who call themselves 'chivalrous,' but of whom, I fancy, there never was a prototype, any more than of those 'blusterers' whom Veit Weber and his followers used to portray, knocking everybody into minced meat, right and left, on every occasion."
Vincent said: "You have brought in the 'Berseker fury' certainly, with admirable effect. But it is unpardonable in you to have allowed a nobleman's back to be blued and blacked by the hoop of a cask, without the blue and blacked aristocrat having broken the head of the dealer of the blow. He might have begged his pardon politely afterwards, or applied an Arcanum which would have mended his head in a moment; after which he would have been aware of a distinct increase in his wisdom. The only gentleman whom you can quote as a prototype is the valiant knight Don Quixote, who got many a sound licking, notwithstanding his magnanimity, braggery, and chivalry."
"Blame as much as you please," said Sylvester, laughing. "I leave myself entirely in your hands; but let me say that where I find consolation is in the verdicts of those charming ladies to whom I read my 'Master Martin,' and who expressed thorough delight with the whole affair, and overwhelmed me with praise."
"Praise of that sort, from beautiful lips," said Ottmar, "certainly is wholly irresistible, and capable of leading many a romancer into wondrous follies, and scriptorial capers of every kind; but, if I am not mistaken, Lothair promised to finish this evening of ours with one of the productions of his fantastic dreamery."
"Yes," answered Lothair. "Recollect that I undertook to write a second story for my sister's children, and to be less wild, and more peaceable and 'childlike,' than I was in 'Nutcracker and the King of Mice.' The story is here, and you shall hear it."
Lothair then read:--