He did not sit down for one instant.
"Merci, merci" said he to the master of the house who indicated a chair to him; "I am in such a condition, that really, I cannot sit in one place. Something within me is toiling, and crying, and biting. I am full of trembling of hopes, and of anger—" A brick-colored rosy blush appeared on his yellow cheeks; as usual, he spoke through his nose and through his teeth, but more quickly than common. While walking through the drawing-room he said, that in smaller and greater country residences which he had visited he had found a few remnants of former wealth, specimens of art, and of ornamental industry, which were of considerable, and sometimes even of high, value. A multitude of these rich things had been acquired by the English, who had circled about through the country more than once in pursuit of them; but much remained yet, and the only need was to inquire, seek, examine, and it was possible to find real treasures, even, often most unexpectedly. He halted before Maryan.
"I say this because who, for example, could hope or expect to find in possession of a schoolmaster, a teacher of geography, an absolute Arcadian, a picture by Steinle hung behind a door, smoked befouled by flies—an undoubted, a genuine Steinle—Edward Steinle—"
"But is it undoubted?" interrupted Maryan; "once more I turn thy attention to certain traits which seem to speak in favor of Kupelweiser."
"What, Kupelweiser!" cried the baron, walking still more quickly through the drawing-room. "No Kupelweiser, my dear; not a shadow of a Kupelweiser. Kupelweiser, though the teacher of Steinle was considerably inferior to him in drawing—that firmness and elegance of outline, that harmony of composition, that piety, that genuine compunction which is dominant in the faces of the saints—that is Steinle, the purest Steinle, undoubted Steinle, whose collection of cartoons in Frankfort—"
"Was Steinle, for I do not recollect, pre-Raphaelite?" put in
Kranitski timidly, somewhat ashamed of his ignorance.
"Yes, if you like," answered the baron, "we may reckon among the pre-Raphaelites the German school of Nazarenes. But this school is distinct."
"Then surely you examined this Steinle to-day, my dears, before you came to me?"
"Yes, we heard of it by chance; we went to examine it, and imagine, we found this pearl in the possession of an Arcadian who has neither a conception, nor the shadow of a conception of the Nazarenes, or who Steinle—"
"But perhaps we should pardon him," laughed Maryan, "for the Germans themselves know almost nothing of Steinle, who fell into disfavor among his successors."