“Who is this new genius—a Berliner?”
Several other faces turned upon the hostess.
“No, a recent arrival. He hails originally from the Rhineland but he has just come from Goettingen, a student of Jurisprudence——”
“With no past?”
“All future,” laughed Rahel. “Yes, he has something pelled from Goettingen——”
“Then there is indeed hope for him,” struck in Gubitz, editor of the “Gesellschafter.”
“I expect him here this evening,” Rahel soon added seriously. “He has real talent. He promised to bring a few of his poems and I may induce him to read them to us.”
When Rahel praised the most critical paused to consider. She had been the first to proclaim Goethe’s supremacy when to the literary world at large he was still “only one of the poets.”
Soon Albert was announced and every one divined that he was the object of Rahel’s admiration. Even Hegel, who was still elucidating his trend of thought, raised his eyes to get a glimpse of the newcomer.
Dressed in a velvet frock coat and frilled shirt, with lace falling over his white, beautifully shaped hands, with a broad laid-down collar, he looked taller than he actually was. In his face was boyishness with something indefinable about the deep corners of his mouth that already spoke of world-weariness, and the peculiar twinkle in his narrowed eyes accentuated the suggestion of cynicism.