"'Attempt, and travel, and do whatever you like!' interrupted his Excellency, 'I don't trouble myself about it. I have occupied myself in your affairs for the last time! If I were to get for you ten livings, you would give all away the next moment to the first, best poor devil that prayed you for them, with his full complement of wife and ten children!
"'Lundholm, wash me the glass! I never drink out of a glass from which a Bishop has drunk!'
"His Excellency had already turned his back upon me, and went again into his chamber cursing his gout, without the slightest parting word to me. The parrot, however, on the contrary, turned itself about on the stick, and cried out with all its might, 'Adieu to thee! adieu to thee!'
"With this greeting, perhaps the last in the house of his Excellency, I retired; but not without, I must confess, stopping a few moments on the steps, and wetting the stones with my tears. It was not the loss of a powerful patron which gave me so much pain, but—I had so admired this man, I had loved him with such an actual devotion; I looked up to him as to one of the noblest and most distinguished of men. He also seemed really to like me—at least I thought so; and now all at once he was so changed, so stern towards me, and as it seemed to me so unreasonable. It actually gave me pain to find so little that was noble in him, so little that was just! These were my feelings in those first bitter moments. When I came to think over the whole event more calmly, I could almost believe that he had received beforehand an unjust representation of the whole affair, and that I encountered him while under its influence. Over and above, he had reason to be dissatisfied with the whole thing, and then just at that moment a fit of the gout seized him! I have written to him from this place, and I feel it impossible to give up the hope of seeing his sentiments mollified towards me."
Louise, however, did not think so favourably of his sentiments; thought Jacobi quite too indulgent, and was altogether irritated against his Excellency.
"It is quite the best not to trouble oneself about him," said she.
Jacobi smiled. "His poor Excellency!" said he.