"It is the head of a man who recalls to me Tasso's words:
'And if all the gods united
To bring him gifts to the cradle,
The Graces, alas! were not there.'
This man can never be happy, because he will never desire to be happy."
"And that is why this man will drop out of my life as this leaf drops out of my album. If one could kill memory as one can destroy a paper, it would no longer be here. But since that cannot be done, let it stay there. Go on!"
The storm in Oswald's heart had passed by. Like a soft spring breeze the thought came to him: She could not and would not tell you that if she did not think you deserved her confidence and her friendship. And he felt a sense of unspeakable happiness in this thought. It was one of those solemn, sublime moments which flash once or twice through the night of every man's life--one of those moments when we see the heavens open, and the angelic choir go up and down singing. Peace! Peace! unto our ready heart ...
In this blissful disposition he looked over the other drawings which Melitta had made during her Italian journey--landscapes in clear, well-defined lines; sketches from cities, palaces, streets, and ruins; between, a lazzaroni face or a dreamy girl's countenance. Then came studies from the antique, generally very painstaking studies; then again some subject was drawn over and over till it satisfied Melitta's keen criticism. A head of the Venus of Milo was particularly fine. On one of the following pages was the whole statue.
"Where did you draw that?" asked Oswald. "Surely not from a copy?"
"No, from the original! had become half a Catholic in Italy, and when I saw the lofty form in the Louvre in Paris, I said to myself, This, and no other, is your saint! Oh, you cannot imagine how beautiful she is! how beautiful and good! and this expression of heavenly goodness, which is not found in any other Venus, not, in fact, in any other antique head, but only in the Venus of Milo, touched me even more deeply than her heavenly beauty. When I saw that statue I felt for the first time in my life how it might be possible to pray, to pray sincerely, earnestly, before an image made by the hand of man. Why do you look so solemn and thoughtful? Here, take that pencil and write under the statue what you have just been thinking, for I saw you were making verses."
Oswald took the pencil which Melitta offered him, half in earnest, half in jest, and wrote, with a trembling hand, while Melitta was looking over his shoulder:
Away in Paris, in a lofty hall,