The young girl gazed at it a long, long time, without a word, only once pausing in her scrutiny to ask: “And you, you painted this—without the master?”
Ulrich shook his head, saying, in an undertone: “I suppose he thinks it is my own work; and yet—I can’t understand it.”
“But I can,” she eagerly exclaimed, still gazing intently at the portrait.
At last, turning her round, pleasant flee towards him, she looked at him with tears in her eyes, saying so affectionately that the innermost depths of Ulrich’s heart were stirred: “How glad I am! I could never accomplish such a work. You will become a great artist, a very distinguished one, like Moor. Take notice, you surely will. How beautiful that is!—I can find no words to express my admiration.”
At these words the blood mounted to Ulrich’s brain, and either the fiery wine he had drunk, or the delighted girl’s prophetic words, or both, fairly intoxicated him. Scarcely knowing what he said or did, he seized Isabella’s little hand, impetuously raised his curly head, and enthusiastically exclaimed: “Hear me! your prophecy shall be fulfilled, Belica; I will be an artist. Art, Art alone! The master said everything else is vain—trivial. Yes, I feel, I am certain, that the master is right.”
“Yes, yes,” cried Isabella; “you must become a great artist.”
“And if I don’t succeed, if I accomplish nothing more than this....”
Here Ulrich suddenly paused, for he remembered that he was going away, perhaps to-morrow, so he continued sadly, in a calmer tone: “Rely upon it; I will do what I can, and whatever happens, you will rejoice, will you not, if I succeed-and if it should be otherwise....”
“No, no,” she eagerly exclaimed. “You can accomplish everything, and I—I; you don’t know how happy it makes me that you can do more than I!”
Again he held out his hand, and as Isabella warmly clasped it, the watchful duenna’s harsh voice cried: