Don Juan of Austria sometimes met him in the park. Once the Emperor's son called to him:
"Well, Navarrete, how goes the enlisting?"
But Ulrich would not abandon his art, though he had long doubted its omnipotence. The nearer the second month approached its close, the more frequently, the more fervently he called upon the "word," but it did not hear.
When it grew dark, a strong impulse urged him to go to the city, seek brawls, and forget himself at the gaming-table; but he did not yield, and to escape the temptation, fled to the church, where he spent whole hours, till the sacristan put out the lights.
He was not striving for communion with the highest things, he felt no humble desire for inward purification; far different motives influenced him.
Inhaling the atmosphere laden with the soft music of the organ and the fragrant incense, he could converse with his beloved dead, as if they were actually present; the wayward man became a child, and felt all the gentle, tender emotions of his early youth again stir his heart.
One night during the last week before the expiration of the allotted time, a thought which could not fail to lead him to his goal, darted into his brain like a revelation.
A beautiful woman, with a child standing in her lap, adorned the canvas.
What efforts he had made to lend these features the right expression.
Memory should aid him to gain his purpose. What woman had ever been fairer, more tender and loving than his own mother?