“What good will that do?”
“I will transform it into Stollborg. We will give it another name, but I will use the same romantic view that struck me so forcibly on the lake at sunset, and of which I made a sketch.”
“You are going to paint?”
“Yes; while you write, whether well or ill, it makes no difference; I have deciphered such quantities of hieroglyphics with my poor Goffredi! Remember, we have very little time. I have whatever is necessary to change my scenes for the requirements of any special occasion. A little dissolved glue in a tin box, and a few bags of powdered paint of different colors, are enough. The canvas is no larger than the back of my theatre, and the colors dry in five minutes. That will be about as much time as I shall need to introduce a window into my square tower. See, Monsieur Goefle, in the first place I render it practicable by making a slit in the canvas with my shears, and then I warm my glue on the stove. With this charcoal I sketch that row of great boulders. Some of them hang over—I studied them carefully, for it is a wonderful group. I give the tone of ice to this foreground—oh no, it must be water, since we are to have a boat—”
“Where will you get it?”
“In the property-box there. Don’t you suppose I have a boat? There are ships, too, and carriages, and carts, and all kinds of animals. I could not get along at all without that collection of profiles that are necessary in all my pieces, and which take up very little room. Another idea, M. Goefle: I will put the boat in that vault under the boulders.”
“What for?”
“Why, because it will give us a splendid effect! We are to have a very mysterious birth for our infant, I suppose?”
“Of course.”
“Environed with perils?”