CHAPTER XIII.
ELEVEN o'clock in the forenoon.
Only somehow Eva is not visible.
I am wearing a coarse linen shirt, open at the breast, a coat somewhat worn, but fairly good, a girdle, boots, everything that is needed. The hair of a gray wig falls in my eyes; and he would have been a keen man who could have recognized that as a wig; my beard was a masterpiece of patience. From eight o'clock in the morning I had been fastening, by means of isinglass, white hair among my own, and I had become gray in such fashion that in old age I shall not grow gray more naturally; diluted sepia gave me swarthiness; and Antek made wrinkles with the power of a genius. I seemed to be seventy years old.
Antek insists that, instead of painting, I could earn my bread as a model, which would in truth be with greater profit to art.
Half-past eleven—Eva is coming.
I send to the carriage a bundle containing my usual clothing, since, for aught I know, I may be obliged to change costume; I take the lyre then, and go down; at the door of the carriage I cry,—
"Slava Bogu!" [23]
Eva is astonished and enchanted.