"You err, my lady," he said, "if you believe that Rothenburg would feel any honor about having a Doppler once more among them, or would allow this honor to cost them anything. When I, as I told you, merely curious to see the old fortress, strolled through the ancient gateway nine years ago, not a person there knew me, and even when I mentioned my name, they made little fuss about it. Indeed, as I was born in Nuremberg, and no longer have the T in my name, they greatly doubted that I really belonged to them. But, as the poet says, the history of the world is the final judgment; and what the magistrate of Rothenburg neglected to do--that is, to meet me ceremoniously, surrender to me for my sole possession the houses which the great burgomaster had owned, and support me for my lifetime as a living part of the city--fate, or providence, whichever you wish, did in another way.
"I came to Rothenburg merely to make a few studies and to take a look at the old-fashioned nest, and I found there my life's happiness and a warm, new nest of my own, to which I am now returning."
"May I know how it happened?"
"Why not, if it interests you at all. My parents sent me to the academy at Munich. They were not rich, but yet their means were sufficient to educate me suitably and to allow me to go through all the classes. I wished to become a landscape painter, and, after finishing school, to travel in Italy for several years. When I became twenty-one years of age I felt impelled, before undertaking the great art-journey, to visit my good mother at Nuremberg--father had been dead for some time. 'Hans,' said she, 'before you make your pilgrimage to Rome, you ought to take a trip to the place where the roots of our family tree stood before they were torn up and transplanted here from eastern Franconia.' She was a worthy old patrician, my good mother, and laid great stress on grand genealogical expressions. Well, there was nothing to hinder; I took my pilgrim's staff in hand and set out slowly toward the west, sketching industriously on the way; for this German landscape of ours was already far dearer to me than the unknown scenes of the south. Now, since you have looked through the portfolio, you may perhaps comprehend that the German Jerusalem impressed me strongly, and that I did not have hands and eyes enough to note all the remarkable things. But there was something in Rothenburg which won my approval even more than its dear antiquity; namely--I shall not treat you to any detailed love story--at one of the weekly balls given by the so-called 'Harmonic Society,' I became acquainted with the young daughter of a fine old citizen who had formerly been an alderman. She was full three years younger than I, and--I may surely say so--the prettiest child in the whole town. After the second waltz I knew my own mind well enough, but, unfortunately, neither hers nor her father's. And so it might have been a very sorrowful story, and the descendant of the great Toppler might, like him, have pined away in chains in this old 'imperial' town, if the before-mentioned fate had not interfered, and allowed me to cast a lucky throw with my family dice. In three days I was satisfied that the maiden liked me; and in three weeks, that the father would overlook my extreme youth and former misdoings, for he too--God knows why--had taken a foolish liking to me. It was especially pleasing to his Rothenburg heart that my name was Doppler, and that I knew how to paint the beautiful ruined walls, the wonderful turrets and strange fountains, of the old fortress. So, after a short year of probation, he gave me the hand of his only child, under the condition, to be sure, that I should leave her in her old home during his lifetime, and should devote my art principally to the glorification of his beloved town. You comprehend, my lady, that I did not struggle much against this. My father-in-law was not only a reputable man, who owned house and gardens, vineyards and farm lands, but the best soul in the world as well, and never failed to see a joke except when some one praised other ancient towns unduly, or placed Nuremberg or Augsburg above the 'Pearl of the Valley.' He lived with us for four years; and whenever I sold any picture of Rothenburg at a foreign exhibition, he always brought a flask of Tauber wine from the cellar and drank my health. When he finally died, I myself was altogether too much at home in the primitive, angular old house to think of moving. Then, too, there was no lack of commissions and work just commenced. But if the old man had lived to see my colored prints published, I believe he would have lost his reason for joy."
Becoming silent after this long narrative of his short life, he looked out of the window into the ever-deepening darkness, and lost himself in quiet revery. It finally occurred to him that the stranger had not said one syllable in reply; and at the same time he felt her eyes steadily regarding him from her dusky corner. "I am afraid," he said, "that after all, I have wearied you with these petty stories. But you yourself drew them from me, and if you knew--"
"You are greatly in error," she interrupted. "If I remain silent, it is merely because I am pondering a riddle."
"A riddle? That I have given you?"
"Yes, you, Herr Hans Doppler. I am asking myself, how I can reconcile the artist whom I recognize from this portfolio, with the staid, home-loving man--you have children too?"
"Four, my lady--two boys and two little girls."
"Well then--with the young husband and father who has settled down in his monotonous, commonplace happiness as in a snail-shell, and at most takes an occasional journey to Nuremberg--your drawings show unusual talent, for that you can take my word. I have seen the work of Hilderbrandt and Werner, and the whole Roman aquarelle club, and assure you yours would make a sensation among them. So much freedom and spirited ease, with such grace in the landscapes and staffage! And then to think that this unusual talent is doomed for the next thirty or forty years to no other expression than an endless variation of the towers, balconies, vaulted doors, and gabled roofs of a medieval nest which appears in our world like an excavated German Pompeii--But pardon me this criticism of your plan of life. I am not fitted to criticise it. However, as you wish to know the subject of my meditation, it was this problem: can a noble, liberal, artistic soul be so completely filled by commonplace family happiness? It must certainly be possible. Only to me, as I am accustomed to absolute freedom of existence, to boundless liberty, it is incomprehensible that you, scarcely thirty years old--"