The postage for this parcel cost him his last kreutzer. That day it was nine o'clock in the evening before he ate his dinner (on credit); and even then he went to bed hungry.
But, though he deceived all others by the smiling mien with which he wrapped himself in his shawl and his love-sickness, there were two eyes near him that he could not blind in this way.
Those were the eyes of his neighbor Angelica, and they, too, no longer saw the world in such a rosy light as that in which it had appeared at Christmas.
The necessity that was inborn in her nature, to passionately worship something or other, and to give vent to her adoration in extravagant terms, no longer found anything to feed on since the departure of the happy pair. Indeed, she would have had a very poor opinion of herself if, after having found in Jansen the ideal of a true artist, and in Julie the quintessence of beauty, she had now been contented to take up with anything of a lower grade. At first she tried hard to grow sentimental over little Frances, and to transfer to the child the enthusiasm she felt for its parents. But as this was attended with some difficulty because of their living so far apart, as well as on account of a certain reserve peculiar to the little creature, she gradually withdrew from this also, and contented herself with visiting the child every Sunday and making enthusiastic speeches about its talents to its foster-mother. The sensible little woman always received them rather coolly, partly because she disliked everything like gushing compliments, and partly because she felt hurt that her own children were completely overlooked. For this reason, and for this reason only, she was not sorry when, toward spring, a letter came from Julie with the request to bring the child to its parents in Florence as soon as the state of the weather would permit. Unfortunately, she could not come for the child herself as she had hoped, her doctor having forbidden her "for important reasons" to take the journey. Still, she had too great a yearning to see Frances to be able to wait any longer, and she entreated the faithful foster-mother to make still another sacrifice for her sake, and to take advantage of the occasion to get a peep at their Italian home.
Some fine presents were added for the other children and a letter for Angelica, in which her friend heartily besought her to accompany the child, and, if possible, to spend the whole summer with them. Jansen seconded this invitation in a very kind postscript; and the money enclosed for the traveling expenses was reckoned for three persons.
It is needless to describe the feelings of this good soul as she read this letter, and saw the prospect opened to her of seeing again with her own eyes, and clasping again in her arms, all that she loved and admired. With beating heart and glowing cheeks she sat for a good hour motionless before her easel, and had never in all her life felt so happily unhappy or so torn by conflicting wishes. When at last she had clearly made up her mind to decline the proffered happiness, she appeared, in her own eyes, such a subject for commiseration, notwithstanding all her consciousness of heroic virtue, that she began to weep bitterly, and did not heed how her tears fell upon a wreath of flowers in water color that she had just painted, moistening them with an all too natural dew.
CHAPTER III.
In order to explain this, we must disclose a secret that our artist had heretofore guarded carefully from every one--even from herself, as far as such a thing was possible.
The fate of the one man with whom this peaceable soul always stood on a war-footing, and who, as it seemed, possessed none of all the qualities by which one could generally win her love and admiration, had become of such importance to her in the course of time, that her own weal and woe, and even such a happiness as had just been offered her, became but a secondary matter when compared with it.
That violent hate can turn into burning love is a fact that is no longer considered strange. But the transformation of a thoroughly honest and obvious contempt into the exact opposite, without the object of these conflicting feelings having changed especially himself, must ever remain a difficult riddle to solve. This was especially the case because this contempt for her neighbor was not directed against his character as an artist and a man, of whose good qualities she might in time have become more clearly convinced, but rested solely on the contradiction in their characters, which appeared to her to have been completely reversed in their cases from what Nature had intended.