"Thank you. Every one has his manner, and my ideas never come to me until I see them first upon the canvas. But listen, Rosenbusch, does this dry mental painting take up all your time? Couldn't you steal a few hours in the day for outside work? A young officer's widow has given me an order for a portrait of her husband, who fell at Kissingen, to be inclosed in a wreath of laurels, cypresses, and passion-flowers--between ourselves, a regular sampler idea. Only think of it: the departed one on horseback, in the background the city; and around it all a wreath, like onions about a dish of sauerkraut and sausages. I let fall a few hints, as to whether it would not look better, perhaps, if we should leave out the wreath, or at most paint in the bust of the deceased? But no, it would not do to leave out the horse, he might almost have been said to have been one of the family, the widow declared--a beautiful bay stallion with a white star; and he had also died in consequence of a wound. As the times are bad and the lady did not find the price I asked any too high, I accepted the commission. I immediately said to myself, it is nonsense; the horses that you paint look a good deal like hippopotamuses, so you can't get it done without Rosenbusch's help; and as he is now at work on his great picture--but still, as you are only painting it in your head--"
She turned away, so that he should not see the sly look that flashed over her round face. But, in his wretched state of body and mind, all his sharpness had left him.
"You know, Angelica," said he, "that if I were painting the battles of Alexander, I would always have time enough left for you. Besides, one nag won't be anything of a job. I shall paint him with wide-spread nostrils snuffing at the wreath, as though the laurels that beckoned to his master had excited his own appetite. Symbolical allusions like that can give an interesting air even to the most foolish picture."
"Will you have the goodness to dispense with all your jokes? The matter is serious, the picture is to be placed on a sort of household altar in the widow's sleeping-chamber, and a night-lamp is to be kept constantly burning before it. So, if you will undertake to do the figures, including, of course, the portrait of the officer--a photograph of the horse is also to be sent to me to-day--I will paint a wreath around them, and we will go shares in the fame and money."
She named twice the sum she had asked. For she was determined to let him have the whole, which would be no inconsiderable sum for him in his present state. But to her alarm he did not show the slightest joy at this unhoped-for income.
"My dear friend," he said, "the two departed ones shall be painted, and I promise you they shall bear as close a resemblance to a fallen hero and a defunct war-horse as any sorrowing widow could possibly wish. I will also, if you insist upon it, paint my monogram on the nag's saddle-cloth, so that we may figure together in art-history, like Rubens and Blumenbreughel. But you alone must have the money. I will never consent to be paid in vile lucre for acts of friendship, especially toward a lady, and above all toward an honored patroness and neighbor. And, by the way, we can commence at once; I have come to a halt in my composition--particularly as I have a cold in my head--and as one finally gets quite confused merely from the number of good thoughts that come to him--therefore, if you please--"
He approached with arm gracefully bent, in order to escort her over to her studio.
Angelica knew him well enough to feel sure that nothing in the world would shake him in the resolution he had taken; and, since everything that was chivalrous in his character flattered her hidden liking, she made no attempt to dissuade him. She would find some way of recompensing him for his trouble without offending his sense of courtesy, and a great deal had already been won in inducing him to go to work again and to come into a heated room.
There, to be sure, he was obliged to take off his shawl and appear in the unlucky dress-coat which, having been intended for Rossel's rounded proportions, hung very loosely about his shrunken limbs. However, he was not in the least embarrassed by this, but proceeded to explain to his friend, with the greatest seriousness, the advantage of having one's clothes too large. In the summer they were airy, for they caught the wind; in the winter they retained a larger supply of warm air--a movable wadding, as it were, between the body and the cloth--while they were much warmer in an unheated room, especially when covered by a shawl, on account of their having so much more material. He delivered this lecture over a cup of tea which Angelica had prepared for him, and which evidently restored to his inner man the warmth he had so long been without. As he was never more active than when he was working for others, the rough sketch of the equestrian portrait was completed in a few hours, and so skillfully set in Angelica's border of flowers that, as she expressed it, the whole picture looked "quite crazy enough," and they were able to proceed at once to the shading.
Over this common labor, that afforded them both great pleasure and gave occasion for innumerable jests, the forenoon had slipped away unheeded. Angelica proposed to take her dinner in her studio to-day, against which proposition Rosenbusch had nothing to object. She dispatched the janitor with a few secret commissions, and in a short time had improvised such an excellent meal that Rosenbusch burst out in great enthusiasm.