CHAPTER IV.
This was the first day for many weeks on which he had felt warm, and as if he had enough to eat. Consequently he only made a few weak protests when Angelica insisted upon furnishing him his meals so long as their common labor lasted, and even made as though he did not notice that she acted like a very Penelope, and again and again put off the completion of the work under one pretext or another. However, the picture was finished at last, and Rosenbusch, who had in the mean while grown quite plump, would have been obliged to fall back again on his fasting and brooding, had not his friend taken care to provide for him without his knowledge.
She succeeded in bringing it about that all the friends of the inconsolable widow became possessed by a desire to have the effigy of their dead or living husbands, done in the same way. Thus it happened that our battle-painter was all at once completely overwhelmed with orders for equestrian portraits, whereat he flew into a great passion, for the modern uniforms were very much at variance with his Wouverman tendencies. However, there were always the horses to fall back on, and upon these he could labor with a good conscience, though he was always complaining that the modern prejudices in regard to horse-breeding had exterminated the majestic Flemish and Burgundian breeds. He painted away at them with great zeal, "for his meals," as he expressed it, and it was only when the approach of twilight forced him to leave off that he allowed himself the pleasure of going round to his neighbors, and inveighing against this servile labor to which his great work was being sacrificed.
Angelica never replied to his complaints by a single word. She had said once for all that she thought there was nothing unworthy in his painting military portraits by the dozen, provided he could get, respectable prices for them; and in support of this she referred him to some famous examples. But, in order that she might get him to work again upon some larger task, she persuaded the young widow to give him an order for the bombardment of Kissingen, at which her husband had fallen.
But in this case she had reckoned without her host. He absolutely refused to paint so prosaic an affair as the bombardment of a modern city, by modern troops who lay under cover and fired their cannon unseen. Besides, he had not been present at the affair. Had he taken part in person at the battle of Lützen? asked Angelica, maliciously. No; but that was not a parallel case at all. Everybody would like to have been present at such a glorious hand-to-hand fight as that, and would, therefore, feel grateful to the artist who did his best to fix on canvas the rearing chargers, the trumpeters blowing their bugles, and the foot soldiers charging and dealing blows to right and left with all their might. Modern battles, on the other hand, showed to quite as much advantage on the maps of the general staff, where one could follow on the table the scientifically-planned moves and countermoves by geometrical lines and different-colored little flags.
He could not be dissuaded from this, for on some subjects even Angelica's influence over him had its limits. But the more she scolded him for his obstinacy, and the more unsparing she was of her forcible expressions, the better pleased she was at heart that he showed himself so independent, so manly, and so unreasonable; and she often had hard work to keep from falling out of her rôle and throwing her arms around his neck.
She was less satisfied with the persistency with which he clung to his quiet melancholy, even after the beautiful weather had come, and there was no longer any lack of money, and his loose dress-coat had long since been exchanged for a natty summer jacket. She attributed this dejection of one who was generally so light-hearted to his affair with the beautiful Nanny, of which, contrary to his habit, he never spoke to her, but which, as she knew, had not turned out very satisfactorily. And so for many a day she sat dejectedly before her easel, listening to catch the slightest sound from her friend's silent studio, where, even now, the flute gave forth no music; while from the deserted rooms below no sound of mallet and chisel nor any other sound of life reached her ear.
In the mean while, as we have said, summer had come. Rossel had invited old Schoepf and his granddaughter to his villa on the lake. But as the old man did not think it would be just the thing for him to go and live with the girl under a bachelor's roof, and as she herself would not listen to the proposal for a moment, our "Fat Rossel" also remained in town, an arrangement, by-the-way, that was far more agreeable to him. Kohle alone took up his quarters with old Katie, in order to paint his allegory of Venus on the wall. The foster-mother had returned from Florence with a whole trunkful of articles of art and ornament for Angelica, and a thousand greetings from the happy pair. She was never tired of telling about the beautiful life the two were leading: how Herr Jansen had begun some wonderful new works; how the Frenchmen and Englishmen had gone wild over them; and how happy little Frances was with her beautiful mamma. She had also seen the baron and Irene, but nothing had as yet been heard of the young baron.
These accounts had greatly excited the good soul of our friend. Long after the cheerful little woman had gone, Angelica sat at the table on which she had spread out Julie's presents, the photographs taken from the pictures of the Tribuna, the mosaic brooch and the beautiful silks, and sadly reflected whether she would not have done better if she had crossed the Alps when she was asked, instead of staying here at home and torturing her soul with the pangs of a hopeless love.
Just then she heard Rosenbusch rush whistling upstairs with unusual haste. Immediately after he entered her studio. His face had the same thoughtless, dare-devil expression that it used to have in his most flourishing days, when he still wore his violet-velvet coat.