"You are, and always will be, a confirmed idealist," said Rossel, in a low tone, without raising his eyes from Felix's sleeping figure. "Instead of taking advantage of the opportunity and making some splendid studies from real life here, you quietly work away at your fables and turn your back on this fine specimen of Nature."
"I merely want to sketch in the outlines of the figures," the artist responded. "It flashed across me, early this morning, to try whether they will do on a large scale as well as in the sketch. I think, after all, I shall have to shift this central group a little more to the left, so as to give the whole more symmetry."
"Any stranger hearing you talk in this way, Kohle, my boy, would suppose you were such an unsympathetic art-machine that even in the midst of murder and violence you could think of nothing but your Venus. But I know that with you it is merely an unconscious way of keeping up your heart, just as Schnetz drank a glass of schnapps and I smoked a chibouque after the first pull was over. Every one has a specific by which he swears, and yours, moreover, is one of the sort that never runs dry. But now, just come here and take a look at this model. After all, these aristocratic families now and then produce some fine specimens, turned out after the true noblesse oblige principle. What a neck and shoulders this youngster has! And just see, Kohle, how the biceps stands out through his tight-fitting shirt-sleeves. A young Achilles, corpo di Bacco! Upon my word I should just like, now, in this soft evening light, if I only had colors and canvas--"
"I can help you out with those," interrupted Kohle, also speaking in a carefully suppressed voice. "I provided myself with a palette only yesterday--old Katie wants to have her portrait painted for her grandchild--I think the canvas--"
"Don't bother yourself about it, my good fellow. Perhaps, after all, it is more sensible of me to study him with my eyes. But look, he tosses about so often! And now again, it's fine the way the forehead is rounded out, and then the splendid form of the brows. No wonder he has good luck with the women; and that even that witch Zenz, who, as a general thing, is as unapproachable as you please, runs after this fine fellow like Kätchen von Heilbronn. I only wish--"
At this moment the door opened, and she of whom he was speaking stole in on tiptoe with her bouquet. But, light as her step was, it seemed to have awakened the sleeper. He groaned slightly, threw his right arm above his head and then slowly opened his eyes.
"Beautiful flowers!" he murmured. "Good-morning! How goes it!--how is art getting on?"
Then, without waiting for an answer, and as if he were recalling to his mind a face that had appeared to him in his dreams, he said:
"I only wish I knew--whether it were really she. Has any one--asked after me?"
Zenz approached softly and held the bouquet before him, so that his pale face blushed from the reflection of the dark roses, and said, in a whisper: