Veit Stoss drew a heavy breath and turned to his companion. "It is a masterpiece," he said, gravely, "which I should be proud to call my own. I congratulate you on the possession of so great a treasure."
"It is not mine," returned the artisan, "but my daughter's. Gabriel wrought it for her wedding-gift."
The wood-carver's keen blue eyes scanned Kala's pretty, stolid face, and then wandered to Sigmund's broad shoulders and mighty bulk. A faint, derisive smile curled his well-cut lips. "Your daughter's beauty merits, indeed, the rarest of all rare tokens," he said, slowly. "But perhaps there are other things more needful to a young housewife than even this precious bit of carving. If she will part with it I will pay her seventy thalers, and it shall lie in St. Sebald's Church near my own Virgin, that all may see its loveliness and remember the hand that fashioned it."
Seventy thalers! Sigmund dropped the dog and lifted his handsome head with a look of blank bewilderment. Seventy thalers for a bit of wood like that, when his own strong arms could not earn as much in months! He stared at the little image in wondering perplexity, as though striving to see by what mysterious process it had arrived at such a value; while into his heart crept a thought strictly in keeping with his practical nature. If the humpback could have produced work worth so much, what a thousand pities he should die with only one piece finished!
On Lisbeth, too, a revelation seemed to have fallen. Her wheel had stopped, and in her mind she was rapidly running over a list of household goods valued at seventy thalers. It was a mental calculation quickly and cleverly accomplished; for Lisbeth was not slow in all things, and years of thrift had taught her the full worth of money. Instinctively she glanced at her husband and marvelled at his unmoved face.
"Your offer is a liberal one, Master Stoss," said Peter, gravely. "And I rejoice to think that the poor lad's genius will be recognized. In him Nuremberg would have had another famous son."
"In him Nuremberg has now a famous son," corrected Veit Stoss, laying his hand upon the statue. "No other proof of greatness can be needed." With gentle care he replaced the cloth and lifted the precious burden in his arms, when suddenly Kala sprang forward, her cheeks ablaze, her blue eyes dark with anger. Transfigured for one instant into a new and passionate beauty, she snatched the image from his hands.
"It is mine!" she cried, fiercely; "mine! Gabriel loved me, and carved it for me when he knew that he was dying. It was for me he did it, and you shall not take it from me."
She gathered it to her bosom with a low, broken cry, and darted from the room. God only knows what late love, and pity, and remorse were working in her breast. Veit Stoss turned softly to her father. "It is enough," he said. "Your daughter has the prior right, and I came not here to wrong her."
And so the hand which had robbed Gabriel of love and life robbed him of fame. For the statue which should have given joy to generations remained unknown in the artisan's family. At first many came to see and wonder at its beauty; but with the advent of a colder creed men wanted not such tokens of a vanished fervor, and the little Christ-Child was soon forgotten by the world. Perhaps Kala's sturdy grandchildren destroyed it as a useless toy; perhaps it perished by fire, or flood, or evil accident. No memory of it lingers in the streets of Nuremberg; and Gabriel, lifted beyond the everlasting hills, knoweth the vanity of all human wishes.