“Florentin entered the grotto, and was surprised at Berthold, who, with beaming countenance, pressed him to his heart, while the tears streamed from his eyes. ‘My friend! my friend!’ he stammered forth; ‘I am happy—I am blessed—she is found—found!’ He hurried to his atelier, and stretching the canvass began to paint as if inspired by divine power, he charmed before him the superterrestrial woman—for so he thought her—with the full glow of life. From this moment his inmost soul was entirely changed. Far from feeling that melancholy which preyed upon his heart, he was serene and cheerful. He industriously studied the chefs-d’oeuvre of the old painters. Many of his copies were perfectly successful, and now, for the first time, he began to produce paintings which caused astonishment among all the connoisseurs. As for landscapes, they were no more to be thought of, and Hackert himself confessed that the youth had not till now discovered his proper vocation. He had to paint many large works, such as altar-pieces for churches, and generally selected the more cheerful subjects of Christian tradition. From all of these, however, the noble form of his ideal beamed forth. It was discovered that the face and figure of the Princess Angiola T—— were represented to the life; nay, this fact was communicated to the young painter himself, and knowing folks waggishly insinuated that the German was smitten to the heart by the brilliant eyes of the lovely dame. Berthold was highly indignant at this silly gossip of people who wished to lower the heavenly into the mere earthy. ‘Do you believe,’ he said, ‘that such a being could wander here upon earth? No; the highest was revealed in a wondrous vision; it was the moment when the artist receives consecration.’ Berthold lived happy, until the French army, after Bonaparte’s conquests in Italy, approached the kingdom of Naples, and the revolution, which so fearfully destroyed all the peaceful relations of the place, broke out. The king and queen had left Naples, and the Citta was appointed. The vicar-general concluded a disgraceful truce with the French commander, and the French commissaries soon came to receive the sums that were to be paid them. The vicar-general fled to escape the rage of the people, who believed themselves deserted by him, by the Citta, and, in short, by all who could defend them against the approaching enemy. Then were all the bands of society loosened. The people, in a state of wild anarchy, set law and order at defiance, and with the cry, ‘Viva la Santa Fede!’ wild hordes ran through the streets plundering and burning the houses of the nobles, who they thought had sold them to the enemy. Vain were the endeavours of Moliterno and Rocca Romana, who were the favourites of the people, and had been elected for leaders: vain were their endeavours to restore order. The dukes Delia Torre and Clement Filomarino were murdered, but the thirst for blood among the raging people was not yet satisfied. Berthold had just been able to escape, half-dressed, from a burning house, when he met a mob, that with kindled torches and glittering knives, was hurrying to the palace of the Duke of T——. These madmen, taking him for one of their own class, carried him along with them, shouting, ‘Viva la Santa Fede!’ and in a few minutes the duke, the servants, every one who resisted, were murdered, and the palace, into which Berthold was more and more forced by the throng, was in flames. Thick clouds of smoke rolled through the long passages. Berthold, in danger of being burned to death, darted through the now open doors in hopes of finding an outlet, but all in vain; a piercing shriek of agony struck his ear, and he rushed into the hall. A woman was struggling with a lazzarone, who held her fast, and was about to plunge a knife in her heart. It was the princess—it was Berthold’s ideal! Losing all consciousness with horror, he sprang towards them, and it was but the work of a moment to seize the lazzarone, to fling him to the ground, to plunge his own knife in his throat, to catch the princess in his arms, to fly with her through the flaming ruins, to dash down the steps, and to go on—on—through the dense crowd of people. None attempted to stop him in his flight. With the bloody knife in his hand, with his face begrimed by smoke, with his clothes torn, he was taken for a plunderer and murderer by the people, who willingly conceded him his prey. In a deserted corner of the city, beneath an old wall, to which, as if by instinct he had run to escape danger, he fell exhausted. On recovering, he found the princess kneeling at his side, and washing his forehead with cold water. ‘Oh thanks!—thanks!’ said she, in the softest and most lovely voice; ‘thanks to the saints that thou hast recovered, my preserver, my all!’ Berthold raised himself,—he fancied he was dreaming, he looked with fixed eyes upon the princess—yes, it was herself—the celestial form which had kindled the divine spark in his breast. ‘Is it possible?—Is it true?—Do I live?’ he exclaimed. ‘Yes,’ replied the princess, ‘thou livest for me. That which thou didst not venture even to hope, has happened through a miracle. Oh! I know thee well,—thou art the German painter, Berthold, who loved me, and ennobled me in his beautiful works. Was it then possible for me to be thine? But now I am thine for ever—let us fly!’ A strange feeling, as when a sudden pain disturbs sweet dreams, darted through Berthold as the princess spoke. But when the lovely woman clasped him with her full, snow-white arms, when he pressed her passionately to his bosom, then did a delicious trembling, hitherto unknown, take possession of him, and in the mad delight of possessing the greatest earthly felicity, he cried: ‘Oh, it was no delirious dream! No! it is my wife whom I embrace, and whom I will never leave!’
“Escape from the city was at first impossible, for at the gate stood the French army, whose entrance the people, although badly armed and without leaders, were able to dispute for two days. Berthold, however, succeeded in flying with Angiola from one hiding-place to another, and at last out of the city. Angiola, deeply enamoured of him, could not think of remaining in Italy; she wished her family to consider her dead, that Berthold’s possession of her might be secure. A diamond necklace, and some valuable rings which she wore, were sufficient to provide them with all necessaries at Rome—whither they had proceeded by slow degrees—and they arrived happily at M——, in Southern Germany, where Berthold intended to settle, and to support himself by his art. Was it not a state of felicity, not even to be dreamed, that Angiola, that creature of celestial loveliness, that ideal of his most delightful visions, now became his own,—when all social laws had seemed to raise an insurmountable barrier between him and his beloved? Berthold could hardly comprehend his happiness, he was abandoned to inexpressible delight, until the inner voice became louder and louder, urging him to think of his art. He determined to found his fame at M—— by a large picture which he designed for the Maria church there. The whole subject was to be the very simple one of Mary and Elizabeth sitting on the grass in a beautiful garden, with the infant Christ and John playing before them; but all his efforts to obtain a pure spiritual view of his picture proved fruitless. As in that unhappy period of the crisis the forms floated away from him, and it was not the heavenly Mary—no, it was an earthly woman, his Angiola herself, fearfully distorted, that stood before the eyes of his mind. He fancied that he could defy the gloomy power that seemed to grasp him,—he prepared his colours and began to paint; but his strength was broken, and all his endeavours were—as they had been formerly—only the puny efforts of a senseless child. Whatever he painted was stiff and inanimate, and even Angiola,—Angiola his ideal, became, when she sat to him, and he tried to paint her, a mere wax image on the canvass, staring at him with its glassy eyes. His soul became more and more the prey of a despondency, that consumed all the happiness of his life. He would not, nay, he could not, work any more; and thus he fell into a state of poverty, which was the more crushing, because Angiola did not utter a word of complaint.
“‘The grief that gnawed more and more into my soul, that grief that was the offspring of a hope, invariably deceived, when I summoned powers that were no longer mine, soon reduced me to a state that might be compared to madness. My wife bore me a son,—that increased my misery, and my long suppressed discontent broke out into open, burning hate. She—she alone had been the cause of my unhappiness. She was not the ideal which had appeared to me, but had only assumed the form and face of that heavenly woman. In wild despair I cursed her and her innocent child. I wished them both dead, that I might be freed from the insupportable pains that tortured me, like so many burning knives. Thoughts of hell arose in my mind. In vain did I read in Angiola’s corpse-like face, and in her tears, the madness and impiety of my conduct. ‘Thou hast cheated me out of my life, cursed woman!’ I thundered forth, and thrust her away with my foot, when she fell fainting to the ground and clasped my knees.’
“Berthold’s mad, cruel conduct towards his wife and child excited the attention of the neighbours, who informed the magistrates of the circumstance. They wished to imprison him; but when the police entered his dwelling, he had vanished with his wife and child, without leaving so much as a trace behind. Soon afterwards he appeared at N——, in Upper Silesia; he had got rid of his wife and child, and cheerfully began to paint the picture which he had vainly attempted at M——. However he could only finish the Virgin Mary, and the children—Christ and John—for he fell into a dreadful illness, which brought him near the death he desired. Every thing that belonged to him, including the unfinished picture, was sold for his subsistence; and, after he had recovered, in some measure, he departed, a sick, miserable beggar. He afterwards gained a poor livelihood by a few jobs of wall-painting.”
“There is something terrible in the history of Berthold,” said I to the professor. “Although so much is not plainly expressed, I believe that he was the reckless murderer of his innocent wife and child.”
“He is a mad fool,” replied the professor, “to whom I do not give credit for enough courage to perform such an act. On this point he never speaks plainly; and the question is, whether it be not a mere fancy that he took any part in the death of his wife and child. He now returns to painting marble; and this very night he will finish the altar. This puts him in a good-humour, and you may learn something about this critical affair from his own mouth.”
I must confess that the thought of passing midnight in the church alone with Berthold made me shudder a little, now I had read his history. I thought that there might be a little of the devil in him in spite of his good-humour and frank deportment; and I chose rather to be in his company that very noon in the clear sunlight.
I found him upon the scaffold, reserved and in an ill-humour, painting the veins of marble. Climbing up to him, I reached him the pots, while he stared at me with amazement. “I am your helpmate,” said I softly, and this drew a smile from him. Now I began to talk of his life, so as to let him know that I was acquainted with all; and he seemed to believe that he himself had, on that night, communicated every thing. Very, very gently I came to the frightful catastrophe, and then said suddenly—“Did you actually, in your unholy madness, murder your wife and child?”
At this he let the paint-pot and the pencil fall; and, staring at me with a hideous countenance, as he raised both his hands, cried out, “No, these hands are unstained by the blood of my wife—of my son! Another such word and I will dash myself down from the scaffolding with you, so that both our heads shall be shattered on the stone floor of the church.”