“So much the better!”
“So much the worse: for I should like to understand you.”
“Do you hear nothing?”
“No.”
“It is past! Let us go—I do not generally like company; but—you are not a composer—you are not a Berliner?”
“I cannot conceive what so prejudices you against the Berliners. Here, where art is so highly esteemed and practised by the people in the highest degree—I should think that a man of your genius in art would like to be.”
“You are mistaken. I am condemned for my torment to wander about here in this deserted place like a departed spirit.”
“Here in Berlin—a deserted place?”
“Yes, it is deserted to me, for I can find no kindred spirit here. I am alone.”
“But the artists!—the composers!”