"It depends upon the bounty of those who bestowed it; and the favor of princes is capricious. Then again, it was given on condition I remained in the territory of Austria, at the time the king of Westphalia offered me the place of chapel-master at Cassel. Alas! I cannot beat the restriction. I must travel, brother—I must leave this city."
"You-leave Vienna?" exclaimed his brother in utter amazement, looking at the feeble old man whose limbs could scarcely bear him from one street to another. Then, recollecting himself, he wrote down his question.
"Why? Because I am restless and unhappy. I have no peace, Carl! Is it not the chafing of the unchained spirit that pants to be free, and to wander through God's limitless universe? Alas! she is built up in a wall of clay, and not a sound can penetrate her gloomy dungeon."
Overcome by his feelings, the old man bowed his head on his brother's shoulder, and wept bitterly. Carl saw that the delirium that sometimes accompanied his paroxysms of illness had clouded his faculties.
The malady increased. The sufferer's eyes were glazed; he grasped his brother's hand with a tremulous pressure.
"Carl! Carl! I pardon you the evil you did me in childhood. Pray for me, brother!" cried the failing voice of the artist.
His brother supported him to the sofa and called for assistance. In an hour or two, his friend and spiritual adviser, summoned in haste, had administered the last rites of the church, and neighbors and friends had gathered around the dying man. He seemed gradually sinking into insensibility.
Suddenly he revived; a bright smile illumined his whole face; his sunken eyes sparkled.
"I shall hear in heaven!" he murmured softly, and then sang in a low but distinct voice the lines from a hymn of his own:
"Brüder! über'm Sternenzelt,
Muss ein lieber Vater wohnen."