"Has it come to you? Had I gained the prize, I might have been like Raphael; you, like some great master of your art. Success was not for us; and we are doomed to insignificance."
"Silence!" cried the old man; "that leads to madness. I know the horror of madness. They tell me I was a long time so."
"No fear of that, old friend. We are both too near a sure harbor. Come, fill up your glass! Hark to the music and shouting in the streets. Here we sit, like the gods on the summit of Olympus, sipping nectar, and laughing at the fools below us. Drink as I do. No more? Well, yonder is your bed, and here is mine. Good-night to you."
They retired to rest. The storm ceased to beat on the window-panes; but the bell-ringing and music continued throughout the night.
The bright sunshine of morning flooded the chamber. The old man arose and went to the window. It was a clear, cold morning; the air was keen, the sky cloudless; the frost had wrought delicate tracery on the panes.
The old man threw his cloak over his shoulders, and stood some time at the window. Then he went to awaken his young friend.
He touched the hand that lay outside the bed-covering; it was cold and stiff! Poor Theodore had fainted in the struggle with destiny. Long the prey of heart-disease, he had died in the night.
The old man stood as if paralyzed, gazing on the face of his dead friend. His last stay was broken!
Sitting down by the body, he remained motionless the whole day. Late in the afternoon, the woman who kept the house came in with a message to Theodore, and found the old man exhausted and shivering with the cold. She led him into a warm room, and gave him nourishment.
When Theodore was buried, the gold he left was given to the old man, with whom he had lived two years, supplying the wants of both by his scanty earnings as a portrait-painter and the sale of a drawing now and then. Now that he had no resource for the future, the people of the house advised the old man to go to the overseer of the poor-house. He shook his head, saying, "No; I will go to Hamburg."