This smart gentleman was Axel Stephensen.
At once he began to take off his right glove and to walk towards us; Minna also began to unbutton hers, but it fitted tightly, and she was still pulling at it when he stopped in front of us.
"Oh, please, Minna, don't trouble, between old friends"
But Minna continued determinedly to stare—with a queer smile—at her glove, for the obstinacy of which she was perhaps grateful. At last she got the hand free—the hand that now wore my ring. It appeared to me that she caressed this magic love-token with her eyes, and that Stephensen stared at it morosely. She glanced at him in shaking hands, and with a gesture which made the ring sparkle she introduced us to one another.
"My fiancé, Harald Fenger."
We bowed almost too politely and assured one another that it was a pleasure and an honour, but I noticed that his aplomb in this ordeal was greater than mine, and this added to the irritation that his sudden appearance had already aroused in me.
"You have come here"—Minna was on the point of making the same unnecessary remark which her mother had bestowed upon me, but she had enough presence of mind to insert a "suddenly." "You have come suddenly to Dresden." And in recovering her self-control she looked at him steadily for the first time. "In the letter you sent me a fortnight ago you said nothing about it."
In Germany it is not so unusual as it is in Denmark for young girls and young men—brothers' friends, distant relations, or even acquaintances—to call one another by their Christian names; and therefore Minna could not feel that Stephensen, by still taking advantage of this privilege after she was engaged to a countryman of his, meant to emphasise to me the nature of their intimacy and to equalise our positions.
She turned and began to walk slowly back towards the steps. We accompanied her, one on each side. It was evident that Stephensen was annoyed that this letter was mentioned in my presence, and his annoyance was the greater because I assumed a defiant air, as much as to say, "Indeed, sir, I know quite well your beautiful Heine effusions."
"Quite right," he said. "I got the order after I had written. I have come to copy Correggio's Magdalene. I suppose you remember the copy of it I made a couple of years ago, Minna; you were kind enough to take an interest in it, and to come and watch me at work"—here he smirked under his moustache with a vain and insinuating smile which made my blood boil. "I, at any rate, have not been able to forget the pleasant hours we used to spend together in the gallery." He glanced up in the air with a vague far-away look, and paused so that Minna might have an opportunity to agree with what he had said. But, as she continued to look silently at the ground, he proceeded in a lighter tone—
"As I think I wrote to you, I sold that picture to a merchant. A Mæcenas of ours has now been so uncritical as to fall in love with it."
"You speak a little too modestly about your art for one to be able to believe in your humility … especially as I suppose there is no reason for it." This latter I added because Minna looked at me reproachfully, as if she feared that the conversation might take a pointed and personal character.
Stephensen laughed and stroked his beard.
"Well, I have at least reason to wish that this new client will not be too critical, for such a hazardous undertaking does not succeed twice. But, anyhow, it is a good thing to be acquainted with what one is going to represent, and as to the good Correggio I have long ago found him out: the lady is by no means studying the Holy Bible, but reading a pastoral novel, and an improper one, too, I should venture to guess."
Though I, in reality, found this remark quite striking and could not help smiling, there was something so irritating, yes, even insulting, towards Minna in the self-satisfied smirk with which he accompanied it, that an almost irresistible impulse seized me to take him by the collar and push him down the steps at the top of which we were standing. I reflected whether in such case there was any possibility of his breaking his neck, and pictured to myself Minna's terror, the crowd of people round, and how the police would arrest me.
And all the while the unsuspecting man stood expatiating upon the beauty of the town that was stretched out in front of us. He was especially pleased with the Catholic church which, in the foreground, presented its two storeys of massive weather-beaten sandstone, in the elegant forms of a noble Baroc style. Between the clustered columns of the open tower the yellow gleams of evening were shining, and over the copper roof, that just peeped through the balustrade as a green field through a fence, the row of statues were silhouetted sharply in characteristic decorative positions. Stephensen reminded Minna that she had drawn his attention to a group half-way in front of the tower, where a nude arm darkly outstretched on the sky's golden ground made an extraordinary effect.
"Whenever I have thought of Dresden I imagined myself here and at this hour, and it always seemed as if that arm beckoned to me, perhaps also on account of the precious remembrances which were associated with it. But what a lovely place it is! This treasure of a church, and just behind it the palace tower that is so all-powerful, though at the same time so far from being massive. Soon the tower-watchman's light will be lighted above. Do you remember how often we have pondered over that strange life up there above the busy traffic of human beings?… And how I love to see the people swarm in and out of the George porch and enter the town through a house.… And then on the other side the river quarter, the old bridge under us, and the Maria Bridge which stretches its whole length over the shiny water, and the Lösnitzer Hills, purple-coloured and so graceful in shape, they always remind me of the Janiculum by the Tiber. At the same time such comparisons are odious. One calls Dresden the Elbe-Florence, but Florence itself has no square near the Arno which can compete with this, not by a long way."
I, an untravelled man, could never have been able to pay Minna such a compliment, and each word of praise of her beloved town was bound to please her. For the first time she glanced at him with a kindly look, which he caught without turning his eyes towards her, apparently quite lost in contemplation of the town; he even for a minute spread out his arms as if he would embrace it, and this enthusiasm, which was perhaps not wholly feigned, was not unbecoming to him.
"What a pity one does not live here and enjoy this view every day! An artist must live and breathe in artistic surroundings. I feel it every time I get out of Copenhagen: one degenerates there. Don't you agree with me that Copenhagen is a dreadful town? "
"Detestable," I answered, though I had never thought much about it; but I wanted if possible to overtrump him.
"All the same it drew you back when you were there," Minna remarked without lifting her eyes from the broad stone steps down which we slowly walked.
"What can one do? A fellow must live, Minna!"
"But you have just said that an artist must live in a place like this in order to be creative."
"That is right, but one must also sell. And works of art are easier sold where artists mix freely in society; it is not flattering to us, but it is true. It was with a heavy heart I bade good-bye in those days, and I feel it doubly on seeing the town again. No, if I had been happy enough to be born here"
"Surely then you would have found your way to Berlin," I said sullenly.
The tears came into Minna's eyes at his words, and possibly it was to turn the conversation that she exclaimed—
"Oh yes, it will be hard when some day one has to leave this sweet town."
"Anyhow, you will not have to go away alone, wherever you may go when you leave for your new home," Stephensen answered very emphatically.
"And we shall not stay away for ever," I added quickly "but even if it is impossible for me to remove my business to Dresden—certainly I shall not have to go out to dinners on account of my wares, to be sure … but … at any rate, when we are getting old, and I can retire with a good conscience and a little capital, then we will surely live here, I have promised Minna! We have even looked about for a house, and in case I should be a Crœsus we have fixed upon a magnificent villa by the Park. Perhaps Minna might then persuade you, for old friendship's sake, to come and decorate it for us."
Though this was supposed to pass as a joke I was not enough a man of the world to conceal the undertone of satire and insolence, which was much more apparent than it ought to have been. I immediately regretted what I had said, the more so because Minna looked with terrified eyes at me.
"I am not a decorator," Stephensen answered dryly. But directly afterwards he turned towards me with his most suave and courtly smile and continued: "I do not, however, mean to disparage that art, which would give you a false idea of my perception of things. Surely with us there is a certain prejudice against decorative painting with which I do not agree; altogether I do not share many of our Danish prejudices. On the contrary, I highly appreciate decorative art, and when men pretend to be too grand to undertake it, the real fact simply is they haven't got the imagination for it. That is also the case with myself, only that I do not pretend to be too grand. And isn't it the same with all art? We have not sufficient imagination to decorate life, therefore we only copy it and then pretend that we do it out of reverence and love of life. Nonsense! To begin with we are pessimists, so we have neither reverence nor love of life; and besides, even if we still have these—for we are also inconsequent—la vie c'est une femme, and they always like to be flattered. By the way, all art is originally decorative, and Apollo is in reality a maître de plaisir in Olympus. But to decorate! Great heavens! who can do that? Rubens could. Now we are far too earnest—that is to say, we are morose—and with reason, because we are anæmic and nervous, and get a headache if we have made a night of it. We pretend that we do not want to dance any more and we put on airs, but the truth is that our legs have become stiff and tired. Well, perhaps you do not share these views, Mr. Fenger. I know quite well they are not in vogue."
"I quite agree with you," I assured him, though I did so only in part; but it pleased me to disappoint his hope of a dispute in which he, with reason, expected to get the best of the argument. Nevertheless, I quite understood that he did not mean anything serious by all this palaver, but that from the beginning he merely wanted to make it clear that he was worldly wise enough to understand my sarcasm; and above all things he wanted to show off before Minna. He glanced constantly towards her with his half-closed eyes, and the self-contented smile seemed to say: "Did you notice how quickly I understood that the conversation must be turned away from the shoals on which this fool was just going to strand us? I hope you are thankful. And cannot I discourse about art brilliantly? He ought to try that, but he wisely keeps silent. Well I, too, know when it is time to be silent. Assez d'esthetique comme ça!"
When we were outside the theatre some ladies and gentlemen came out on to the balconies of the foyer. I thought of yesterday; at this hour I had stood up there with her and had magnified my immense and still growing wealth. "Er stand auf seines Daches zinnen—Polycrates, Polycrates!"[1]
"By the way," Stephensen began after a pause, "I paid your mother a visit and it pleased me to find her so well and active."
"Have you already? And you came yesterday?"
"No, to-day by the morning train."
"And leave again?" I blurted out.
"Not exactly to-morrow," he answered with a mocking smile.
"I almost thought so," I answered, "since you were in such a hurry with your visit."
"And the picture! That will not be finished in one day," Minna remarked.
"No more than Rome! Fortunately the picture is free. I have already arranged everything with the custodian, and I think of starting to-morrow."
I had quite forgotten this picture, and he evidently had also forgotten it.
We had walked slowly through Zwinger, and were now passing through the gardens towards the post-court. Behind a group of acacias, with leaning trunks, a street-lamp, that was struggling with the last ray of daylight, spread a dull yellowish misty glare, out of which the dainty Gothic sandstone portal of the Sophie-Church appeared, while its slim open-work spires stood phantomlike over the dark summits of the trees against a twilight sky, that was almost colourless but for a couple of sloping feathery clouds still beaming in a rosy glow. I had often seen the place in this fascinating light during my evening walks, and now, to my disgust, it was Stephensen who pointed it out and in a way adopted it with his artist's authority.
"Just look how delicately it stands there; it is a pure Van der Neer."
"Oh, one sees beautiful light effects here," I remarked. "The other day we saw 'a real Poussin' out in Saxonian Switzerland."
Minna bit her lip. Stephensen, who could not have had any notion of the reference, felt that I mocked at artists' expressions.
"Yes, I quite believe it. One comes upon subjects at every turn. But, nous voilà, I live at Hotel Weber, and will take my leave. Perhaps I have already intruded."
We assured him, of course, to the contrary, and he disappeared with quick steps which made a crunching sound upon the gravel.
In silence we walked homewards. Near the post office there was a crowd of yellow carriages making their way home like bees to their hives, and every moment a horn-signal resounded.
I silently cursed all letter-writing and the whole postal system.
- ↑ Schiller's famous ballad "Polycrates" ("He was standing on his palace roof").