"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
