was perhaps made cocu, stabbed his untrue Amata in good Italian fashion, went for that to the galleys in Genoa, and at last sold himself to the devil to be delivered and to become the greatest violin-player, and be able to get out of us a tribute—of two thalers. . . . But, look! "All good spirits praise God!"[1] there he comes in the Avenue with his ambiguous famulus!'
"In fact it was Paganini himself whom I beheld. He wore a dark-grey overcoat, which came to his feet, making him appear extremely tall. His long black hair fell in tangled locks on his shoulders, forming a dark frame for the pale, corpse-like countenance, in which care, genius, and hell combined had graved their ineffaceable signs. By him capered along a short, comfortable-looking figure, commonplace, showy in dress, with a rosy wrinkled face, light-grey short coat with steel buttons, greeting right and left with irresistible amiability, but all the time squinting sideways with anxious apprehension at the dark form which, serious and reflecting, walked by his side. It recalled the picture by Retzsch, in which Faust is walking with Wagner before the gate of Leipzig. The deaf artist commented on both figures in his wild fashion, and bade me observe carefully the measured long step of Paganini. 'Is it not,' he said, 'as if he still had the iron
- ↑ An old German invocation against dreaded spirits, spectres, &c.
