Reinhold would not allow this, any more than he would accept Justus’s theory of the necessary one-sidedness of artists. He saw in the artist rather the complete, perfect man, to whom nothing in humanity was strange; the more than complete man even, who poured out his exuberant wealth, which otherwise must have overwhelmed him, in his works, and thus, beside the real world in which ordinary men dwelt, created for himself a second ideal world. And if Justus maintained that he had never loved, it might be true, although for his part he ventured slightly to doubt the strict truth of his assertion; but even if it were so, this great finder had merely not yet found the right object, and as he boasted of always finding the right object at the right moment, here, too, at the right moment the right object would certainly present itself.
“That is a most unartistic view of the matter, my dear Reinhold!” cried Justus. “We, who according to your ideas are something of demigods, know better with what groans and creaks these beautiful creations are brought into life, and that at the best of times, when things go as smoothly as possible, you cannot boil anything without water. And as for love, you certainly have more experience in that, and experience, said Goethe’s grey friend at Leipzig, is everything; but very often it is better to be without that experience.”
And Justus hummed the tune of “No Fire, No Coals, No Ashes,” as, with his modelling-tool grasped in both hands, he worked at the forehead of his clay figure.
“Do not give expression to such profane notions this evening at the Kreisels’,” said Reinhold.
“Why not? It is the simple truth.”
“May be so; but it hurts good little Cilli to hear such things, especially from your mouth.”
“Why especially from my mouth?”
“Because she sees in you her ideal.”
“In you, I should think.”
“Don’t talk such nonsense, Justus!”
“Not at all. She fairly raves about you; she talks about nothing but you. Only yesterday she said to me that she hoped to live to see you as happy as you deserved to be, on which I ventured to observe that I considered you as one of the happiest men under the sun, notwithstanding your temporary want of employment, whereupon she shook her pretty head and said, ‘The best indeed, but happy?’ and shook her head again. Now I only ask you! You not happy!”
And Justus whistled the tune of “Happy Only Is the Soul That Loves,” and exclaimed, “There, now I have got rid of the wrinkles in your forehead, and now we will stop for today, or we shall make a mess of it again, as we did yesterday evening.”
He sprinkled his figures with water, wrapped Reinhold’s half-finished head in wet cloths, and wiped his hands.
“There, I am ready!”
“Won’t you at least shut your desk?” said Reinhold, pointing to a worm-eaten old piece of furniture, on and in which Justus’s letters and other papers were wont to lie about.
“What for?” said Justus. “No one is likely to touch the rubbish. Antonio will put it all in order; Antonio is order itself. Antonio!”
The other workmen had already left the studio; only Antonio was still busying himself in the twilight.
“Put these things a little tidy, Antonio. Come!”
The two young men left the studio.
“Do not you leave too much in Antonio’s hands?” asked Reinhold.
“How so?”
“I do not trust that Italian; so little indeed that I have repeatedly fancied that the fellow must have had a hand in betraying Ferdinanda.”
Justus laughed. “Really, my dear Reinhold, I begin to think that Cilli was right, and that you are an unhappy man! How can a happy man torment himself with such horrid ideas? I will just run up and make myself tidy. You go on, I will follow you in five minutes.”
Justus was just hastening away, when the door of Ferdinanda’s studio opened, and a lady came out dressed entirely in black, and muffled in a thick black veil. She hesitated for a moment when she saw the two, and then with hasty step and bent head passed them on her way to the yard. The two friends thought at the first moment that it was Ferdinanda herself; but Ferdinanda was taller, and this was not her figure or walk.
“But who else could it have been?” asked Reinhold.
“I do not know,” said Justus. “Perhaps a model—there are shy models. I hope at any rate that it was one. It would be the best sign that she was going to work again, that is to say to come to her senses.”
Justus sprang up the steps which led to his apartment. Reinhold continued on his way. As he turned the corner of the building, the black figure was just disappearing through the entrance to the house.
Antonio also, who had begun to tidy Justus’s desk as soon as the two friends had left the studio, had observed the lady in black as she glided past the window. He threw the papers which he held in his hand into the desk, and was about to rush out, but remembered that he could not follow her in his working dress, and stopped with much annoyance. The lady in black had been with Ferdinanda at the same hour yesterday, but as the studio was full, he had not been able to make his observations through the door. She was no model—he knew better than that! But who could it be, if not an emissary from the man he hated? Perhaps she would come for the third time at a more convenient hour. He must find out!
He returned to the desk. “Bah!” said he, “what is there to be found here? accounts, orders—the old story! And what use is it to listen to their conversation? Always the same empty chatter. I can’t think
