“We were obliged, you see,” said Meta, “to break off our conversation at last, and take a little notice of the others, who, meanwhile, had been wandering about the studio and talking Italian together, which Herr Anders speaks beautifully, Signor Giraldi says. There was an Italian there too, such a handsome man, with a paper cap on his raven-black hair. ‘They all wear paper caps on account of the marble dust,’ said Herr Anders, who certainly is not handsome himself. I never could have believed that an artist, and such a great one as he is said to be, could look so little dignified and be so small. And when you hear him speak, you cannot believe it at all; for the way he chatters, Elsa, is just like me, you know; and he laughs, Elsa, I cannot describe how he laughs, so that one laughs too with all one’s heart only to see and hear him laugh. You never saw anything so funny, excepting his little curly poodle, which is just as funny as himself. We were standing then before Reinhold’s portrait—round, you know, and raised—in relief they call it, and such a likeness! fit to be kissed, I assure you.’ ‘For whom is that?’ asked I. ‘For the future wife of the original,’ said Herr Anders; ‘she can wear it on a black velvet ribbon round her throat as a locket.’ Just think, Elsa, what nonsense! a locket as large as a small carriage-wheel! he always talks like that. ‘It is a study for that design,’ said Reinhold. So then we looked at the designs—exquisite, I assure you. A battle, that would suit your papa! and Ambulance Preparations, with an old gentleman sitting behind a table, and a blind girl coming up with her gifts—I nearly cried when I saw that, and your aunt had tears in her eyes—and other women and girls. ‘How delightful to be one of them,’ cried I, quite from the bottom of my heart. ‘You might have that pleasure at any moment, and give me the greatest possible satisfaction at the same time,’ said Justus—that is his Christian name—funny one, is not it? ‘How so?’ said I. ‘Look, here is a splendid place still,’ said he—he says splendid, you must know, at every third word—‘for a really bright cheerful face, such as I have been wanting for a long time, because the thing was getting too sentimental to please me, only I had no good model for it; do, please, be my model!’ Dear me, Elsa, I did not know in the least what that might be, and as I told you before, there were some wonderful things in the studio; but I just looked at your Reinhold, and he said, ‘Yes, do it,’ with his eyes, like that, you know! and so I said quite boldly, ‘Yes, I will do it;’ and Signor Giraldi said that a queen might envy me the honour of being immortalised in such a work of art, and so the day after tomorrow I am to be immortalised!”
Elsa could have listened all night long; but Meta, who had gone through such an eventful day, and had never quite got over the habit of being tired to death at at latest, could hardly keep her eyes open while she talked, so Elsa put her to bed and kissed the good little thing, who put her arms round her neck and murmured sleepily: “Is it not, Elsa—blue tarletane—compass—one more kiss!” and before Elsa had drawn herself up again was fast asleep.
IX
Meta carried out her heroic design without allowing herself to be intimidated by anything, even by Aunt Rikchen’s spectacles, “And they are no joke,” said Meta, when in the evening she reported the result of the first sitting. “I could easier hold out against Baroness Kniehreche’s eyeglasses. Behind those there is nothing but a pair of old blind eyes, of which I feel anything but fear; but when Aunt Rikchen allows her spectacles to slip to the end of her nose, she then begins really to see so clearly, that one would feel anxious and uneasy if one had not so good a conscience. And do you know, Elsa, that something particular must have occurred between you and the Schmidts—what, I am quite in the dark about, as the good lady mixes everything together higgledy-piggledy; but she is very angry with you Werbens, as papa is with the Griebens, our neighbours, who are always trespassing on his boundaries, he says; and you must have been trespassing on the Schmidts, and that is the reason, you may depend upon it, why Reinhold has got so distant. We shall hear nothing from him; but Aunt Rikchen never can keep anything to herself, and we are already the best of friends. She says I am a good girl, and that after all I really had nothing to do with it, and the dove who brought the olive branch from the earth did not know either what it had in its beak: and then I saw that Reinhold, who was in the studio with me, looked at her, and Herr Anders also looked quite grave, and glanced again at Reinhold. They three know something, that much is clear, and I will find it out, you may depend upon it.”
But Meta did not find it out, and could not do so, as Aunt Rikchen did not herself know the exact state of affairs, and the others were most careful to keep her in ignorance. Meta’s communication therefore by no means contributed to Elsa’s peace of mind, and if Elsa had at first, at least, had the happiness of hearing of Reinhold through Meta, how he had come to the studio and kept her company for a long time, and what he had said,
