well-disposed to do his will,
and the Pernharts no less; on a certain Wednesday the pictures were
carried to his house, and on the morrow, being Thursday, I would go and
know whether he were content. And behold my likeness was set in a corner
where he scarce could see it; but that of Ann was face to face with him
and, as I entered the chamber, his eyes were fixed thereon as though
ravished by the vision of a Saint from Heaven. And he was so lost in
thought that he looked not away till the Dominican Brother spoke to him.

Thereupon he hastily greeted me, and went on to ask of me whether I duly
minded that he had been a faithful and thankworthy guardian. And when I
answered yes he whispered to me, with a side-look at the friar, that of
a surety my lord Cardinal must hold Ann full dear, if he would bid
so famous a master to Nuremberg that he might possess her image. Now
inasmuch as I wist not yet to what end he sought to beguile me by these
questions, I confirmed his words with all prudence; and then he glanced
again at the monk, and whispered hastily in my ear, and so low that I
scarce might hear him:

"That fellow is privily drinking up all my old Cyprus wine and
Malvoisie. And the other priests, the Plebian here--do you know their
worldly and base souls? They take up no cross, neither mortify the flesh
by holy fasting, but cherish and feed it as the lost heathen do. Are
they holy men following in the footsteps of the Crucified Lord? All that
brings them to me is a care for my oblations and gifts. I know them, I
know them all, the whole lot of them here in Nuremberg. As the city
is, so are the pastors thereof! Which of them all mortifies himself? Is
there any high court held here? To win the blessing of a truly lordly
prelate, a man must journey to Bamberg or to Wurzburg. Of what avail
with the Blessed Virgin and the Saints are such as these ruddy friars?
Fleischmann, Hellfeld, nay the Dominican prior himself--what are they?
Why, at the Diet they walked after the Bishop of Chiemsee and Eichstadt.
In the matters of the city--its rights, alliances, and dealings--they
had indeed a hand; there is nought so dear to them--in especial to
Fleischmann--as politics, and they are overjoyed if they may but be sent
on some embassy. Aye, and they have done me some service, as a merchant
trader, whensoever I have desired the safe conduct of princes and
knights; but as to charging them with the safe conduct of my soul, the
weal or woe