plan. Now look at it also from the classical, artistic
point. It would be a ridiculous affectation for me not to confess with
frankness that you couldn't have a better cicerone in the museums and
churches, villas and ruins, than my humble self, or, as the Italians
say, _il povero Signor me_. This is my sixth visit to Italy. To be
sure, I can't show you many things that delighted me on my first five
journeys, for the simple reason that I've taken them to my own home.
_Que voulez-vous?_ We're considered Northern barbarians, always in
search of booty. A man must not be better than his reputation. But some
things still remain which are worth seeing, and as for your nerves,
Countess--perhaps there's but one effectual remedy for sufferings such
as yours: the magnetic fluid of art. I offer myself as your artistic
physician-in ordinary, and will guarantee a cure."

"And who tells you. Prince Bataroff, that I've not already tried this
remedy in Germany, and without success?"

"In Germany? Art in Germany? Unless you're speaking of music, which is
one domain of the German nature, or gymnastics--"

"I always supposed the Dresden gallery, which we studied for a
fortnight on our wedding tour, possessed some works of art for which
Italy might envy us, and the museums of Berlin, Vienna, Munich--"

"Don't mention those wretched forcing houses, in which I always feel
suffocated by the artificial heat with which, with scientific zeal, the
worthy Germans endeavor to correct their natural want of artistic
perception! My nerves, thank God, are as strong as I wish yours were,
but I really believe they would fail till I should be attacked by
hysteria, if I were compelled to spend two hours a day for a fortnight
in one of your national museums. Once, when on the cost of Finland, I
entered a hut--it was during one of those storms when the meanest roof
is welcome--and found the fisherman's family gathered round a box they
had just saved from a stranded ship. It contained some great lady's
jewels and dresses, which had suffered little damage, and now, seen
in the hands and by the light of the dim oil lamp of these worthy
half-idiots, were about as much out of place as are the Titians,
Rubens, Correggios, and Raphaels in your dear German cities, watched by
pedants, gaped at by snobs, and only separated by a thin roof from the
grey dull sky, which they suit as well as the Brussels laces in that
stranded chest suited the smoky atmosphere of a Fin