night he will rest during the
forenoon. If we found him in the church my design would fail."

We went to the church, the professor had the cloth removed from the
covered picture, and a work of the most magical splendour, such as I
had never seen, was revealed to me. The composition was in the style
of Raffaelle, simple and of heavenly sublimity. Mary and Elizabeth
were sitting on the grass in a beautiful garden; the children, Jesus
and John, were before them, playing with flowers, and in the background
towards the side, a male figure was praying. Mary's lovely, heavenly
face, the dignity and elevation of her entire figure, filled me with
astonishment and the deepest admiration. She was beautiful, more
beautiful than an earthly woman, and her glance indicated the higher
power of the mother of God, like that of Raffaelle's Mary in the
Dresden Gallery. Ah! was not the deepest thirst for eternity awakened
perforce in the human heart, by those wondrous eyes round which a deep
shadow was floating? Did not those soft, half-opened lips speak in
consolatory language, as in the sweet melody of angels, of the infinite
happiness of heaven? An indescribable feeling impelled me to cast
myself down in the dust before her, the Queen of Heaven. I had lost
the power of speech, and could not turn my eyes from the incomparable
figure. Only Mary and the children were quite finished; the last touch
had not, apparently, been given to the figure of Elizabeth, and the
praying man was not yet painted over. Approaching nearer, I perceived
in this man the features of Berthold, and already anticipated in my
mind what the professor presently said: "This picture is Berthold's
last work. We got it several years ago from N----, in Upper Silesia,
where one of our colleagues bought it at an auction. Although
unfinished, we had it fitted in here, in the place of the wretched
altar-piece which we had formerly. When Berthold first came and saw
the picture, he uttered a loud shriek and fell senseless to the ground.
Afterwards he carefully avoided looking at it, and told me in
confidence that it was his last work of this class. I hoped that I
should gradually persuade him to finish it, but every proposal of the
sort he rejected with the utmost abhorrence, and to keep him in good
spirits, and in the full possession of his powers, I was forced to
cover up the picture so long as he remained in the church. If it met
his eye only by accident, he r