er might also have been found for the villa; but in order not to
disturb our good Kohle, who was in the very midst of his Venus
frescoes, he resisted the temptation, and--who would have thought
it?--aroused himself from his bear-skin to take up his brush again,
though, to be sure, with much grumbling and cursing. This act of
heroism seems to have melted, for the first time, the armor of ice in
which the heart of the little red coquette was encased; particularly as
he did not for a moment bemoan the loss of the property on his own
account, but only expressed the deepest sympathy for his brother.
To be brief, as he perceptibly pined away under all this, partly from
love-sickness, partly because he had been obliged to dispense with
the services of his all-too-sumptuous cook, this singular creature
was touched with pity for his troubles, appeared one day in the
scantily-furnished lodgings with which the former Sardanapalus was now
forced to content himself, and announced to him, without any further
ceremony, that she had been thinking the matter over, and was willing
to marry him. She felt, to be sure, not a spark of sentimental love for
him--such a love as that she had experienced but once in her life, and
then it had gone badly with her--but she no longer felt any aversion
toward him, and since he needed a wife who understood something about
housekeeping, he had better go and make inquiries whether there wasn't
another room and a kitchen to be had on the same floor, in which case
they could go on living there.

"And they say the arrangement has really worked very well so far. Of
course old Schoepf has gone to live with them; and Uncle Kohle, who, in
the mean while, has refused the hand of Aunt Babette, and has quietly
gone on painting his Venus allegories in spite of Sedan and Paris, also
sleeps and takes his meals there; and Rossel paints one glorious
picture after another, protesting all the while, they say, against this
useless expenditure of strength, and longing for the time when he can
finally settle down to rest. I have my private suspicions, however,
that, in spite of all this talk, he is more contented with his present
life, even leaving his marital joys out of the question, than with the
barren seeds of thought which he, lying idly on his back, once
scattered to all the winds of heaven."

CHAPTER VII.

In the mean while they had passed through the city, which was
richly d