gathered in wonderful shapes over Hela,[6]
as in a magic mirror, his own destiny in days to come.

Don't you too believe, kindly reader, that the sparks which fall into
our hearts from the higher regions of Love are first made visible to us
in the hours of hopeless pain? And so it is with the doubts that storm
the artist's mind. He sees the Ideal and feels how impotent are his
efforts to reach it; it will flee before him, he thinks, always
unattainable. But then again he is once more animated by a divine
courage; he strives and struggles, and his despair is dissolved into a
sweet yearning, which both strengthens him and spurs him on to strain
after his beloved idol, so that he begins to see it continually nearer
and nearer, but never reaches it.

Traugott was now tortured to excess by this state of hopeless pain.
Early next morning, on again looking over his drawings, which he had
left lying on the table he thought them all paltry and foolish, and he
now called to mind the oft-repeated words of one of his artistic
friends, "A great deal of the mischief done by dabblers in art of
moderate abilities arises from the fact that so many people take a
somewhat keen superficial excitement for a real essential vocation to
pursue art." Traugott felt strongly urged to look upon Arthur's Hall
and his adventure with the two mysterious personages, the old man and
the young one, for one of these states of superficial excitement; so he
condemned himself to go back to the office again; and he worked so
assiduously at Herr Elias Roos's, without heeding the disgust which
frequently so far overcame him that he had to break off suddenly and
rush off out into the open air. With sympathetic concern, Herr Elias
Roos set this down to the indisposition which, according to his
opinion, the fearfully pale young man must be suffering from.

Some time passed; Dominic's Fair[7] came, after which Traugott was to
marry Christina and be introduced to the mercantile world as Herr Elias
Roos's partner. This period he regarded as that of a sad leave-taking
from all his high hopes and aspirations; and his heart grew heavy
whenever he saw dear Christina as busy as a bee superintending the
scrubbing and polishing that was going on everywhere in the middle
story, folding curtains with her own hands, and giving the final polish
to the brass pots and pans, &c.

One day, in the thick of the surging crowd of strangers in Arthur's
Hall, Traugott heard close be