Minna/Book 5, Chapter 7
The 3rd of May, in the afternoon, when almost everything was green in the gardens and in the public park, I took my usual walk out to Grosser Garten.
At the beginning of Bürgerwiese, my eye was attracted by a portrait, which hung in the window of a curio-shop. I rushed across: yes, indeed, it was Stephensen's pastel picture of Minna. But how dreadful it looked now! The pastel powder had fallen away in big patches, especially off the hair, but also on a spot of the forehead and on the cheek; where the one eye ought to have been, the canvas showed light through. It had been put into a worm-eaten, shabby frame in bad rococo style, and under it was written on a scrap of paper: "Unknown master, middle of the eighteenth century."
I stepped into a dark booth, where one could hardly move for old rubbish. The curio-dealer, a tall thin old man, who surely from my German detected the foreigner, and perhaps even suspected something English, mentioned an exorbitant price; it was, he explained, one of those genuine pictures, which now grew more and more scarce, very likely a Mengs. I soon disillusioned him, and bought the picture, certainly for a good deal more than it was worth.
In Grosser Garten, I did not care to walk with a big parcel under my arm, but I needed exercise, and strolled about down the Johannes' street. Of course I had not bought the picture in order to possess it, but only because it was to me an intolerable thought that it should hang there "in the stocks," and later on in a stranger's house—as a Mengs!
I thought I would take it home and burn it.
But, as I found myself facing the Albert Bridge, I was struck suddenly by the thought: "Why not throw it into the Elbe?" Then I should avoid opening it, and seeing it again.
There were only a few people on the bridge. I went out to the parapet of the middle pillar, towards the stream; it was still somewhat high water. Quickly I looked round; there was nobody near. Then I let go the picture. It disappeared under the water, and I heard it crush against the ice-break of the pillar.
Depressed in spirit, I went home.
On my table lay a letter from the Professor.
Minna had died that morning, quite unexpectedly, from apoplexy of the heart.