wealth. "Er stand auf seines Daches zinnen—Polycrates, Polycrates!"[1]
"By the way," Stephensen began after a pause, "I paid your mother a visit and it pleased me to find her so well and active."
"Have you already? And you came yesterday?"
"No, to-day by the morning train."
"And leave again?" I blurted out.
"Not exactly to-morrow," he answered with a mocking smile.
"I almost thought so," I answered, "since you were in such a hurry with your visit."
"And the picture! That will not be finished in one day," Minna remarked.
"No more than Rome! Fortunately the picture is free. I have already arranged everything with the custodian, and I think of starting to-morrow."
I had quite forgotten this picture, and he evidently had also forgotten it.
We had walked slowly through Zwinger, and were now passing through the gardens towards the post-court. Behind a group of acacias, with leaning trunks, a street-lamp, that was struggling with the last ray of daylight, spread a dull yellowish misty glare, out of which the dainty Gothic sandstone portal of the Sophie-Church appeared, while its slim open-work spires stood phantomlike over the dark summits of the trees against a twilight sky, that was almost colourless but for a couple of sloping feathery clouds still beaming in a rosy glow. I had often seen the place in this fascinating light during my evening walks, and now, to my disgust, it was Stephensen who
- ↑ Schiller's famous ballad "Polycrates" ("He was standing on his palace roof").
