" His ambiguous phrases irritated me; I was about to retort
sharply. But he gave me no chance to speak. "Observe," he said, "how
you are puffed up by a modicum of praise. Retire within yourself
and ponder upon your perilous vocation. We geniuses--for I am one
too--care as little for the world as it cares for us; without any ado,
in the seven-league boots which we bring into the world with us, we
stride on directly into eternity. A most lamentable, inconvenient
straddling position this--one leg in the future, where nothing is to
be discerned but the rosy morn and the faces of future children, the
other leg still in the middle of Rome, in the Piazza del Popolo,
where the entire present century would fain seize the opportunity to
advance, and clings to the boot tight enough to pull the leg off! And
then all this restlessness, wine-bibbing, and hunger solely for an
immortal eternity! And look you at my comrade there on the bench,
another genius; his time hangs heavy on his hands here and now, what
under heaven is he to do in eternity? Yes, my highly-esteemed comrade,
you and I and the sun rose early together this morning, and have
pondered and painted all day long, and it was all beautiful--and now
the drowsy night passes its furred sleeve over the world and wipes
out all the colors." He kept on talking for a long while, his hair all
disheveled with dancing and drinking, and his face looking deadly pale
in the moonlight.
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