The record-union., 1894-03-24
SANDOIIR LEOPOLD'S REQUESTS.
Copyright. 1894. All rights reserved.l

Herr Paulus being young man of gen.
erous nature and famous artist of Chem
nitz, had hosts of admirers for his grand
portraits, Austrian battle pieces and land
scapes, SO long as he continued the kindly
practice OF giving them away.
At last there came time, before he was
90 years OF age, when. having no pict-
ures left and no guilders for those which
were gone, his noble enthusiasm in the
house-furnishing line for others was
brought to a sudden check by such de-
mands as fame alone was never known
to meet.
To an artist these demands were gross
and trivial in their nature, but their
very insignificance seemed to spread a
pestilence of contempt which rendered
them more serious and imperative, curl
ously causing the recipients of his past
favors to turn their faces with great and
critical attentiveness upon his fine paint
ings which had not cost them fiorin,
and their backs with unbending pertin-
acty upon the fine artist. Thus Herr
Paulus, remaining in his bare studio,
took his first lesson in belated thrift.
While thus engaged his eyes alighted
upon newspaper abstract Of paper,
then recently communicated to the
EIench Geographical Society by DR.. lie
Bon, upon a primitive and little known
race OF people calling themselves Podhal-
lanS, who exist high up among the Car
pathian Mountains of Galicia, in the Tat
ras range of these mountains separating
Galicia or Austrian Poland, from Hun
gary's glowing plains.
Herr Paulus had reread the article
IL. L.
studio window over and above the quaint
old Chemnitz roofs, as if his artists eyes
saw the billowy swaths of the Tatras
range, and gave him communion with
the Arcadian people there.
This day-dreaming had been inter-
rupted by another rude demand for rent.
lie satisfied the intruder with a definite
promise of Requirement, and then re-
read the sketch once more, some pOr-
tions of it aloud, as though half arguing
TO invisible though Interested friends:
Though poor they are content That
is much. Their food is principally oats,
either simply boiled or ground and con-
verted into cakes, and though their diet
is spare, they enjoy perfect health and
live long lives Now there must be
wonderful compilations and types among
such people as these"
He walked lack and forth for time
with the paper in his hand, seeming to
realize more and more how little mis-
studio really contained. Then he read
aloud again:
1.-The population of this remote re-
gion-' why, it is not one hundred miles
from Chemnitz!-'numbers several hun
dred thousand individuals. During four
or five months Of the year those of them
who accompany their fiocks and herds
TO the mountain pastures, live eXclu-
bively on goat milk whey, each per-
son consuming from three 10 four liters
daily"
Here Herr Paulus rested his head in
Que hand discouragedly, closed his eyes
tightly as ii from pain, and made an ex-
ceedinglv wry face. He tilliped the pa
per in his disengaged hand for long
time before he opened his eyes and re-
sumed:
Though far from being cultured the
Tatras peasantry are poets and artists by
nature Ach, Gott," he groaned, "how
beautiful and how rare! They are fond
of dancing, and often, when the labors Of
the day are over, meet to indulge in their
tayorite diversion. They are born i'm
provlsatores, too, and many of them can
sing their own songs set to music of their
own composition. Their poetry is ten
der and artless in sentiment and gener-
Gus, and elevated in style-qualities at
tributable to their wealth of spontane-
Gus resources, not infrequently pos
sessed by natures knowing neither vio-
lent passions nor unnatural excite
ments.'
Herr Paulus sprang from his chair to
the window, as though the little, dark
and lonely studio were a prison. He
spread his hands upward and f1utteringly
upon the panes, while his faced pressed
the glass with backward and forward,
impatient movements.
1t was growing dark in the hard, old
I.1.- 4, H.
looked hateful TO him tor the first time
now, and the saffrony glow of the after
sunset sky seemed resting most lovingly
away in the northeast where the TatraS
Mountains lay.
Finally he turned from the outer glow
ing TO the inner darkness, struck mis-
hands together sharply from which they
seemed to rebound into the air with the
gesture of one throwing off a hopeless
load, when he sang for little as merrily
as he had ever done in the student days
when hope was high at Buda- Pesth.
He had lights broughtin unusual num-
bers; wrote note and dispatched it by a
kellner; told the little old fellow with the
gray mold of the raiSin upon him who
answered it, TO set price upon the trites
he could find within the studio; accepted
the proffer at once; found himself in pos
session of less than two hundred florins,
Whereupon Herr Paulus paid his rent
and, with hastily aud secretly packed
knapsack, containing only such materials
as an artist of experience would require,
shortly after midnight of the same day
gained admittance to the little inn of
Altsohl, where he remained until the
next evening. setting out in the balmy
June twilight after having heard from
the gossip at the inn that his strange dis
appearance and probable suicide had
advanced the value OF his canvases to
their lucky possessors fully an hundred
fold.
But Herr Paulus was gaining in phil
osophy as we'll as experience.
1.-The best beloved are the dead !" he re-
fscted II will be as one dead to those
in Chemnitz now,' with which he
pressed forward cheerily toward NeusohI
and the pass through the Liptau nights
beyond.
On the morning of the fourth day Herr
Paulus found himself in the great pano-
ramic valley of the Arva, tramping
radiantly along the mighty stone road
leading from Cracow, the metropolis of
liaiicia, to Buda-Pesth and the further
cities of the vineland South. On this
mountain-shadowed, forest-fringed, cliff
hung and cascade-tremulous thorough
fare he sauntered rather tnan trudged.
scholar, traveller and artist that he had
been. ali his travel and study had never
given him such wondrous groupings as