Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1901-08-01
CHAPT ].

will proceed to answer all your ques
you cannot imagine what pleasure
your letter gave me-though | have
already enlarged on that.
In the first place, you say: What
have you been doing with YOURSELF?
My dear Wolf, | have entered ON a new
life, just as you have done-whether a
better one or not, you shall be the
Judge.
when we had shaken hands for the
last time in Berlin, as you seated
yourself in the third-class carriage
of the Hamburg train which was to
carry you to the Brazilian steamer,
was left standing there for long time
after the train had disappeared, feel
ing that | should have done better to
go too, for there seemed nothing left
for me in my own country.
"You know how it Was-nOt a penny
did | possess, or, at any rate, very
little; my pictures were unsold, and
my father had just informed me that
he could not give me any more as
was nearly at the point of starvation
himself, with his wife and daughter,
since he had been pensioned off.
"And why did / not go with you? l
do not know myself, now. But the
fact is I stayed behind, and the next
day | set up my easel in the Harz,
with all my worldly goods-that is,
with a few thalers a friend had lent
me, Andreas, you know. You know
that 'Onely fOrest-house in the neigh
borh Of the Broken; you know the
low room over the kitchen, and the
red-haired young forcsters wife with
the dazzling white skin and the
strange, reddish-brOWn eyes, a beauti-
full woman. Do you remember how
that whimsical fellow, the forester,
told us one stormy night that she was
a witch who had slipped through the
key-hole, the previous April, Just at
midnight, into his lonely kitchen; that
she had lost her balance as she was
riding on her broOm-stick high up in
the air, and so she had got good hus-
band by it? I can hear her laugh now
as she listened to him-and she was
really a witch. Well, meant to paint
there, as | had done so often before.
and wait my destiny; I must sell a
picture some time in Munich or Berlin
! wiz spare you the details of that
the. | went there in June, and
autumn found me still there-and still
without money. I did not care to
follow my fathers advice to become a
decorative or scene painter, and one
day | found myself wandering rest
lessly through the woods, in frame Of
mind which l cannot describe to you.
| had borrowed gun of the forester,
and, when | came to what | thought
was very lonely spot, put it against
my breast and pulled the trigger II
shot myself-not dead, as had hoped,
but badly enough to make me i'll for
a long time.
Then, of course, comes the old
story of unconsciOusness. of waking to
life in comfortable room, with a
beautiful nurse sitting by the bedside,
with whom one falls in love straight
way, and erds by marrying. And it
all happened in the usual way, except
for the falling in love. When, after
my long illness, I went down into the
garden of the iron manufacturer Frey
st was April them asked Fraulein
Anna Frey. or "Antje," as she was
called-her mother is Dutch by birth
If she would n Nrry a poor fellow like
me, and she accepted me without a
moments hesitation. What induced
or to do it have never been able to
understand to this day.
Heaven knows that at that time
was not very eligible parti. l never
spoke a word of love to her, and yet
she said yes, notwiths. 1ding the fact
that both her parents wore very long
faces when they learned their daugh-
ter's choice.
eve were just married, were still
absent on our wedding journey, when
her father died. She would rather
have stayed with her mother then, at
the ironworks, where the hammers
Wee going day and night She said
her mother would be glad to build us
a pleasant villa in the midst Of the
wood, from which Ante could reach
her fathers house in four or five
minutes. OF course l obiected-the
very thought of this mother-in-law
made me SILVER; and so she left
her stately mother alone in her home,
for the latter had grasped the reins of
the great business Immediately after
her husbands death, and managed it
as skilfully and as firmly as he had
done. But Ante went away with me
to make a new home.
I'VE settled down here in the i'm
mediate neighborhood of Dresden.
We have a stately old house at the
uncovered hills, though we are still
high above the valley of the Elbe. in
the midst of a great, park-like garden
Augustus the Strong built it, as a gift
to one of the ladies to whom he was
attached It is called "Sibyllenburg."
In the upper hall-which was the
chief inducement to us to buy this
place. have fitted up a studio which
might satisfy the most fastidious
artist. It extends the whole length of
the house, and is divided in two by a
great Smyrna portiere. My easel is
placed in the north window; before the
open balcony door, on the south, is
my writing-table, and whenever lift
my eyes | can look out over the
terraced foreground. over country,
houses, villages. and green fields
across to the mountains on the other
side of the Elbe: on the right, to the