"
"Whom do you call 'One Steinbock'? Do you mean a young Livonian who
was a pupil of mine?" cried Stidmann ironically. "I may tell you,
monsieur, that he is a very great artist. It is said of me that I
believe myself to be the Devil. Well, that poor fellow does not know
that he is capable of becoming a god."
"Indeed," said Rivet, well pleased. And then he added, "Though you
take a rather cavalier tone with a man who has the honor to be an
Assessor on the Tribunal of Commerce of the Department of the Seine."
"Your pardon, Consul!" said Stidmann, with a military salute.
"I am delighted," the Assessor went on, "to hear what you say. The man
may make money then?"
"Certainly," said Chanor; "but he must work. He would have a tidy sum
by now if he had stayed with us. What is to be done? Artists have a
horror of not being free."
"They have a proper sense of their value and dignity," replied
Stidmann. "I do not blame Wenceslas for walking alone, trying to make
a name, and to become a great man; he had a right to do so! But he was
a great loss to me when he left."
"That, you see," exclaimed Rivet, "is what all young students aim at
as soon as they are hatched out of the school-egg. Begin by saving
money, I say, and seek glory afterwards.
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