and started on the long, roundabout way to an unforeseen new home in
Vienna. He had been but little over a month in Paris when he learned of
the death of the little son that Elise had borne him three years before.
He was deeply grieved both for himself and for the despairing mother, to
whom he offered all the comfort he could give, not excepting marriage,
as soon as he should ever be able to provide for her. In May, 1844,
Elise bore him another son who, dying in 1847, was never seen by his
father. Hebbel did not forget what he owed to the mother of his
children, but he felt the debt more and more as an obligation, in the
fulfilment of which there was no prospect of satisfaction to either.
Despite the fact that she had a hundred times declared to him that he
was free, all her dreaming and planning tended solely to keep him bound.
He, who had been her pupil, had now far outgrown her capacity to
understand his endeavors and achievements; and he felt that he could
sacrifice much for her, but not himself, his personality, and his
mission. And so the unwholesome relation wore on, with aggravating
burdensomeness, to the inevitable crisis.

In the fall of 1844 Hebbel journeyed from Paris to Rome. He had met few
notables in Paris--Heine, Felix Bamberg, and Arnold Ruge almost complete
the tale--but in Italy he, like Goethe, made the acquaintance of a group
of German artists, and followed their leadership in the study of ancient
art. He enjoyed this study in natural, unaffected appreciation of the
beautiful; and a certain artistic polish distinguishes the poems which
nature and art in Italy inspired him to write. The Italian journey,
however, was far from being a renaissance to him as it had been to
Goethe. Hebbel remained a Northern artist. Vesuvius impressed him, but
Pompeii proved a disappointment; it was laid out, he said, like any
other city. He departed from Rome in October, 1845, richer in the
friendship of distinguished men--including Hermann Hettner--and in