lips. He wore no hair on his face; but long grey locks, long as a woman's,
were scattered over his shoulders, and hung down on his breast. When
Wolkenlicht had explained his errand, he smiled a smile in which hypocrisy
could not hide the cunning, and, after many difficulties, consented to
receive him as a pupil, on condition that he would become an inmate of his
house. Wolkenlicht's heart bounded with delight, which he tried to hide:
the second smile of Teufelsbuerst might have shown him that he had ill
succeeded. The fact that he was not a native of Prague, but coming from a
distant part of the country, was entirely his own master in the city,
rendered this condition perfectly easy to fulfil; and that very afternoon
he entered the studio of Teufelsbuerst as his scholar and servant.

"It was a great room, filled with the appliances and results of art. Many
pictures, festooned with cobwebs, were hung carelessly on the dirty walls.
Others, half finished, leaned against them, on the floor. Several, in
different stages of progress, stood upon easels. But all spoke the cruel
bent of the artist's genius. In one corner a lay figure was extended on a
couch, covered with a pall of black velvet. Through its folds, the form
beneath was easily discernible; and one hand and forearm protruded from
beneath it, at right angles to the rest of the frame. Lottchen could not
help shuddering when he saw it. Although he overcame the feeling in a
moment, he felt a great repugnance to seating himself with his back
towards it, as the arrangement of an easel, at which Teufelsbuerst wished
him to draw, rendered necessary. He contrived to edge himself round, so
that when he lifted his eyes he should see the figure, and be sure that it
could not rise without his being aware of it. But his master saw and
understood his altered position; and under some pretence about the light,
compelled him to resume the position in which he had placed him at first;
after which he sat watching, over the top of his picture, the expression
of his countenance as he tried to draw; reading in it the horrid fancy