Pictor's Metamorphoses Read Online Free PDF Page A

the grass. They reproached him in no uncertain terms for his dawdling. Hamelt responded with silence, except for bidding them “Good morning” with a cursory nod.
    This made Ugel especially indignant. “Good morning, indeed!” he flared. “It hasn’t been morning for some time! Couldn’t wait for us, eh? I can see you’ve been to the tavern in Oetlingen; the wine’s still glowing in your eyes!”
    Karl sneered and pulled his brown felt hat farther down over his brow. “Never mind,” said Lauscher. The three friends turned toward the town, passed the railroad station, crossed the bridge over the stream, then meandered along the embankment until they reached the King’s Crown. Not only was this inn their favorite Kirchheim watering hole, it was also the temporary lodgings of the itinerant poet.
    As the three friends approached the stairs that led to the inn, the heavy doors of the house suddenly flew open, and plummeting toward them at lightning speed came a highly agitated, white-haired man with a gray beard and an angry red face. In consternation, the friends recognized the old crank and philosopher Turnabout, and they barred his way at the foot of the stairs.
    â€œStop right there, my good Herr Turnabout!” the poet Lauscher called out to him. “How does it happen that a philosopher can lose his sense of balance like this? Just turn around, my esteemed fellow, and tell us your troubles inside, where it’s cool!”
    With a sidelong, acute look of distrust, the philosopher raised his shaggy head and peered at the three young men. “Oh, so it’s you,” he cried. “The whole petit cénacle! You’d better hurry and go inside, my friends. Go in and drink your beer and wonder at what you’ll find in there; but please don’t insist on the company of this poor, broken-down old man, whose heart and brain are in the clutches of demons!”
    â€œBut, dear Herr Turnabout, whatever is the matter with you today?” Ludwig Ugel asked sympathetically. But immediately thereafter he found himself staggering from the blow of the philosopher’s fist in his side, and propped himself up against the railing of the staircase. The old man ran down the street, cursing and raging.
    â€œInfamous Poisonbreath,” he bellowed as he hurried off, “ill-fated talisman, transformed into a red-blue flower! Abused, trampled in the dust, the only … Victim of satanical malice … The excruciating memory revived…”
    The three friends shook their heads in astonishment and let the rampaging man go his way. At long last they began to ascend the stairs, when once again the doors flew open, and, with a friendly gesture of adieu to those still inside, Parson Wilhelm Wingolf stepped out. Those who stood on the stairs greeted him with all good cheer, and immediately inquired as to the cause of the radiance that gilded his broad and most worthy head. Mysteriously, he raised his chubby index finger, took the poet confidentially aside, and with a roguish smile whispered into his ear, “Just think, today, for the first time in my life, I have made a verse! And I did it not a moment ago!”
    The poet opened his eyes so wide that they circled above and below the narrow frames of his wire-rimmed spectacles. “Recite it!” he cried. The parson turned toward the three friends, again raised his finger, and with blissfully half-closed eyes he recited his verse:
    Perfection,
    Today you’ve peered in my direction!
    And, without uttering another word, he took his leave of the comrades, waving his hat.
    â€œGood God!” said Ludwig Ugel. The poet stood silent, lost in thought. But Karl Hamelt, who had not let a single word pass his lips since he’d awakened in the grass, emphatically announced, “What a good poem!”
    At this point, expecting the unexpected, the thirsty friends finally managed, without further