This unfortunate feeling was still further heightened by the fact that his relation to the only old friend he had here, for whose society he had passionately yearned, did not, in spite of their daily intercourse, ripen again into the old intimacy.
When, years before, they had become acquainted with one another in Kiel, where Felix first began the study of the law, they had soon become inseparable. The lonely artist stood in special need of a friend with quick perceptions, who, in those early days when his talent was cautiously working its way to the front, could fan his courage by taking a lively interest in his work; and Felix soon saw enough of the senseless and tasteless life led by his fellow-students to make him long for other society. The hours that he stole from his beer-club and his fencing-school, in order to work with Jansen at all sorts of noble arts, sometimes making an attempt himself with a piece of clay, and then again spending the evening in his friend's simple little room in confidential talk over a very frugal supper and some modest wine, were looked back upon as the happiest of his whole youth. Even then Jansen struck people as a very original, reserved, strong, and forceful man, who had no needs but those which he was able to supply by his own unaided powers. It was known that he sprang from a peasant family, that, impelled by accidental incentives only and without any encouragement from teachers or patrons, he had made himself an artist by the force of his iron will. How he also succeeded in attaining, in other fields, such an education that it was not easy for any one to detect the want of a regular course of schooling, was scarcely less incomprehensible. Gradually his talent began to attract some attention, and a few orders straggled in, which enabled him to earn a scanty living. But as he scorned to let himself be lionized in society, to be petted by ladies and engaged for æsthetic tea parties, the first feeling of interest soon grew cold; and with a shrug of the shoulders people left this eccentric individual, who placed himself in such sharp antagonism to the modern tendency of art, to himself again, and to his pictures of naked gods and his undisguised contempt for social traditions.