Francis’s room was in the rear of the castle; the family were in another wing into which he never penetrated, but he met them in the living quarters, a series of large drawing-rooms and a dining-room behind the rooms of state, which were now never used except for the display of the collection of pictures that had made Düsterstein and the Ingelheim family famous among connoisseurs for two centuries. Not that the pictures in these private rooms were inconsiderable; they were family portraits by a variety of masters, not always of the foremost rank, but by no means unknown or lightly esteemed.

Ever since his arrival Francis had looked with astonishment from the pictures on the walls to the two representatives of the family who sat below them, the Countess Ottilie and her granddaughter, Amalie, whose features the portraits reflected in a bewildering but always recognizable variety. Here was the Family Face indeed, the Countess’s square and determined as became a great landowner and a farmer of formidable talents, and that of Amalie, which was oval, still unmarked by experience but filled with beautiful expectancy. The Countess was not yet sixty; Amalie was probably fourteen. He conversed with them in English, as the Countess was anxious that Amalie should be perfect in that language.

These evenings were not long. Dinner was at eight, and was never over before nine, for though not a heavy meal it was served with what seemed to Francis extraordinary deliberation. Saraceni talked with the Countess. Francis was expected to talk to Miss Ruth Nibsmith, the governess. Amalie spoke only when spoken to by her grandmother. After dinner they sat for an hour, during which the Countess made one cup of coffee and one glass of cognac last the full time; sharp at ten Amalie kissed her grandmother, curtsied to Saraceni and Francis, and retired under the care of Miss Nibsmith. Then the Countess went to her private room, where, Saraceni told him, she worked over the farm accounts until eleven, at which hour she went to bed, in order to rise at six and spend two hours out of doors, directing her workers, before breakfast at eight.

“A very regular existence,” said Saraceni.

“Does nothing else ever happen?” said Francis.

“Never. Except that on Sundays the priest comes for Mass at seven; you aren’t expected to attend, but it will give satisfaction if you do, and you shouldn’t miss the chapel; it is a Baroque marvel that you won’t see otherwise. But what do you mean—’Does nothing else ever happen?’ What do you suppose is happening? Money is being made, to begin with. This family was almost beggared during the War and the Countess’s father and now Countess Ottilie have made them almost as rich as they ever were—out of veal, which, as you know, is the staple diet of people in this part of the world. Amalie is being prepared for a brilliant marriage to somebody who hasn’t been chosen yet, but who will have to measure up to exacting standards. Great fortunes don’t go to fools—not at Düsterstein, anyhow. And there is the collection to be put into first-class order, and you and I will work on that like galley-slaves, for the Countess expects it. Isn’t that enough activity to satisfy your North American soul?”

“Sorry to bring it up, but—do I get paid?”

“Most certainly you do. First of all, you are privileged to work with me, and there are hundreds of young artists who would give anything for that high distinction. Next, you have an opportunity to study one of the very few notable collections still to remain in private hands. That means that you will be able to make an intimate day-by-day and mood-by-mood study of pictures that even the directors of world-famous galleries see only by carefully controlled appointment. The greatest are on loan to the Munich gallery, but there are splendid things here—things any of those galleries would be glad to possess. You are privileged to live on familiar terms with aristocrats—the Ingelheims of blood, myself of talent—in beautiful country surroundings. Every day you are given real cream and the best of veal. You have the cultivated conversation of La Nibsmith, and the transporting silences of Amalie. You can keep your little car in the stables. But as for money—no, no money; that would be adding sugar to honey. The Countess receives you here as my assistant. I am paid, of course, but not you. What do you want money for? You’re rich.”

“I’m beginning to be afraid that stands between me and being an artist.”

“There are worse disabilities. Want of talent, for instance. You have talent, and I shall show you how to use it.”

To begin with, learning to use his talent seemed to mean a lot of dirty work, about the performance of which Saraceni was tyrannical and sarcastic. The silky expert Francis had met at Oxford and the patrician connoisseur he visited in Rome was an unappeasable slave-driver in the studio. During his first few days Francis did no work at all, but wandered freely through the castle to get the feel of things, as Saraceni put it.

But on the first Sunday there was a violent change. Francis was up in time for chapel, and, as Saraceni had said, it was a Baroque marvel. At first sight it seemed to have a splendid dome in which the Last Judgement was set forth in swirling movement, but on examination this proved to be a trompe-l’oeil work of extraordinary skill, painted on a flat ceiling, and effective only if the observer did not go too far forward toward the altar; viewed from that point the supposed dome was distorted, and the sotto in su figures of the Trinity looked toad-like. The worshipper who went forward to receive the Host was not wise if he looked upward when he returned to his seat, for he would see a fiercely distorted God the Father and God the Son spying on him from the contrived dome. The chapel itself was small, but seemed big; the fat priest had to squeeze himself into the tiny elevated pulpit as if he were putting on tight trousers. The whole room was a wonder of gilding and plaster painted in those pinks and blues that look like confectioner’s work to the critic who refuses to surrender himself to their seductions. Francis was surprised to find himself alone in the chapel with Saraceni; the Countess and her granddaughter sat at the back, in an elevated box, as if at the opera, invisible to the less distinguished worshippers below. Theirs was the best view of the magical ceiling.

After chapel, breakfast, at which Saraceni and Francis were served by themselves.

“Now, to work,” said Saraceni. “Have you brought any overalls?”

Francis had no overalls, but Saraceni fitted him out with a garment that might once have been a laboratory technician’s white coat, filthy with paint and oil.

“Now to the studio,” said Saraceni, “and when we are in the studio, you had better call me Meister. Maestro is not quite right for these surroundings. And I shall call you Cornish, not Francis, when we are at work. Corniche. Yes, you shall be Corniche.”

What was happening to the Meister? In the studio he was shorter, more darting and nervous in movement, and his nose seemed hookier than elsewhere. At work, Saraceni was not the urbane creature of his social life. Francis recalled what Uncle Tack had said about the Evil Eye, though of course he did not believe in any such thing.

The studio was like a studio only in its fine north light, which came from a wall of windows that opened on the park. It had been, explained Saraceni as Francis gaped in wonderment, one of those amusements that pleased the aristocracy of the eighteenth century. It was a very long room the walls of which were encrusted with shells in many varieties, so set in the plaster that the inner sides of some and the convexities of others were outward toward the light, and they had been used to form an intricate decoration of panels, pillars, and baroque festoons. Not only shells, but minerals of several varieties had been used to decorate the walls, forming pilasters of white and pink and golden marble and—could it be?—lapis lazuli, between which depended clustered ropes of shells, each of which culminated at its fattest richness in a huge piece of brain coral. When it was new, and when it was loved and admired, it must have been a splendid folly, a rococo pavilion to lift the heart and sharpen the senses. But now the shells were dusty and dingy, the dry fountain in the wall showed rust and dirt in its basin, and the occasional mirrors were like eyes over which cataracts had grown. The shell benches had been shoved into a jumble at one end, and the room was dominated by several easels, a laboratory bench whose water supply came from visible, ugly piping that made a toe-catcher in the floor, and a large metal affair, suggesting a furnace, that had been hitched up to the castle’s meagre dynamo with equal disregard for the propriety of the room.