I visited the gallery at all permitted hours, and continued to express too loudly the ecstasy with which I beheld many precious works.  I thus frustrated my laudable purpose of remaining unknown and unnoticed; and whereas only one of the unclerkeepers had hitherto had intercourse with me, the gallery-inspector, Counsellor Riedel, now also took notice of me, and called my attention to many things which seemed chiefly to lie within my sphere.  I found this excellent man just as active and obliging then, as when I afterwards saw him during many years, and as he shows himself to this day.  His image has, for me, interwoven itself so closely with those treasures of art, that I can never regard the two apart:  the remembrance of him has even accompanied me to Italy, where, in many large and rich collections, his presence would have been very desirable.

Since, even with strangers and unknown persons, one cannot gaze on such works silently and without mutual sympathy,—­nay, since the first sight of them is rather adapted, in the highest degree, to open hearts towards each other, I there got into conversation with a young man who seemed to be residing at Dresden, and to belong to some embassy.  He invited me to come in the evening to an inn where a lively company met, and where, by each one’s paying a moderate reckoning, one could pass some very pleasant hours.

I repaired thither, but did not find the company; and the waiter somewhat surprised me when he delivered the compliments of the gentleman who made the appointment with me, by which the latter sent an excuse for coming somewhat later, with the addition that I must not take offence at any thing that might occur; also, that I should have nothing to pay beyond my own score.  I knew not what to make of these words:  my father’s cobwebs came into my head, and I composed myself to await whatever might befall.  The company assembled; my acquaintance introduced me; and I could not be attentive long, without discovering that they were aiming at the mystification of a young man, who showed himself a novice by an obstreperous, assuming deportment:  I therefore kept very much on my guard, so that they might not find delight in selecting me as his fellow.  At table this intention became more apparent to everybody, except to himself.  They drank more and more deeply:  and, when a vivat in honor of sweethearts was started, every one solemnly swore that there should never be another out of those glasses; they flung them behind them, and this was the signal for far greater follies.  At last I withdrew very quietly; and the waiter, while demanding quite a moderate amount, requested me to come again, as they did not go on so wildly every evening.  I was far from my lodgings, and it was near midnight when I reached them.  I found the doors unlocked; everybody was in bed; and one lamp illuminated the narrow domestic household, where my eye, more and more practised, immediately perceived the finest picture by Schalken, from which I could not tear myself away, so that it banished from me all sleep.