It is the best way to paint
you. You belong to the open air. So should Gretchen; or how else should
she have the blue sky in her eyes?"
"But I have only wooden shoes!"
Her face was scarlet as she glanced at her feet; he who had wanted to
give her the silk stockings--how would he like to be seen walking abroad
with those two clumsy, clattering, work-a-day, little sabots?
"Never mind. My dear, in my time I have had enough of satin shoes and of
silver gilt heels; they click-clack as loud as yours, and cost much more
to those who walk with them, not to mention that they will seldom deign
to walk at all. Your wooden shoes are picturesque. Paganini made a violin
out of a wooden shoe. Who knows what music may lurk in yours, only you
have never heard it. Perhaps I have. It was Bac who gave you the red
shoes that was the barbarian, not I. Come."
"You really mean it?"
"Come."
"But they will miss me at market."
"They will think you are gone on the pilgrimage: you need never tell them
you have not."
"But if they ask me?"
"Does it never happen that you say any other thing than the truth?"
"Any other thing than the truth! Of course not.
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