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creations caused ·a furor; nature was held to 'be the- creator, but
I read about the fins on a new snail with a smile and with tender
-feelings towards these little creatures, whose maker was none
other than
I.
Trying to see how far I could go, I then started
to create human beings. I devised three, and released them into
life: 'The Veiled Lady,' the 'Poet Teklin,' well-known to you,
and the robber, 'Asper,' about whom everybody agrees that he
is the terror of the region.
It seemed a pointless amusement to produce ordinary
people, of whom there are quite enough. Mine should be able
to hold the center of universal attention and make a strong
im–
pression, just like famous works of art: the trail conceived and
blazed by me must make a deep impression on the souls of men.
I began with ·'The Veiled Lady' as an experiment. One day
a shapely young lady called on the public prosecutor of the High
Court in D. A black veil hid her face. She explained that she
wished to see the prosecutor to make secret disclosures relative
to the sensational trial of X., indicted for high treason. A ser–
vant went in to announce her and returned to find that the lady
had disappeared. At the very same moment on that very day,
t
as was later discovered, the mysterious lady came on a similar
. errand to Senator G., to the Minister of Justice, to the Minister
of Defense, to the Police Inspector, and in each and every
place she vanished without waiting to be received.
The speculation in the newspapers and in society about this
inexplicable occurrence gave me many a pleasant hour. The
gutter press shrieked about a Madame
K.,
the mistress of a staff
general who was interested in getting rid of the defendant.
Others, foaming at the mouth , declared that the lady was the
'cunning invention of the conservatives, bribed by the Ministry
Police in order to smother the scandal. Still others concocted an
intrigue on the part of foreign powers, accUiing the government
of treason and asserting that the Veiled Lady was Prince V.'s
morganatic wife, a beauty dangerous to all men, however high
the
offices they held. Ladies in high society as well aswomeh
