76 I GO A- FISHING. 



husband's she regarded as her enemy. In this same let- 

 ter he complains that Agnes had disposed of a pair of 

 stag's antlers, and many other fine things of Diirer's, which 

 he had wanted, but she sold them for a mere trifle, and 

 did not let him know. 



" Here comes in a suspicion. If Agnes loved money 

 so much, why throw away these fine things ? And, again, 

 what is Pirkheimer's motive in writing all this tirade about 

 his friend's wife and himself to a stranger ? for Tcherte 

 appears by this very letter to be a new correspondent, not 

 an old friend. Above all, who was this Pirkheimer, and 

 what his character, that we may weigh his testimony 

 against a woman, a widow, and the widow of his friend ? 

 In this same letter he tells Tcherte that she and her sis- 

 ter are pious and honorable women, but that he would 

 prefer to have business with a loose woman rather than 

 with such a scolding, fault-finding, pious woman. Now 

 Pirkheimer, as we know from abundant evidence, had 

 much familiarity with loose women. Beyond dispute, he 

 was a fat, sensual man, given to free life, denying himself 

 nothing on the score of morality, and both in his corres- 

 pondence and his intercourse with Diirer seeking to make 

 him the confidant of his adventures, and receiving always 

 admonitions in return, given sometimes sharply and some- 

 times in ridicule. His character was such that we are 

 fully justified in regarding him as unfit to express an 

 opinion in regard to a pure woman. We will take his tes- 

 timony, therefore, only for what it is worth, and out of his 

 own story of his relations to Agnes Diirer construct a his- 

 tory which seems far more likely to be the true one than 

 this which has generally been accepted from his tirade. 



" Diirer and Pirkheimer were friends in boyhood. The 

 latter was rich, and of high rank in the old city ; the for- 



