"What would you have me do?"
"What would I have you do! I would have the courtier rescue the sculptor."
"I, the courtier of a courtesan!"
"You are wrong, Benvenuto," said Primaticcio, smiling: "Madame d'Etampes is very beautiful, as every artist must admit."
"I admit it," said Benvenuto.
"Very well, go and say so to herself, and not to me. I ask nothing more than that to make you the best friends in the world. You have wounded her by some artist's whim, and it is your place to make the first advances toward her.
"If I wounded her," said Cellini, "I did it unintentionally, or rather without malice. She said some hitter words to me which I did not deserve; I put her back where she belonged, and she did deserve it."
"Never mind, never mind! forget what she said, Benvenuto, and make her forget your reply. I tell you again she is imperious and vindictive, and she has the king's heart in her hand,—a king who loves art, it is true, but who loves love more. She will make you repent your audacity, Benvenuto; she will make enemies for you; she it was who inspired the provost with courage to resist you. And listen: I am just setting out for Italy; I am going to Rome by her command; and my journey, Benvenuto, is aimed at you,—I, your friend, am compelled to become the instrument of her spleen."
"What are you to do at Rome?"
"What am I to do there? You have promised the king to emulate the ancients, and I know that you are a man to keep your promise. But the duchess thinks you a braggart, and with a view of crushing you by the comparison no doubt, she is sending me, a painter, to Rome to make casts of the most beautiful of the ancient statues, the Laocoön, the Venus, the Knife-Grinder, and God knows what!"