"But I know not how it is, Ascanio: perhaps there is a distinction between the poet and the goldsmith, between the moulder of ideas, and the moulder of gold. Dante dreams: I need to see. The name of Maria is all-sufficient to him; I must have before me the face of the Madonna. We divine his creations; we touch mine. That perhaps is why my Beatrice was not enough, or rather was too much for me, a sculptor. Her mind was ever present with me, but I was compelled to seek the human form. The angelic woman who shed a bright light upon my life had been beautiful, most certainly, beautiful above all in the qualities of her heart, but she did not realize the type of undying beauty upon which my imagination dwelt. I found myself constrained therefore to seek elsewhere, to invent.
"Now, tell me this, Ascanio; do you think that, if my sculptor's ideal had presented itself to me living on this earth, and if I had bestowed a share of my admiration upon it, I should have been ungrateful and faithless to my poetic ideal? Do you think that my celestial apparition would in that case have ceased to visit me, that the angel would be jealous of the woman? Do you think it? I ask you the question, Ascanio, and you will know some day why I ask it of you rather than of another,—why I tremble as I await your reply, as if you were my Beatrice herself."
"Master," said Ascanio gravely and sadly, "I am too young to have an opinion upon such lofty subjects: I think, however, in my heart, that you are one of the chosen men whom God leads, and that what you find upon your path has been placed there by God, not by chance."
"That is really your belief, is it not, Ascanio? You are of opinion that the terrestrial angel, the realization of my longing, would be sent by God, and that the other celestial angel would not be angry at my desertion? In that case, I may venture to tell you that I have found my ideal, that it is living, that I can sec it, and almost touch it. Ascanio, the model of all beauty, of all purity, the type of infinite perfection to which we artists aspire, is near at hand, it breathes, and I can admire, it every day. Ah! all that I have done hitherto is as nothing compared with what I will do. This Hebe, which you think beautiful, and which is, in very truth, my chef-d'œuvre, does not satisfy me as yet: my living dream stands beside its image, and seems to me a hundred times more glorious; but I will attain it! I will attain it! Ascanio, a thousand white statues, all of which resemble it, are already forming and rising in my brain. I see them, I feel their presence, and some day they will come forth.
"And now, Ascanio, would you like me to show you my lovely inspiration? it should be close by us. Every morning, when the sun rises, it shines upon me from below. Look."
Benvenuto drew the curtain aside from the window, and pointed to the garden of the Petit-Nesle.
In her leafy avenue Colombe was walking slowly along, her head resting upon her hand.
"How fair she is, is she not?" said Benvenuto ecstatically. "Phidias and old Michel-Angelo created nothing purer, and the ancients, if they equal, do not surpass that graceful young head. How beautiful she is!"
"Ah! yes, beautiful indeed!" murmured Ascanio, who had resumed his seat, without strength to move or to think.
There was a moment's pause, while Benvenuto feasted upon his joy, and Ascanio brooded over his pain.