“Yet they increase the austere beauty of her face,” assented the artist. “I should not want to omit them in modelling Arachne while the goddess is transforming her into a spider! What a subject! A bolder one was scarcely ever attempted and, like you, I already see before me the coming spider.”
Then, without the slightest haste, he exchanged the huntsman’s chiton for the white chlamys, which was extremely becoming to his long, waving beard, and at last, exclaiming gaily, “If I stay any longer, she will transform herself into empty air instead of the spider,” he went to her.
CHAPTER VIII.
While waiting in the studio Ledscha had used the time to satisfy her curiosity.
What was there not to be seen!
On pedestals and upon the boards of the floor, on boxes, racks, and along the wall, stood, lay, or hung the greatest variety of articles: plaster casts of human limbs and parts of the bodies of animals, male and female, of clay and wax, withered garlands, all sorts of sculptor’s tools, a ladder, vases, cups and jars for wine and water, a frame over which linen and soft woollen materials were spread, a lute and a zither, several seats, an armchair, and in one corner a small table with three dilapidated book rolls, writing tablets, metal styluses, and reed pens.
All these articles were arranged haphazard, and showed that Bias possessed more wisdom than care in the use of duster and broom.
It would have been difficult to count the number of things brought together here, but the unusually long, wide room was by no means crowded.
Ledscha cast a wondering glance sometimes at one object, sometimes at another, but without understanding its meaning or its use.