"That is very true," sighed Claudia. "But from you I expect something strikingly good."
"Thank you," said Pollux, "and I will take the utmost pains to complete something that may correspond to my own expectations of what a marble portrait ought to be, that deserves to be preserved to posterity."
"And those expectations require—?"
Pollux considered for a moment, and then he replied:
"I have not always the right words at my command, for all that I feel as an artist. A plastic presentiment, to satisfy its creator, must fulfil two conditions; first it must record for posterity in forms of eternal resemblance all that lay in the nature of the person it represents; secondly, it must also show to posterity what the art of the time when it was executed, was capable of."
"That is a matter of course—but you are forgetting your own share."
"My own fame you mean?"
"Certainly."
"I work for Papias and serve my art, and that is enough; meanwhile Fame does not trouble herself about me, nor do I trouble myself about her."
"Still, you will put your name on my bust?"