"Yes."
"Have you moved it a little more forward?"
"Eh? what do you think?"
"Ah! now it is right."
When I think of this, now that I am old, it seems to me a very bad thing, a most vile lie, under which (may God pardon me!) was concealed perhaps a secret sentiment of vengeance; and yet that lie made him a friend to me, and so he remained as long as he lived. But thenceforward I have always guarded myself from lying, and above all, from making game of any one who trusted me.
GREAT ARTIST—MISERABLE IMPOSTOR.
I return to the event of the exhibition. My name was on the lips of all; some praised me to the skies, some despised me as the most vulgar of impostors. Bartolini, Pampaloni, and Santarelli openly assumed my defence. The Grand Duke asked Giuseppe Sabatelli about it, and he assured him that the statue was really modelled, and not cast from life, and that he had been an eyewitness of my work, staying in my studio every morning, and had seen me working at it. I was exposed to a tempest of words and looks diametrically opposed to each other. The meaning of the two parties might be rendered by precisely these words, "great artist," "miserable impostor." My poor wife consoled me by saying—
"Do not be troubled, do not listen to them. They are irritated because you have done better than they. They will talk and talk, and at last they will hold their peace."
"Yes, my dear Marina, they will hold their peace; but in the meantime, what an injury they have done me! A certain person perhaps would have given me an order for the statue, as I know; but after all this absurd and evil-minded chattering, he mistrusts me, and will now do nothing, and I am crushed and overcome by the very thing which ought to have given me reputation and cleared my path for me. In the same way that I have made this statue, I know that I can make another. The will to do it is not wanting, but how can I bear the expense. My earnings, as I well see, are not sufficient to support the family, and to pay the model, the rent of the studio and the casting, and to buy what is necessary for the studio. Besides, I tell you, dearest, that I cannot allow you to fatigue yourself with so much work. You labour all day and all the evening, you have a baby to nurse, you get little repose at night, and do you think that I can allow you thus to wear your strength out? I hoped to enable you to get some rest, and to lead an easier life, and I thought that I saw before us, after I had breathed the last breath of life into Abel, the beginning of our intellectual and loving life; and now I find that these are and were only vain hopes."
"Do not be troubled, Nanni," said that blessed woman, and she said nothing more, only her eyes were swimming with tears.