Something that isn't there at all, yes. Something that never was in my mind. Ah yes, that they can all go into ecstasies over! [Growling to himself.] What is the good of working oneself to death for the mob and the masses—for "all the world"!
Do you think it is better, then—do you think it is worthy of you, to do nothing at all but portrait-bust now and then?
[With a sly smile.] They are not exactly portrait-busts that I turn out, Maia.
Yes, indeed they are—for the last two or three years—ever since you finished your great group and got it out of the house—
All the same, they are no mere portrait-busts, I assure you.
What are they, then?
There is something equivocal, something cryptic, lurking in and behind these busts—a secret something, that the people themselves cannot see—
Indeed?
[Decisively.] I alone can see it. And it amuses me unspeakably.—On the surface I give them the "striking likeness," as they call it, that they all stand and gape at in astonishment—[Lowers his voice]—but at bottom they are all respectable, pompous horse-faces, and self-opinionated donkey-muzzles, and lop-eared, low-browed dog-skulls, and fatted swine-snouts—and sometimes dull, brutal bull-fronts as well—
[Indifferently.] All the dear domestic animals, in fact.