“Imagine the color of the whole harder, more vivid; weigh down all that is heavy, make sharp all that is light and delicate, harden all that is strong, banish joy with a cuff and blushes with a sneer, and there you have her, that is what will become of her. Pretty, eh! prettier than now because she’ll be even more effective to draw, eh?”
He stood silent a while and looked at her, his shadow trembling. Then he went on:
“That’s what she’ll come to be, and that, too, is all that such as we have the right to think of. But what she might be, ah! what she might be. If someone could take her as she lies there and dreams, take her and carry her far away and lift her on high in his arms. We keep on talking about art here, about what we intend and what the time is dreaming of. If there is anyone that has the same dreams that she has and the strength to will them, if there is anyone who’s a man, she is his. And what might not become of them both!”
He looked about him at us others who sat bending forward, gazing with hypnotized looks at the white gleaming countenance of the girl. At his last words we started half up; it was as if we waited that some one should come, that some one should grip us by the hair and hurl us forward, should lift us to where space was bright around us. Something should come to birth in us, sharp as a steel blade, unbending, unsullied, the blue sword of our will and life should be created among us, true life with warm soil and the sun that impels to growth. In the heat of the room we felt it already glowing in us by anticipation, cheeks and foreheads were red, a warm current of blood set in, there were white sparks in the eyes, and a shiver trembled along the spine.
Thereupon the girl awoke, as if roused by the clamor of all these thoughts as they beat their wings and struck together. First her eyes stared in fright, and then she laughed.
We all sunk back again.
“I didn’t know where I was,” she said.
“Oh, you weren’t afraid of us, were you?” inquired Jacques. “You saw that there was no one dangerous here.”
“Oh, no, I surely wasn’t afraid.” She laughed more merrily still. “No, there’s no one dangerous here. But I must have been asleep a long while. I must go now.”
We all offered to go with her, but she looked straight at us.