“He went with me, and he’d no sooner seen the hand than he sings out: ‘An antique! an antique!’ You’d have thought he had found a treasure. And to work he went with the pick and with his hands, and did as much as both of us together, you might say.”
“Well, what did you find?”
“A tall black woman more than half naked, saving your presence, monsieur, of solid copper; and Monsieur de Peyrehorade told us that it was an idol of heathen times—of the time of Charlemagne!”
“I see what it is: a bronze Blessed Virgin from some dismantled convent.”
“A Blessed Virgin! oh, yes! I should have recognised it if it had been a Blessed Virgin. It’s an idol, I tell you; you can see that from its expression. It fastens its great white eyes on you; you’d think it was trying to stare you out of countenance. Why, you actually lower your eyes when you look at it.”
“White eyes? They are incrusted on the bronze, no doubt. It may be some Roman statue.”
“Roman! that’s it. Monsieur de Peyrehorade says she’s a Roman.—Ah! I see that you’re a scholar like him.”
“Is it whole, well preserved?”
“Oh! it’s all there, monsieur. It’s even handsomer and finished better than the plaster-of-Paris bust of Louis Philippe at the mayor’s office. But for all that, I can’t get over the idol’s face. It has a wicked look—and she is wicked, too.”
“Wicked! what harm has she done you?”