The boy Michael listened for a time to the flowing words of young Granacci, then rose and wandered to where some stone-masons had lately been at work. He stopped in front of a block of marble that was gradually taking the form of the mask of a faun.
Near the block stood an antique mask, a garden ornament, and this the boy studied for a few moments before he picked up one of the mason's deserted tools and began to cut the stone himself.
The gay chatter under the poplars went on, but the boy with the chisel, lost in thought, his heavy brows bent into a bow, chipped and cut, forgetful of everything else. A half hour passed, and a long shadow fell across the marble. Michael looked up to see his patron, Lorenzo, standing beside him. The boy glanced from the fine, keen face of the Medici to the marble mask of the old faun in front of him.
"Well, sirrah," said Lorenzo, half seriously, half in jest, "what wilt thou be up to next?"
"Jacopó, one of the builders, gave me a stone," answered the boy, "and told me I might do what I would with it. Yonder is my copy, the old figure there."
"But," said Lorenzo, critically, "your faun is old, and yet you have given him all his teeth; you should have known in a face as aged as that some of the teeth are wanting."
"True," said the young sculptor, and taking his chisel, with a few strokes he made such a gap in the mouth as no master could have improved.
The Medici watched, and when the change was made, broke into laughter. "Right, boy!" he cried. "'Tis perfect; Praxiteles himself could not have bettered that!" Then, with a quizzical smile, he looked the youth over. "I knew thou wert a painter; and now a sculptor; what will thy clever hand be doing next?"
"Bearing arms in your worship's cause, an' the saints be good!" exclaimed the boy, his deep eyes, full of admiration, on his patron's face.
"Ah," said Lorenzo, "so? Well, perhaps the day will come. Florence is like a rose-bed, but I cannot cure the city as I would of thorns." He fell into thought, then roused again. "But thou, young Michael Angelo, dost know what a time I had to make thy father let thee be a painter, and now thou addest to thy sins and cuttest in marble. Where will be the end of thy infamy?"