“See the blood in Holofernes’ throat. It looks as if it were moving.”
“Judith looks too weak and small to kill him,” said another.
“So she does,” said a third, and he added, in a lower tone: “I once had a cousin very like that picture.”
“Is she dead?” asked a woman, a stranger to the speaker.
“Yes,” said the man, with some surprise.
“I thought no live person could remind you of this face,” answered the woman, as if in explanation.
The two couples of critics glanced appreciatively and with a smile at each other, and the Greek said to his friend:
“Your boors are no bad critics, after all. I think the barbarians rather beat us in painting.”
“Beat you!” laughed the Venetian. “Speak for yourself. But it is your religion that has fossilized your art; otherwise you would have been—”
“No,” said the other thoughtfully, “I think you mistake; I doubt if we have the gift you, and the Flemings also, have for painting. Our literature is as far above that of this northern people as heaven is above the earth, and our sculpture, of course, is unrivalled; but they have the gift of music, and of architecture, and of painting—the two last marvellously developed. And in the first I think your people—I do not mean Venetians, but some of your other Italian neighbors—have just now reached a good climax. At Milan I heard some chanting that would put us to shame, and even here I have heard something not unlike it. Yes, I cede the palm to the barbarians in the arts of Euterpe and—”