days, Philip began to paint a saint, which Moor had sketched, but at
the end of half an hour he threw down his brush. He called himself
negligent of duty, because he was following his inclination, instead of
using his brain and hands in the service of the State and Church. Duty
was his tyrant, his oppressor. When the day-laborer threw his hoe over
his shoulder, the poor rascal was rid of toil and anxiety; but they
pursued him everywhere, night and day. His son was a monster, his
subjects were rebels or cringing hounds. Bands of heretics, like moles or
senseless brutes, undermined and assailed the foundation of the throne
and safeguard of society: the Church. To crush and vanquish was his
profession, hatred his reward on earth. Then, after a moment's silence,
he pointed towards heaven, exclaiming as if in ecstasy: "There, there!
with Him, with Her, with the Saints, for whom I fight!"

The king had rarely come to the treasury in such a mood. He seemed to
feel this too, and after recovering his self-control, said:

"It pursues me even here, I cannot succeed in getting the right coloring
to-day. Have you finished anything new?"

Moor now pointed out to the king a picture by his own hand, and after
Philip had gazed at it long and appreciatively, criticising it with
excellent judgment, the artist led him to Ulrich's portrait of
Sophonisba, and asked, not without anxiety: "What does Your Majesty say
to this attempt?"

"Hm!" observed the monarch. "A little of Moor, something borrowed from
Titian, yet a great deal that is original. The bluish-grey leaden tone
comes from your shop. The thing is a wretched likeness! Sophonisba
resembles a gardener's boy. Who made it?"

"My pupil, Ulrich Navarrete."

"How long has he been painting?"

"For several months, Sire."

"And you think he will be an artist of note?"

"Perhaps so. In many respects he surpasses my expectations, in others he
falls below them. He is a strange fellow."

"He is ambitious, at any rate."

"No small matter for the future artist. What he eagerly begins has a very
grand and promising aspect; but it shrinks in the execution. His mind
seizes and appropriates what he desires to represent, at a single hasty
grasp. . . ."

"Rather too vehement, I should think."

"No fault at his age. What he possesses makes me less anxious, than what
he lacks. I cannot yet discover the thoughtful artist-spirit in him."

"You mean the spirit, that refines what it has once