a high trestle, which Polykarp's fingers
were industriously moulding.

Phoebicius had called the young sculptor a fop, and not altogether
unjustly, for he loved to be well dressed and was choice as to the cut
and color of his simple garments, and he rarely neglected to arrange his
abundant hair with care, and to anoint it well; and yet it was almost
indifferent to him, whether his appearance pleased other people or no,
but he knew nothing nobler than the human form, and an instinct, which
he did not attempt to check, impelled him to keep his own person as nice
as he liked to see that of his neighbor.

Now at this hour of the night, he wore only a shirt of white woollen
stuff, with a deep red border. His locks, usually so well-kept, seemed
to stand out from his head separately, and instead of smoothing and
confining them, he added to their wild disorder, for, as he worked, he
frequently passed his hand through them with a hasty movement. A bat,
attracted by the bright light, flew in at the open window--which was
screened only at the bottom by a dark curtain--and fluttered round the
ceiling; but he did not observe it, for his work absorbed his whole soul
and mind. In this eager and passionate occupation, in which every nerve
and vein in his being seemed to bear a part, no cry for help would have
struck his ear--even a flame breaking out close to him would not have
caught his eye. His cheeks glowed, a fine dew of glistening sweat
covered his brow, and his very gaze seemed to become more and more
firmly riveted to the sculpture as it took form under his hand. Now
and again he stepped back from it, and leaned backwards from his hips,
raising his hands to the level of his temples, as if to narrow the field
of vision; then he went up to the model, and clutched the plastic mass
of clay, as though it were the flesh of his enemy.

He was now at work on the flowing hair of the figure before him, which
had already taken the outline of a female head, and he flung the bits of
clay, which he removed from the back of it, to the ground, as violently
as though he were casting them at an antagonist at his feet. Again his
finger-tips and modelling-tool were busy with the mouth, nose, cheeks,
and eyes, and his own eyes took a softer expression, which gradually
grew to be a gaze of ecstatic delight, as the features he was moulding
began to agree more and more with the image, which at this time excluded
every other from his imagination.