At last, with glowing cheeks, he had finished rounding the soft form of
the shoulders, and drew back once more to contemplate the effect of the
completed work; a cold shiver seized him, and he felt himself impelled
to lift it up, and dash it to the ground with all his force. But he soon
mastered this stormy excitement, he pushed his hand through his hair
again and again, and posted himself, with a melancholy smile and with
folded hands, in front of his creation; sunk deeper and deeper in his
contemplation of it, he did not observe that the door behind him was
opened, although the flame of his lamps flickered in the draught, and
that his mother had entered the work-room, and by no means endeavored
to approach him unheard, or to surprise him. In her anxiety for her
darling, who had gone through so many bitter experiences during the
past day, she had not been able to sleep. Polykarp's room lay above her
bedroom, and when his steps over head betrayed that, though it was now
near morning, he had not yet gone to rest, she had risen from her
bed without waking Petrus, who seemed to be sleeping. She obeyed her
motherly impulse to encourage Polykarp with some loving words, and
climbing up the narrow stair that led to the roof, she went into his
room. Surprised, irresolute, and speechless she stood for some time
behind the young man, and looked at the strongly illuminated and
beautiful features of the newly-formed bust, which was only too like its
well-known prototype. At last she laid her hand on her son's shoulder,
and spoke his name. Polykarp stepped back, and looked at his mother
in bewilderment, like a man roused from sleep; but she interrupted the
stammering speech with which he tried to greet her, by saying, gravely
and not without severity, as she pointed to the statue, "What does this
mean?"

"What should it mean, mother?" answered Polykarp in a low tone, and
shaking his head sadly. "Ask me no more at present, for if you gave me
no rest, and even if I tried to explain to you how to-day--this very
day--I have felt impelled and driven to make this woman's image, still
you could not understand me--no, nor any one else."

"God forbid that I should ever understand it!" cried Dorothea. "'Thou
shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife,' was the commandment of the Lord on
this mountain. And you? You think I could not understand you? Who
should understand you then, if not your mother? This I certainly do not
comprehend, that a son of