me might also be felt by every beholder, is a task that I
have set myself ever since her arrival in our house. I had to go back
to the capital, and the work I longed to achieve took a clearer form; at
every hour I discovered something to change and to improve in the pose
of the head, the glance of the eye or the expression of the mouth.
But still I lacked courage to put the work in hand, for it seemed too
audacious to attempt to give reality to the glorious image in my soul,
by the aid of gray clay and pale cold marble; to reproduce it so that
the perfect work should delight the eye of sense, no less than the image
enshrined in my breast delights my inward eye. At the same time I was
not idle, I gained the prize for the model of the lions, and if I have
succeeded with the Good Shepherd blessing the flock, which is for the
sarcophagus of Comes, and if the master could praise the expression
of devoted tenderness in the look of the Redeemer, I know--nay, do not
interrupt me, mother, for what I felt was a pure emotion and no sin--I
know that it was because I was myself so full of love, that I was
enabled to inspire the very stone with love. At last I had no peace, and
even without my father's orders I must have returned home; then I saw
her again, and found her even more lovely than the image which reigned
in my soul. I heard her voice, and her silvery bell-like laughter--and
then--and then--. You know very well what I learned yesterday. The
unworthy wife of an unworthy husband, the woman Sirona, is gone from
me for ever, and I was striving to drive her image from my soul, to
annihilate it and dissipate it--but in vain! and by degrees a wonderful
stress of creative power came upon me. I hastily placed the lamps, took
the clay in my hand, and feature by feature I brought forth with bitter
joy the image that is deeply graven in my heart, believing that thus I
might be released from the spell. There is the fruit which was ripened
in my heart, but there, where it so long has dwelt, I feel a dismal
void, and if the husk which so long tenderly enfolded this image were to
wither and fall asunder, I should not wonder at it.--To that thing there
clings the best part of my life."

"Enough!" exclaimed Dorothea, interrupting her son who stood before her
in great agitation and with trembling lips. "God forbid that that mask
there should destroy your life and soul. I suffer nothing impure within
my house, and you should not in your heart