illness would pass over, since it came from excessive
fatigue. In this way I spent two hours battling with the fever, which
steadily increased, and calling out continually, "I feel that I am
dying." My housekeeper, who was named Mona Fiore da Castel del Rio,
a very notable manager and no less warm-hearted, kept chiding me for
my discouragement; but on the other hand, she paid me every kind
attention which was possible. However, the sight of my physical pain
and moral dejection so affected her that in spite of that brave heart
of hers, she could not refrain from shedding tears; and yet, so far as
she was able, she took care I should not see them.

While I was thus terribly afflicted, I beheld the figure of a man
enter my chamber, twisted in his body into the form of a capital S. He
raised a lamentable, doleful voice, like one who announces their last
hour to men condemned to die upon the scaffold, and spoke these words:
"O Benvenuto! your statue is spoiled, and there is no hope whatever of
saving it." No sooner had I heard the shriek of that wretch than I
gave a howl which might have been heard from the sphere of flame.
Jumping from my bed, I seized my clothes and began to dress. The
maids, and my lad, and every one who came around to help me, got kicks
or blows of the fist, while I kept crying out in lamentation, "Ah!
traitors! enviers! This is an act of treason, done by malice prepense!
But I swear by God that I will sift it to the bottom, and before I die
will leave such witness to the world of what I can do as shall make a
score of mortals marvel."

When I had got my clothes on, I strode with soul bent on mischief
toward the workshop; there I beheld the men whom I had left erewhile
in such high spirits, standing stupefied and downcast. I began at once
and spoke:--"Up with you! Attend to me! Since you have not been able
or willing to obey the directions I gave you, obey me now that I am
with you to conduct my work in person. Let no one contradict me, for
in cases like this we need the aid of hand and hearing, not of
advice." When I had uttered these words, a certain Maestro Alessandro
Lastricati broke silence and said, "Look you, Benvenuto, you are going
to attempt an enterprise which the laws of art do not sanction, and
which cannot succeed."

I turned upon him with such fury and so full of mischief, that he and
all the rest of them exclaimed with one voice, "On then! Give orders!
We will obey your last commands,