verything so huge as to disgust one
with beauty, painting girls like the trunks of oak-trees, women like
giant butchers, with heaps and heaps of stupid flesh, and never a gleam
of a divine or infernal soul! He was a mason--a colossal mason, if you
like--but he was nothing more."

Weary "modern" that Narcisse was, spoilt by the pursuit of the original
and the rare, he thus unconsciously gave rein to his fated hate of health
and power. That Michael Angelo who brought forth without an effort, who
had left behind him the most prodigious of all artistic creations, was
the enemy. And his crime precisely was that he had created life, produced
life in such excess that all the petty creations of others, even the most
delightful among them, vanished in presence of the overflowing torrent of
human beings flung there all alive in the sunlight.

"Well, for my part," Pierre courageously declared, "I'm not of your
opinion. I now realise that life is everything in art; that real
immortality belongs only to those who create. The case of Michael Angelo
seems to me decisive, for he is the superhuman master, the monster who
overwhelms all others, precisely because he brought forth that
magnificent living flesh which offends your sense of delicacy. Those who
are inclined to the curious, those who have minds of a pretty turn, whose
intellects are ever seeking to penetrate things, may try to improve on
the equivocal and invisible, and set all the charm of art in some
elaborate stroke or symbolisation; but, none the less, Michael Angelo
remains the all-powerful, the maker of men, the master of clearness,
simplicity, and health."

At this Narcisse smiled with indulgent and courteous disdain. And he
anticipated further argument by remarking: "It's already eleven. My
cousin was to have sent a servant here as soon as he could receive us. I
am surprised to have seen nobody as yet. Shall we go up to see the
_stanze_ of Raffaelle while we wait?"

Once in the rooms above, he showed himself perfect, both lucid in his
remarks and just in his appreciations, having recovered all his easy
intelligence as soon as he was no longer upset by his hatred of colossal
labour and cheerful decoration.

It was unfortunate that Pierre should have first visited the Sixtine
Chapel; for it was necessary he should forget what he had just seen and
accustom himself to what he now beheld in order to enjoy its pure beauty.
It was as if some potent wine had confused him,