"I pointed to the easel, and watched him; for the harder he is to please,
the more I value his opinion. This time I felt confident of praise, or
even of some admiration, if only for the beauty of the model.

"He threw off the veil from the picture with a hasty movement, but,
instead of gazing at it calmly, as he is wont, and snapping out his sharp
criticisms, he staggered backward, as though the noonday sun had dazzled
his sight. Then, bending forward, he stared at the painting, panting as
he might after racing for a wager. He stood in perfect silence, for I
know not how long, as though it were Medusa he was gazing on, and when at
last he clasped his hand to his brow, I called him by name. He made no
reply, but an impatient 'Leave me alone!' and then he still gazed at the
face as though to devour it with his eyes, and without a sound.

"I did not disturb him; for, thought I, he too is bewitched by the
exquisite beauty of those virgin features. So we were both silent, till
he asked, in a choked voice: 'And did you paint that? Is that, do you
say, the daughter that Seleukus has just lost?'

"Of course I said 'Yes'; but then he turned on me in a rage, and
reproached me bitterly for deceiving and cheating him, and jesting with
things that to him were sacred, though I might think them a subject for
sport.

"I assured him that my answer was as earnest as it was accurate, and that
every word of my story was true.

"This only made him more furious. I, too, began to get angry, and as he,
evidently deeply agitated, still persisted in saying that my picture