as he lay on the sand, severely wounded after his last fight, awaiting
the death-stroke. He would have liked to hasten home and fetch his
materials to paint the likeness of the misjudged man, and to show it to
the scoffers.

He stood silent, absorbed in studying the quiet face so finely formed by
Nature and so pathetic to look at. No thoroughly depraved miscreant
could look like that. Yet it was like a peaceful sea: when the hurricane
should break loose, what a boiling whirl of gray, hissing, tossing,
foaming waves would disfigure the peaceful, smooth, glittering surface!

And suddenly the emperor's features began to show signs of animation.
His eye, but now so dull, shone more brightly, and he cried out, as if
the long silence had scarcely broken the thread of his ideas, but in a
still husky voice:

"I should like to get up and go with you, but I am still too weak. Do
you go now, my friend, and bring me back fresh news."

Alexander then begged him to consider how dangerous every excitement
would be for him; yet Caracalla exclaimed, eagerly:

"It will strengthen me and dome good! Everything that surrounds me is so
hollow, so insipid, so contemptible--what I hear is so small. A strong,
highly spiced word, even if it is sharp, refreshes me--When you have
finished a picture, do you like to hear nothing but how well your friends
can flatter?"

The artist thought he understood Caesar. True to his nature, always
hoping for the best, he thought that, as the severe judgment of the