He came in a few days to Roderick's studio, one afternoon when Rowland was present.He examined the new statue with great deference, said it was very promising, and abstained, considerately, from irritating prophecies.
But Rowland fancied he observed certain signs of inward jubilation on the clever sculptor's part, and walked away with him to learn his private opinion.
"Certainly; I liked it as well as I said," Gloriani declared in answer to Rowland's anxious query; "or rather I liked it a great deal better.
I did n't say how much, for fear of making your friend angry.
But one can leave him alone now, for he 's coming round.I told you he could n't keep up the transcendental style, and he has already broken down.
Don't you see it yourself, man?"
"I don't particularly like this new statue," said Rowland.
"That 's because you 're a purist.It 's deuced clever, it 's deuced knowing, it 's deuced pretty, but it is n't the topping high art of three months ago.
He has taken his turn sooner than I supposed.What has happened to him?
Has he been disappointed in love? But that 's none of my business.
I congratulate him on having become a practical man."Roderick, however, was less to be congratulated than Gloriani had taken it into his head to believe.He was discontented with his work, he applied himself to it by fits and starts, he declared that he did n't know what was coming over him; he was turning into a man of moods.
"Is this of necessity what a fellow must come to"--he asked of Rowland, with a sort of peremptory flash in his eye, which seemed to imply that his companion had undertaken to insure him against perplexities and was not fulfilling his contract--"this damnable uncertainty when he goes to bed at night as to whether he is going to wake up in a working humor or in a swearing humor? Have we only a season, over before we know it, in which we can call our faculties our own?
Six months ago I could stand up to my work like a man, day after day, and never dream of asking myself whether I felt like it.
But now, some mornings, it 's the very devil to get going.
My statue looks so bad when I come into the studio that I have twenty minds to smash it on the spot, and I lose three or four hours in sitting there, moping and getting used to it."Rowland said that he supposed that this sort of thing was the lot of every artist and that the only remedy was plenty of courage and faith.
And he reminded him of Gloriani's having forewarned him against these sterile moods the year before.
"Gloriani 's an ass!" said Roderick, almost fiercely.
He hired a horse and began to ride with Rowland on the Campagna.
This delicious amusement restored him in a measure to cheerfulness, but seemed to Rowland on the whole not to stimulate his industry.
Their rides were always very long, and Roderick insisted on making them longer by dismounting in picturesque spots and stretching himself in the sun among a heap of overtangled stones.
He let the scorching Roman luminary beat down upon him with an equanimity which Rowland found it hard to emulate.
But in this situation Roderick talked so much amusing nonsense that, for the sake of his company, Rowland consented to be uncomfortable, and often forgot that, though in these diversions the days passed quickly, they brought forth neither high art nor low.
And yet it was perhaps by their help, after all, that Roderick secured several mornings of ardent work on his new figure, and brought it to rapid completion.One afternoon, when it was finished, Rowland went to look at it, and Roderick asked him for his opinion.
"What do you think yourself?" Rowland demanded, not from pusillanimity, but from real uncertainty.
"I think it is curiously bad," Roderick answered.
"It was bad from the first; it has fundamental vices.
I have shuffled them in a measure out of sight, but I have not corrected them.I can't--I can't--I can't!" he cried passionately.
"They stare me in the face--they are all I see!"Rowland offered several criticisms of detail, and suggested certain practicable changes.But Roderick differed with him on each of these points;the thing had faults enough, but they were not those faults.
Rowland, unruffled, concluded by saying that whatever its faults might be, he had an idea people in general would like it.
"I wish to heaven some person in particular would buy it, and take it off my hands and out of my sight!" Roderick cried.
"What am I to do now?" he went on."I have n't an idea.
I think of subjects, but they remain mere lifeless names.
They are mere words--they are not images.What am I to do?"Rowland was a trifle annoyed."Be a man," he was on the point of saying, "and don't, for heaven's sake, talk in that confoundedly querulous voice."But before he had uttered the words, there rang through the studio a loud, peremptory ring at the outer door.
Roderick broke into a laugh."Talk of the devil,"he said, "and you see his horns! If that 's not a customer, it ought to be."The door of the studio was promptly flung open, and a lady advanced to the threshold--an imposing, voluminous person, who quite filled up the doorway.Rowland immediately felt that he had seen her before, but he recognized her only when she moved forward and disclosed an attendant in the person of a little bright-eyed, elderly gentleman, with a bristling white moustache.
Then he remembered that just a year before he and his companion had seen in the Ludovisi gardens a wonderfully beautiful girl, strolling in the train of this conspicuous couple.
He looked for her now, and in a moment she appeared, following her companions with the same nonchalant step as before, and leading her great snow-white poodle, decorated with motley ribbons.
The elder lady offered the two young men a sufficiently gracious salute;the little old gentleman bowed and smiled with extreme alertness.
