These painted clouds with their floating banners and citadels,
yonder mysterious headlands that creep into the landscape at this hour,
those islets emerging, like flakes of bronze, out of the
sunset-glow--all the wonder of the ODYSSEY is there!"
He spoke out of politeness and soon fell silent again. His thoughts
roamed far away.
They were thoughts commensurate with the grandeur of the scene.
Count Caloveglia was no colourist. He was a sculptor, about to reap the
reward of his labours. The cheque would be in his pocket that night.
Three hundred and fifty thousand francs--or nearly. That is what made
him not exactly grave, but reserved. Excess of joy, like all other
excesses, is not meet to be displayed before men. All excess is
unseemly. Nothing overmuch. Measure in everything.
Measure even in the fabrication of Hellenic masterpieces. He had
created one of them (the Demeter did not count); it sufficed for his
modest ambitions. The Faun was his first forgery and his last. To
retrieve the fortunes of his family he had employed those peculiar
talents which God had given him.
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