ient curiosity. After a moment's reflection, he
prepared to unseal the envelope; but suddenly he threw it down again upon
the table, as if, by a strange caprice, he had wished to prolong for a
few minutes that agony of uncertainty, as poignant and irritating as the
emotion of the gambler.

Looking at his watch, Rodin resolved not to open the letter, until the
hand should mark half-past nine, of which it still wanted seven minutes.
In one of those whims of puerile fatalism, from which great minds have
not been exempt, Rodin said to himself: "I burn with impatience to open
this letter. If I do not open it till half-past nine, the news will be
favorable." To employ these minutes, Rodin took several turns up and down
the room, and stood in admiring contemplation before two old prints,
stained with damp and age, and fastened to the wall by rusty nails. The
first of these works of art--the only ornaments with which Rodin had
decorated this hole--was one of those coarse pictures, illuminated with
red, yellow, green, and blue, such as are sold at fairs; an Italian
inscription announced that this print had been manufactured at Rome. It
represented a woman covered with rags, bearing a wallet, and having a
little child upon her knees; a horrible hag of a fortune-teller held in
her hands the hand of the little child, and seemed to read there his
future fate, for these words in large blue letters issued from her mouth:
"Sara Papa" (he shall be Pope).

The second of these works of art, which appeared to inspire Rodin with
deep meditations, was an excellent etching, whose careful finish and
bold, correct drawing, contrasted singularly with the coarse coloring of
the other picture. This rare and splendid engraving, which had cost Rodin
six louis (an enormous expense for him), represented a young boy dressed
in rags. The ugliness of his features was compensated by the intellectual
expression of his strongly marked countenance. Seated on a stone,
surrounded by a herd of swine, that he seemed employed in keeping, he was
seen in front, with his elbow resting on his knee, and his chin in the
palm of his hand. The pensive and reflective attitude of this young man,
dressed as a beggar, the power expressed in his large forehead, the
acuteness of his penetrating glance, and the firm lines of the mouth,
seemed to reveal indomitable resolution, combined with superior
intelligence and ready craft. Beneath this figure, the emblems of the
papacy en