ould no more
have separated himself from his passion for making chalices and
crucifixes than he could have changed the height of his stature or the
colour of his eyes. But at the same time he hated the church, the
priests, and every one who was to use the beautiful things over which he
spent so much time and labour. Had he been indifferent, a careless,
good-natured sceptic, he would have been a bad artist. As it was, the
very violence of his hatred lent spirit and vigour to his eye and hand.
He was willing to work upon the figure, perfecting every detail of
expression, until he fancied he could feel and see the silver limbs of
the dead Christ suffering upon the cross under the diabolical skill of
his long fingers. The monstrous horror of the thought made him work
marvels, and the fancied realisation of an idea that would startle even
a hardened unbeliever, lent a feverish impulse to this strange man's
genius.

As for the angels on the chalices, he did not hate them; on the
contrary, he saw in them the reflection of those vague images of
loveliness and innocence which haunt every artist's soul at times, and
the mere manual skill necessary to produce expression in things so
minute, fascinated a mind accustomed to cope with difficulties, and so
inured to them as almost to love them.

Nevertheless, when a man is constantly a prey to strong emotions, his
nature cannot long remain unchanged. The conviction had been growing in
Marzio's mind that it was his duty, for the sake of consistency, to
abandon his trade. The thought saddened him, but the conclusion seemed
inevitable. It was absurd, he repeated to himself, that one who hated
the priests should work for them. Marzio was a fanatic in his theories,
but he had something of the artist's simplicity in his idea of the way
they should be carried out. He would have thought it no harm to kill a
priest, but it seemed to him contemptible to receive a priest's money
for providing the church with vessels which were to serve in a worship
he despised.

Moreover, he was not poor. Indeed, he was richer than any one knew, and
the large sums paid for his matchless work went straight from the
workshop to the bank, while Marzio continued to live in the simple
lodgings to which he had first brought home his wife, eighteen years
before, when he was but a young partner in the establishment he now
owned. As he sat at the bench, looking from his silver ewer to the green
lampshade, he was aski