d throng, the ancestors of the Christ, thoughtful
mothers with lovely nude infants, men with wondering eyes peering into
the future, representatives of the punished weary race longing for the
promised Redeemer; while in the pendentives of the four corners various
biblical episodes, the victories of Israel over the Spirit of Evil,
spring into life. And finally there is the gigantic fresco at the far
end, the Last Judgment with its swarming multitude, so numerous that days
and days are needed to see each figure aright, a distracted crowd, full
of the hot breath of life, from the dead rising in response to the
furious trumpeting of the angels, from the fearsome groups of the damned
whom the demons fling into hell, even to Jesus the justiciar, surrounded
by the saints and apostles, and to the radiant concourse of the blessed
who ascend upheld by angels, whilst higher and still higher other angels,
bearing the instruments of the Passion, triumph as in full glory. And
yet, above this gigantic composition, painted thirty years subsequently,
in the full ripeness of age, the ceiling retains its ethereality, its
unquestionable superiority, for on it the artist bestowed all his virgin
power, his whole youth, the first great flare of his genius.

And Pierre found but one word to express his feelings: Michael Angelo was
the monster dominating and crushing all others. Beneath his immense
achievement you had only to glance at the works of Perugino,
Pinturicchio, Roselli, Signorelli, and Botticelli, those earlier
frescoes, admirable in their way, which below the cornice spread out
around the chapel.

Narcisse for his part had not raised his eyes to the overpowering
splendour of the ceiling. Wrapt in ecstasy, he did not allow his gaze to
stray from one of the three frescoes of Botticelli. "Ah! Botticelli," he
at last murmured; "in him you have the elegance and the grace of the
mysterious; a profound feeling of sadness even in the midst of
voluptuousness, a divination of the whole modern soul, with the most
troublous charm that ever attended artist's work."

Pierre glanced at him in amazement, and then ventured to inquire: "You
come here to see the Botticellis?"

"Yes, certainly," the young man quietly replied; "I only come here for
him, and five hours every week I only look at his work. There, just study
that fresco, Moses and the daughters of Jethro. Isn't it the most
penetrating work that human tenderness and melancholy have produc