are, to be sure, thoroughly
at home here. But it takes away my breath! Everything is so strange to
me--"

"Isn't it so--one doesn't see anything of this sort every day? How
every part lives and breathes! One might actually believe that the
blooming young flesh must yield when one touches it; and, with all
that, so pure and magnificent and full of style, that one never thinks
of the model when looking at it."

"Is it modeled after life?"

"Do you think that this kind of thing is imagined out of thin air?"

"And girls can actually be found who allow themselves to be made use of
for--"

"More than enough, you darling innocent. To be sure--of a sort that one
of us would not touch with gloves. But Rosenbusch says that, for all
that, they are better than their reputation. He has found very
respectable creatures among them--one, indeed, who had a regular
husband and a number of children, and who went to the studios as
soberly as others go to the seamstress or the milliner. Yes, yes, my
dearest, we good children of good families have no conception of all
this. Look," she continued, turning to Felix's modeling-board, "there
is where the young baron works. He has copied the foot of the
anatomical model, and now, as a reward, he is permitted to recruit
himself over the foot of an AEginite. Not bad!--by no means without
talent! An uncommonly handsome and agreeable man, too, whom I like very
much. But--remember what I tell you--he will always remain a cavalier,
and will never in all his life become a true artist!"

She accented the word "cavalier," in the contemptuous manner in which a
sailor talks about a landsman. Then she stepped up to the large central
group of the Adam and Eve, and began cautiously to undo the covering.

"How is this?" said she. "Why he has actually fastened the group with
clothes-pins since I last saw it, a fortnight ago. Well, I think I may
be allowed to unfasten it somewhat, and, after all, he will never
notice it. What eyes you will make at it, Giulietta! _E una magia_, as
the Italians say. It is much grander, more imposing and unprecedented
than the 'Dancing Girl' over there. There! Now, just let me unwind this
towel very carefully indeed--the head of the Eve has only just been
modeled--"

The damp linen cloth, that enveloped the figure of the kneeling woman,
now slipped off; at the same instant Angelica, who stood behind the
group and was carefully removing the last folds from the clay figure,