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 before him, and sometimes the bust changed despite his own will, and had a likeness in it to his dead love that he would fain have blurred out and could not; and then again, also, when the face in the clay was Musa's and hers alone, there would be, do what he could, a reproach in the eyes and a sternness in the mouth which so annoyed him that he would dash the earth out of all shape, and leave it in a heap upon the stone floor of the tomb.

To her, all these things that he did seemed marvellous and exquisite. To be able to take a lump of mud from the stream, and make it fair, in the likeness of flower or bird or human face, seemed to her a power and possession as wonderful as his knowledge of the past of perished nations. It was the first time she had been ever touched by the sorcery of the arts: the true magicians.

She would look at the likeness of herself with a grave smile; she was proud to be like that. Then she would turn her eyes away.

'Joconda always bade me think nothing of how I was made,' she said once.

Este always heard her speak of Joconda with impatience.