Page:The Life of Michael Angelo.djvu/82

 the difficulties and cares which I have had in supporting you. I should much like to know if you take all that into account! If you had sufficient intelligence to recognise the truth, you would not say: 'I have spent so much of my own,' and you would not have beset me here, tormenting me with your affairs, without recollecting all my past conduct towards you. You would have said: 'Michael Angelo knows what he wrote to us; if he does not do it now it is because he has been prevented by something of which we are in ignorance. Let us be patient.' When a horse runs as fast as he can, it is unwise to give him the spur, to make him run more than he is able. But you have never known me. God pardon you! He it is who has granted me the strength to do all that I have done to assist you. But you will not recognise it until I am no more."

Such was the atmosphere of ingratitude and envy in the midst of which Michael Angelo struggled—between an unworthy family which harassed him and relentless enemies who watched him and anticipated his failure. And yet, during this period, he was accomplishing the heroic work in the Sistine Chapel. But at the price of what desperate efforts! He nearly abandoned everything and fled once more. He was under the impression that he was going to die. Perhaps he would have welcomed death.

The Pope became irritated at his slowness and obstinacy in hiding his work. Their proud characters dashed against each other like thunderclouds. "One day," says Condivi, "on Julius II. asking him when he would have finished the chapel, Michael Angelo made his usual reply, 'When I am able.' The Pope, furious,