But
people enough spoke flattering good-sense to make Roderick feel as if
he were already half famous. The statue passed formally into Rowland's
possession, and was paid for as if an illustrious name had been chiseled
on the pedestal. Poor Roderick owed every franc of the money. It was not
for this, however, but because he was so gloriously in the mood, that,
denying himself all breathing-time, on the same day he had given the
last touch to the Adam, he began to shape the rough contour of an Eve.
This went forward with equal rapidity and success. Roderick lost his
temper, time and again, with his models, who offered but a gross,
degenerate image of his splendid ideal; but his ideal, as he assured
Rowland, became gradually such a fixed, vivid presence, that he had only
to shut his eyes to behold a creature far more to his purpose than
the poor girl who stood posturing at forty sous an hour. The Eve was
finished in a month, and the feat was extraordinary, as well as the
statue, which represented an admirably beautiful woman. When the spring
began to muffle the rugged old city with its clambering festoons, it
seemed to him that he had done a handsome winter's work and had fairly
earned a holiday.
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