When We Dead Awaken - BestLightNovel.com
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MAIA.
How so?
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
When I had finished this masterpiece of mine--[Makes a pa.s.sionate movement with his hand]--for "The Resurrection Day" is a masterpiece! Or was one in the beginning. No, it is one still. It must, must, must be a masterpiece!
MAIA.
[Looks at him in astonishment.] Why, Rubek--all the world knows that.
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Short, repellently.] All the world knows nothing! Understands nothing!
MAIA.
Well, at any rate it can divine something--
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
Something that isn't there at all, yes. Something that never was in my mind. Ah yes, that they can all go into ecstasies over! [Growling to himself.] What is the good of working oneself to death for the mob and the ma.s.ses--for "all the world"!
MAIA.
Do you think it is better, then--do you think it is worthy of you, to do nothing at all but portrait-bust now and then?
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[With a sly smile.] They are not exactly portrait-busts that I turn out, Maia.
MAIA.
Yes, indeed they are--for the last two or three years--ever since you finished your great group and got it out of the house--
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
All the same, they are no mere portrait-busts, I a.s.sure you.
MAIA.
What are they, then?
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
There is something equivocal, something cryptic, lurking in and behind these busts--a secret something, that the people themselves cannot see--
MAIA.
Indeed?
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Decisively.] I alone can see it. And it amuses me unspeakably.--On the surface I give them the "striking likeness," as they call it, that they all stand and gape at in astonishment--[Lowers his voice]--but at bottom they are all respectable, pompous horse-faces, and self-opinionated donkey-muzzles, and lop-eared, low-browed dog-skulls, and fatted swine-snouts--and sometimes dull, brutal bull-fronts as well--
MAIA.
[Indifferently.] All the dear domestic animals, in fact.
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
Simply the dear domestic animals, Maia. All the animals which men have bedevilled in their own image--and which have bedevilled men in return.
[Empties his champagne-gla.s.s and laughs.] And it is these double-faced works of art that our excellent plutocrats come and order of me. And pay for in all good faith--and in good round figures too--almost their weight in gold, as the saying goes.
MAIA.
[Fills his gla.s.s.] Come, Rubek! Drink and be happy.
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
[Pa.s.ses his hand several times across his forehead and leans back in his chair.] I am happy, Maia. Really happy--in a way. [Short silence.]
For after all there is a certain happiness in feeling oneself free and independent on every hand--in having at ones command everything one can possibly wish for--all outward things, that is to say. Do you not agree with me, Maia?
MAIA.
Oh yes, I agree. All that is well enough in its way. [Looking at him.] But do you remember what you promised me the day we came to an understanding on--on that troublesome point--
PROFESSOR RUBEK.
