The language of this art was the body. And this body—when had one last seen it?

Strata after strata of costumes were piled over it like an ever renewed varnish; but under this protecting crust the growing soul had changed it; and this growing soul worked breathlessly at remodeling the expression of die faces. The body had become a different one. Were it now unveiled, it would perhaps reveal the imprint of a thousand new expressions as well as the stamp of those old mysteries that, rising from the unconscious, reared their dripping heads like strange river-gods out of the singing blood. And this body could not be less beautiful than that of the Antique. It must be of a still higher beauty. For two thousand years life had held this body in its hands and had moulded it, had forged it, now listening, now hammering, night and day. The art of painting dreamed of this body, adorned it with light and illumined it with twilight, surrounded it with all softness and all delight; touched it like a petal, and in turn was swept by it as by a wave. But plastic art, to which it in truth belonged, as yet of this body knew nothing.

Here was a task as great as the world. And he who stood before it and beheld it was unknown and struggling under the necessity of earning his bread. He was quite alone and if he had been a real dreamer, he would have dreamed a beautiful and deep dream—a dream that no one would have understood—one of those long, long dreams in which a life could pass like a day. But this young man who worked in the factory at Sèvres was a