Honore de Balzac: Cousin Betty

1. PART I: THE PRODIGAL FATHER (continued)

This present was a silver seal formed of three little figures back to back, wreathed with foliage, and supporting the Globe. They represented Faith, Hope, and Charity; their feet rested on monsters rending each other, among them the symbolical serpent. In 1846, now that such immense strides have been made in the art of which Benvenuto Cellini was the master, by Mademoiselle de Fauveau, Wagner, Jeanest, Froment-Meurice, and wood-carvers like Lienard, this little masterpiece would amaze nobody; but at that time a girl who understood the silversmith's art stood astonished as she held the seal which Lisbeth put into her hands, saying:

"There! what do you think of that?"

In design, attitude, and drapery the figures were of the school of Raphael; but the execution was in the style of the Florentine metal workers--the school created by Donatello, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Benvenuto Cellini, John of Bologna, and others. The French masters of the Renaissance had never invented more strangely twining monsters than these that symbolized the evil passions. The palms, ferns, reeds, and foliage that wreathed the Virtues showed a style, a taste, a handling that might have driven a practised craftsman to despair; a scroll floated above the three figures; and on its surface, between the heads, were a W, a chamois, and the word fecit.

"Who carved this?" asked Hortense.

"Well, just my lover," replied Lisbeth. "There are ten months' work in it; I could earn more at making sword-knots.--He told me that Steinbock means a rock goat, a chamois, in German. And he intends to mark all his work in that way.--Ah, ha! I shall have the shawl."

"What for?"

"Do you suppose I could buy such a thing, or order it? Impossible! Well, then, it must have been given to me. And who would make me such a present? A lover!"

Hortense, with an artfulness that would have frightened Lisbeth Fischer if she had detected it, took care not to express all her admiration, though she was full of the delight which every soul that is open to a sense of beauty must feel on seeing a faultless piece of work--perfect and unexpected.