Only the critical
audience remained to him; and these, in default of more worthy
matter, would have turned their scrutiny on a puppet or a mantle.
Meanwhile, he had no more of fever upon him; but was calm and pale
each day in all that he did and in his goings in and out. The works
he produced at this time have perished--in all likelihood, not
unjustly. It is said (and we may easily believe it), that, though
more labored than his former pictures, they were cold and unemphatic;
bearing marked out upon them, as they must certainly have done, the
measure of that boundary to which they were made to conform.
And the weight was still close at Chiaro's heart: but he held in his
breath, never resting (for he was afraid), and would not know it.
Now it happened, within these days, that there fell a great feast in
Pisa, for holy matters: and each man left his occupation; and all the
guilds and companies of the city were got together for games and
rejoicings. And there were scarcely any that stayed in the houses,
except ladies who lay or sat along their balconies between open
windows which let the breeze beat through the rooms and over the
spread tables from end to end. And the golden cloths that their arms
lay upon drew all eyes upward to see their beauty; and the day was
long; and every hour of the day was bright with the sun.
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