The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini追书网更新最快,(请牢记追书网网址:https://www.zhuishu5.com)

    XVI

    BEING very well satisfied with what he had seen, the King returned to his palace, after bestowing on me too many marks of favour to be here recorded. On the following day he sent for me at his dinner-hour. The Cardinal of Ferrara was there at meat with him. When I arrived, the King had reached his second course; he began at once to speak to me, saying, with a pleasant cheer, that having now so fine a basin and jug of my workmanship, he wanted an equally handse salt-cellar to match them; and begged me to make a design, and to lose no time about it. I replied: “Your Majesty shall see a model of the sort even sooner than you have cmanded; for while I was making the basin, I thought there ought to be a saltcellar to match it; therefore I have already designed one, and if it is your pleasure, I will at once exhibit my conception.” The King turned with a lively movement of surprise and pleasure to the lords in his cpany—they were the King of Navarre, the Cardinal of Lorraine, and the Cardinal of Ferrara—exclaiming as he did so: “Upon my word, this is a man to be loved and cherished by every one who knows him.” Then he told me that he would very gladly see my model.

    I set off, and returned in a few minutes; for I had only to cross the river, that is, the Seine. I carried with me the wax model which I had made in Re at the Cardinal of Ferrara's request. When I appeared again before the King and uncovered my piece, he cried out in astonishment: “This is a hundred times more divine a thing that I had ever dreamed of. What a miracle of a man! He ought never to stop working.” Then he turned to me with a beaming countenance, and told me that he greatly liked the piece, and wished me to execute it in gold. The Cardinal of Ferrara looked me in the face, and let me understand that he recognised the model as the same which I had made for him in Re. I replied that I had already told him I should carry it out for one who was worthy of it. The Cardinal, remembering my words, and tled by the revenge he thought that I was taking on him, remarked to the King: “Sire, this is an enormous undertaking; I am only afraid that we shall never see it finished. These able artists who have great conceptions in their brain are ready enough to put the same in execution without duly considering when they are to be accplished. I therefore, if I gave cmission for things of such magnitude, should like to know when I was likely to get them.” The King replied that if a man was so scrupulous about the termination of a work, he would never

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