After the artist had promised not to speak of departure during the next few days, Philip began to paint a saint, which Moor had sketched, but at the end of half an hour he threw down his brush.  He called himself negligent of duty, because he was following his inclination, instead of using his brain and hands in the service of the State and Church.  Duty was his tyrant, his oppressor.  When the day-laborer threw his hoe over his shoulder, the poor rascal was rid of toil and anxiety; but they pursued him everywhere, night and day.  His son was a monster, his subjects were rebels or cringing hounds.  Bands of heretics, like moles or senseless brutes, undermined and assailed the foundation of the throne and safeguard of society:  the Church.  To crush and vanquish was his profession, hatred his reward on earth.  Then, after a moment’s silence, he pointed towards heaven, exclaiming as if in ecstasy:  “There, there! with Him, with Her, with the Saints, for whom I fight!”

The king had rarely come to the treasury in such a mood.  He seemed to feel this too, and after recovering his self-control, said: 

“It pursues me even here, I cannot succeed in getting the right coloring to-day.  Have you finished anything new?”

Moor now pointed out to the king a picture by his own hand, and after Philip had gazed at it long and appreciatively, criticising it with excellent judgment, the artist led him to Ulrich’s portrait of Sophonisba, and asked, not without anxiety:  “What does Your Majesty say to this attempt?”

“Hm!” observed the monarch.  “A little of Moor, something borrowed from Titian, yet a great deal that is original.  The bluish-grey leaden tone comes from your shop.  The thing is a wretched likeness!  Sophonisba resembles a gardener’s boy.  Who made it?”

“My pupil, Ulrich Navarrete.”

“How long has he been painting?”

“For several months, Sire.”

“And you think he will be an artist of note?”

“Perhaps so.  In many respects he surpasses my expectations, in others he falls below them.  He is a strange fellow.”

“He is ambitious, at any rate.”

“No small matter for the future artist.  What he eagerly begins has a very grand and promising aspect; but it shrinks in the execution.  His mind seizes and appropriates what he desires to represent, at a single hasty grasp. . . .”

“Rather too vehement, I should think.”

“No fault at his age.  What he possesses makes me less anxious, than what he lacks.  I cannot yet discover the thoughtful artist-spirit in him.”

“You mean the spirit, that refines what it has once taken, and in quiet meditation arranges lines, and assigns each color to its proper place, in short your own art-spirit.”

“And yours also, Sire.  If you had begun to paint early, you would have possessed what Ulrich lacks.”

“Perhaps so.  Besides, his defect is one of those which will vanish with years.  In your school, with zeal and industry. . . .”