'A mind elevated to the contemplation of excellence perceives in this defaced and shattered fragment, ... the traces of superlative genius, the reliques of a work on which succeeding ages can only gaze with inadequate admiration.'
Joshua Reynolds "Tenth Discourse" to the Royal Academy December 10, 1778
Rain. Cold and incessant. The streets of Rome hiss, steam rises from stone and plaster. The sculptor's pulse throbs as he shatters the marble – the chisel falls like fate: once, twice – and then again. A crack suddenly splits the block in half. Ruined.
He doesn't care, not at all.
The fog in his mind mirrors the alleys outside. From Florence, after Giulio's call, the visions had vanished. Now he carved nothing but silence.
Then, suddenly – the statue arrived.
Wrapped in cloth, transported on wheels like a corpse, like a relic. Armless. Faceless. Legless. Only a torso, rough and imposing. Yet – it breathes.
It calls its secret name aloud, a cipher.
The divine, as the Florentines called him, what irony if they had known, if they had known... the divine follows the bearers holding their breath, in a reverent silence. They enter the palace clumsily, the hero laid down, they leave. Irreverent and empty.
He remains. Silence.
The space becomes cold, echoing. Time becomes space. By candlelight, battling against shadows, angels, and demons, the gaze of the sculptures casts itself into the currents of time – trying to guess its origin. He tries, with respect, to whisper names at twilight: Dionysus? Heracles? Polyphemus?
No. Noo. None of them. He curses the marble. Not god nor demigod, only a man, but what a man... a marvel of a man. Broken.
Humiliated but still proud, the torso seems to twist in the shadow. Still sacred, but wounded... deep, deep inside the pain arches. The man kneels beside the marble.
In the stillness, something moves, a tremor. A breath on his neck. Then a voice – not spoken but remembered. "We, ghosts. Fleeing shadows... You won't hold me anymore... never again. As long as I have light, breath will flow through the vein, memory will feed on vengeance and life."
In that ancient time, the sculptor after a long, long time, once again became humble, he cried bitterly, salty... although he didn't understand why, he felt the relentless desire to give form,... to sculpt the eternal.