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“I should imagine.”

Alex took Manuel’s astonishment for admiration, so, with the candle in his hand, he went from one statue to another, removing the cloths that covered them and exhibiting them to the boy.

They were horrible, monstrous shapes. Aged hags huddled together with hanging skin and arms that reached almost to their ankles: men that looked like vultures; hunchbacked, deformed children, some with huge heads, others with diminutive, and bodies utterly lacking proportion or harmony. Manuel wondered whether this mysterious fauna might be some jest of Alex’s; but the sculptor spoke most enthusiastically of his work and explained why his figures did not possess the stupid academic correctness so highly lauded by imbeciles. They were all symbols.

After this exhibition of his works Alex sat down in a chair.

“They don’t let me work,” he exclaimed despondently. “And it grieves me. Not on my own account. Don’t imagine that. But for the sake of art. If Alejo Monzón doesn’t triumph, sculpture in Europe will go back a century.”