The Vicomte de Marmagne and the Provost of Paris suffered in their hatred, as Anne and Colombe suffered in their love. They harbored mortal enmity to Benvenuto,--Marmagne especially. Benvenuto had caused him to be despised and humiliated by a woman; Benvenuto constrained him to be brave, for before the scene at the Hôtel d'Etampes the viscount might have had him poniarded by his people on the street, but now he must needs go and beard him in his own house, and Marmagne shuddered with dismay at the prospect. We do not readily pardon those who force us to realize that we are cowards. Thus all were suffering, even Scozzone. Scozzone the madcap laughed and sang no more, and her eyes were often red with weeping. Benvenuto did not love her. Benvenuto was always cold, and sometimes spoke sharply to her. Scozzone had for a long time had a fixed idea, which had become a monomania with her. She was determined to become Benvenuto's wife. When she first went to him, expecting to serve him as a plaything, and he treated her with all the consideration due a wife, and not as a mere light o' love, the poor child was greatly exalted by such unlocked for respect and honor, and at the same time she felt profoundly grateful to her benefactor, and unaffectedly proud to find herself so highly esteemed. Afterward, not at Benvenuto's command, but in response to his entreaty, she gladly consented to serve him as model, and by dint of seeing her own form and features so often reproduced, and so often admired, in bronze, in silver, and in gold, she had simply attributed half of the goldsmith's success to herself; for the lovely outlines, which were so loudly praised, belonged to her much more than to the master. She blushed with pleasure when Benvenuto was complimented upon the purity of the lines of this or that figure; she complacently persuaded herself that she was indispensable to her lover's renown, and had become a part of his glory, even as she had become a part of his heart. Poor child! she did not dream that she had never been to the artist that secret inspiration, that hidden divinity, which every creator evokes, and which makes him a creator. Because Benvenuto copied her graceful attitudes, she believed in good faith that he owed everything to her, and little by little she took courage to hope that, after raising the courtesan to the rank of mistress, he would raise the mistress to the rank of wife. As dissimulation was altogether foreign to her character, she had avowed her ambition in very precise terms. Cellini listened to her gravely, and replied,-- "This requires consideration."