MARTELLUS. I did. That is why I laughed at you just now. You will smash yours before you have completed a dozen of them. [_He goes to the end of the altar and sits down beside the Newly Born_]. ARJILLAX. But why? MARTELLUS. Because you cannot give them life. A live ancient is better than a dead statue. [_He takes the Newly Born on his knee: she is flattered and voluptuously responsive_]. Anything alive is better than anything that is only pretending to be alive. [_To Arjillax_] Your disillusion with your works of beauty is only the beginning of your disillusion with images of all sorts. As your hand became more skilful and your chisel cut deeper, you strove to get nearer and nearer to truth and reality, discarding the fleeting fleshly lure, and making images of the mind that fascinates to the end. But how can so noble an inspiration be satisfied with any image, even an image of the truth? In the end the intellectual conscience that tore you away from the fleeting in art to the eternal must tear you away from art altogether, because art is false and life alone is true. THE NEWLY BORN [_flings her arms round his neck and kisses him enthusiastically_]. MARTELLUS [_rises; carries her to the curved bench on his left; deposits her beside Strephon as if she were his overcoat; and continues without the least change of tone_] Shape it as you will, marble remains marble, and the graven image an idol. As I have broken my idols, and cast away my chisel and modelling tools, so will you too break these busts of yours. ARJILLAX. Never. MARTELLUS. Wait, my friend. I do not come empty-handed today, as you imagined. On the contrary, I bring with me such a work of art as you have never seen, and an artist who has surpassed both you and me further than we have surpassed all our competitors. ECRASIA. Impossible. The greatest things in art can never be surpassed. ARJILLAX. Who is this paragon whom you declare greater than I? MARTELLUS. I declare him greater than myself, Arjillax. ARJILLAX [_frowning_] I understand. Sooner than not drown me, you are willing to clasp me round the waist and jump overboard with me. ACIS. Oh, stop squabbling. That is the worst of you artists. You are always in little squabbling cliques; and the worst cliques are those which consist of one man. Who is this new fellow you are throwing in one another's teeth? ARJILLAX. Ask Martellus: do not ask me. I know nothing of him. [_He leaves Martellus, and sits down beside Ecrasia, on her left_]. MARTELLUS. You know him quite well. Pygmalion. ECRASIA [_indignantly_] Pygmalion! That soulless creature! A scientist! A laboratory person! ARJILLAX. Pygmalion produce a work of art! You have lost your artistic senses. The man is utterly incapable of modelling a thumb nail, let alone a human figure. MARTELLUS. That does not matter: I have done the modelling for him. ARJILLAX. What on earth do you mean? MARTELLUS [_calling_] Pygmalion: come forth.