He made no comment on any of the work, which annoyed her very much; she was convinced he was filled with contempt for it. She tried to reconcile herself to the situation by telling herself that, after what had passed between them, she owed it to him to let him see her work, and say anything or nothing, as he might think fit. When he had gone the round of the room, he turned to her, saying: ‘And now for the _capo d’opera_. So far, it seems to me, you have not patience enough to finish anything. You begin your thought, but you do not carry it through.’ ‘Don’t expect a _capo d’opera_,’ she said. ‘It may be worse than all the rest. I only know it interests me the most. If you will take hold of the cloth at that side, we can lift it off.’ They removed the covering from the figure, and the unfinished work stood revealed. Minna’s heart was beating fast. He stood and looked at the figure, and she, standing near him, tried to put herself, as it were, outside herself, and judge of it as an intelligent outsider might have done. The effort was useless, of course. She only succeeded in confusing herself and coming to no conclusion. Meantime, the work at which they looked was this: a nearly life-size figure of a young man, somewhat above middle height, but not very tall. His dress--what there was of it--was the dress of a nineteenth-century working man; in this case, of an Italian working man. That is to say, he had on something between a _culotte_ and trousers, short and rather loose, of some thinnish linen, summer stuff, bound round his waist with a leathern belt. His shirt had been taken off and was cast in a little heap on the ground beside him. His sinewy naked feet seemed to clasp the ground on which he stood, which ground was strewn with bits of rough stone or pebble; he was standing erect; his right hand grasped the handle of a stout shovel, the spade part of which was half sunk in a heap of cindery-looking substance. His left arm was raised and crooked; the hand drooped somewhat in a peculiar way, with its back turned towards his forehead. The action was unmistakable: he had been wiping the sweat from his forehead, and the face of this figure, with the eyes raised, the head lifted, in the act of one who has suddenly paused for an instant in a piece of long-continued, strenuous labour, was filled with an expression of strength, resolution, energy, and at the same time of patient endurance, which was magnificently conveyed.