Accordingly, Francesco, from that moment, became the victim of the most sinful and delirious passion. He thought of the Pagan statuary Pygmalion, whose history had supplied him with a subject for one of his former profane works, and like him, he implored the gods, that they would infuse life into the creations of his art. Very soon it appeared to him as if the principal figures in his picture began to move and to swell forward in _alto relievo_; but when he tried to clasp the phantom in his arms, he found that the dead, cold canvass still mocked at his embrace! Thereupon he tore his hair, and behaved like one possessed by the devil. CHAPTER XIV. Already two days and two nights had Francesco passed in a state of raging delirium. On the third day, when he, as if petrified, and motionless like a statue, was standing before the picture, the door of his chamber opened, and there was a rustling behind him as if of female garments. He turned round, and beheld a very beautiful woman, whom he recognized at once as the original of his picture. His astonishment was now beyond all description when he beheld that form, which he had so long contemplated as a marble statue, living, breathing, and blooming, before him. Nay, he was seized with a kind of mysterious terror, when he looked from his beautiful visitant back to the picture, of which the resemblance was so accurate, that it appeared like the reflection of her features in a mirror. He felt the fullest conviction, that this event was the effect of supernatural agency; he could not utter a word, but, overcome by his fears, fell on his knees before the strange lady, whom he scarcely believed to be more than an aerial phantom. This living Venus raised him up, however, and immediately proceeded to relate to him her own history. She had seen Francesco at the time when he was yet a pupil in the school of Leonardo di Rovino. She was then but very young, but had conceived for him a passion so ardent, that it had never lost possession of her heart; and at last she had determined on leaving her parents and friends, who resided in the country, and wandering away to find him in Rome, as an inward voice had told her that he loved her very much; and that, merely from the force of that attachment, had been led to paint her portrait, which warning she now found to have been strictly true. Francesco now believed all that she told him. He became persuaded that a secret mental sympathy existed between himself and this stranger, which had given rise to the passion by which he had so long been haunted. He forgot the statue, and gave himself no trouble with inquiries as to how the resemblance betwixt it and his new visitor had been produced. Indeed such questions would have been very needless, as they admitted not of any satisfactory answer.