Maia.
What are they, then?
Professor Rubek.
There is something equivocal, something cryptic, lurking in and behind these busts—a secret something, that the people themselves cannot see
Maia.
Indeed?
Professor Rubek.
[Decisively.] I alone can see it. And it amuses me unspeakably.—On the surface I give them the "striking likeness," as they call it, that they all stand and gape at in astonishment— [Lowers his voice] —but at bottom they are all respectable, pompous horse-faces, and self-opinionated donkey-muzzles, and lop-eared, low-browed dog-skulls, and fatted swine-snouts—and sometimes dull, brutal bull-fronts as well
Maia.
[Indifferently.] All the dear domestic animals, in fact.
Professor Rubek.
Simply the dear domestic animals, Maia. All the animals which men have bedevilled in their own image—and which have bedevilled men in return. [Empties his champagne-glass and laughs.] And it is these double-faced works of art that our excellent plutocrats come and order
