C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Calamatta’s Studio

By Charles Blanc (1813–1882)

I CAN still see Lamennais, with his worn-out coat, his round back, his yellow, parchment-like face, his eyes sparkling beneath a forehead imprinted with genius, and resembling somewhat Hoffmann’s heroes. George Sand sometimes visited us, and it seemed to me that her presence lighted up the whole studio. She always spoke to me, for she knew that I was the brother of a distinguished writer, and when she looked over my plate I trembled like a leaf.

Thus our calm sedentary life was enlivened by an occasional sunbeam; and when I was hard at work with my graver, my mind was nourished by the minds of others. Giannone, the poet, read his commentaries on Shakespeare to us, and Mercure always had a witty retort in that faulty French which is so amusing in an Italian mouth. Calamatta would listen in silence, his eyes glued to his drawing of the ‘Joconde,’ at which he worked on his good days.

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