—And you! what do you want? Basil Valentine burst out, advancing again as this figure before him moved backwards up the room, not unsteady, but from side to side, back toward the staircase and the hulk flung at its foot. —Yes, your by all that’s ugly! And you, handling you like a jewel, he went on, his voice rising. —You and your work, your precious work, your precious van der Goes, your precious van Eyck, your precious not van Eyck but what I want! And your precious Chancellor Rolin, look at him there, look at him. Yes, why didn’t you paint him into a Virgin and Child and Donor? Do you think it’s any different now? That that fat-faced Chancellor Rolin wasn’t just like him? Yes, swear to me by all that’s ugly! Valentine hissed, and got breath. —Vulgarity, cupidity, and power. Is that what frightens you? Is that all you see around you, and you think it was different then? Flanders in the fifteenth century, do you think it was all like the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb? What about the paintings we’ve never seen? the trash that’s disappeared? Just because we have a few masterpieces left, do you think they were all masterpieces? What about the pictures we’ve never seen, and never will see? that were as bad as anything that’s ever been done. And your precious van Eyck, do you think he didn’t live up to his neck in a loud vulgar court? In a world where everything was done for the same reasons everything’s done now? for vanity and avarice and lust? and the boundless egoism of these Chancellor Rolins? Do you think they knew the difference between what was bizarre and what was beautiful? that their vulgar ostentation didn’t stifle beauty everywhere, everywhere? the way it’s doing today? Yes, damn it, listen to me now, and swear by all that’s ugly! Do you think any painter did anything but hire himself out? These fine altarpieces, do you think they glorified anyone but the vulgar men who commissioned them? Do you think a van Eyck didn’t curse having to whore away his genius, to waste his talents on all sorts of vulgar celebrations, at the mercy of people he hated?