In the morning, said the servants, the candles had burnt to their ends and even some of the lamps-full the night before-were empty for they had burnt through the night; and the painter was still working. Each evening he called again for candles, and fresh candles were brought, round and sweet-smelling; and the lamps, refilled, were again set alight. And in the morning, when the servants brought him breakfast, all were still burning, or guttering, or entirely consumed, and the painter still lashed his canvas.

It was not true that he never slept; it was true that he slept little, lying down for a few minutes or half an hour, till the light flickering against his eyelids brought him awake again, rested enough to work a little longer. But the underlying truth was that he hated the dark, hated it here, in this palace, hated and feared it, which he had never done before; some of his best studies had been done of twilight, or of Moon's image across dark water. But all that seemed to belong to another life, and here if any shadow fell undisturbed by light he would move a candle or call for another one, till there was nowhere he could stand, near his new portrait of the most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms, that did not have many tiny tongues of light flicking across his shadow, the canvas's, and that of the paintbrush that he held in his hand. It was true furthermore that he could not sleep with the queen's brilliant painted eyes upon him; no matter how he set the frame, he felt her eyes, felt her command, her passion, her presence; and so after a very few minutes' sleep he found himself pulled to his feet again, staggering toward the canvas, groping for a brush.