The Bust

It had to be thought up, that's all. To solve this problem requires a certain knowledge of the mysterious properties of marble. In brief, here is how the Roman bust proceeded.

It awaited black night. Then, unfolding the braid whose sinuosity, without forgetting that of the orbits, the arch of the eyebrows, the nostrils, the ears, the lips, formed its countless profiles, unfolding, I say, with method, longer than a river, more solid than steel, more supple than silk, that living thing, suited to a tailspin, to pierce walls, slide under doors and through keyholes, attentive (without losing sight of its work) to retain the least knots it undid and which it had to exactly redo returning under penalty of death, the bust ingenious and cruel, after having crossed several nocturnal buildings, strangled the man asleep.

Jean Cocteau