August, uncertain, asked Hausenstein to return in the evening and visit him in his workshop. That evening he showed Hausenstein the figures he had created in the last two years, and only when the demonstration was over did he realize that he had been testing Hausenstein: one false note of praise, one inaccuracy of judgment or coarseness of perception, and August would have sent him off with his tedious boredom and his mocking mouth. But Hausenstein, no less than Preisendanz before him, knew what he was talking about. Without becoming falsely earnest, without altering his manner of worldliness, amusement, and contempt, Hausenstein spoke with authority and precision about what he called the Eschenburg automatons. He said he liked women with more blood in them, and told August to visit brothels for the sake of his art; he pointed out a very minor flaw in one figure that only an expert could possibly have detected. His praise was also precise; and he compared the Eschenburg figures in detail with the greatest automatons of the last hundred and fifty years. Technically, August had carried the art beyond any point it had reached before; and it was clear that he would never rest until he had created a figure capable of all the motions of the human musculature. In this striving, there was madness; but no doubt it was as good a way as another to pass the time.