V

Having lived all his life in toil and poverty, he had never had the

time to love. Poor and a bachelor, until now he did not desire to

complicate his simple life. Incapable of devising any means of

increasing his little fortune, he carried, every three months, to his

notary, Cardot, his quarterly earnings and economies. When the notary

had received about three thousand francs he invested them in some

first mortgage, the interest of which he drew himself and added to the

quarterly payments made to him by Fougeres. The painter was awaiting

the fortunate moment when his property thus laid by would give him the

imposing income of two thousand francs, to allow himself the otium cum

dignitate of the artist and paint pictures; but oh! what pictures!

true pictures! each a finished picture! chouette, Koxnoff, chocnosoff!

His future, his dreams of happiness, the superlative of his hopes--do

you know what it was? To enter the Institute and obtain the grade of

officer of the Legion of honor; to side down beside Schinner and Leon

de Lora, to reach the Academy before Bridau, to wear a rosette in his

buttonhole! What a dream! It is only commonplace men who think of

everything.

Hearing the sound of several steps on the staircase, Fougeres rubbed

up his hair, buttoned his jacket of bottle-green velveteen, and was

not a little amazed to see, entering his doorway, a simpleton face

vulgarly called in studio slang a "melon." This fruit surmounted a

pumpkin, clothed in blue cloth adorned with a bunch of

tintinnabulating baubles. The melon puffed like a walrus; the pumpkin

advanced on turnips, improperly called legs. A true painter would have

turned the little bottle-vendor off at once, assuring him that he

didn't paint vegetables. This painter looked at his client without a

smile, for Monsieur Vervelle wore a three-thousand-franc diamond in

the bosom of his shirt.

Fougeres glanced at Magus and said: "There's fat in it!" using a slang

term then much in vogue in the studios.

Hearing those words Monsieur Vervelle frowned. The worthy bourgeois

drew after him another complication of vegetables in the persons of

his wife and daughter. The wife had a fine veneer of mahogany on her

face, and in figure she resembled a cocoa-nut, surmounted by a head

and tied in around the waist. She pivoted on her legs, which were tap-

rooted, and her gown was yellow with black stripes. She proudly

exhibited unutterable mittens on a puffy pair of hands; the plumes of

a first-class funeral floated on an over-flowing bonnet; laces adorned

her shoulders, as round behind as they were before; consequently, the

spherical form of the cocoa-nut was perfect. Her feet, of a kind that

painters call abatis, rose above the varnished leather of the shoes in

a swelling that was some inches high. How the feet were ever got into

the shoes, no one knows.

Following these vegetable parents was a young asparagus, who presented

a tiny head with smoothly banded hair of the yellow-carroty tone that

a Roman adores, long, stringy arms, a fairly white skin with reddish

spots upon it, large innocent eyes, and white lashes, scarcely any

brows, a leghorn bonnet bound with white satin and adorned with two

honest bows of the same satin, hands virtuously red, and the feet of

her mother. The faces of these three beings wore, as they looked round

the studio, an air of happiness which bespoke in them a respectable

enthusiasm for Art.

"So it is you, monsieur, who are going to take our likenesses?" said

the father, assuming a jaunty air.

"Yes, monsieur," replied Grassou.

"Vervelle, he has the cross!" whispered the wife to the husband while

the painter's back was turned.

"Should I be likely to have our portraits painted by an artist who

wasn't decorated?" returned the former bottle-dealer.

Elie Magus here bowed to the Vervelle family and went away. Grassou

accompanied him to the landing.

"There's no one but you who would fish up such whales."

"One hundred thousand francs of 'dot'!"

"Yes, but what a family!"

"Three hundred thousand francs of expectations, a house in the rue

Boucherat, and a country-house at Ville d'Avray!"

"Bottles and corks! bottles and corks!" said the painter; "they set my

teeth on edge."

"Safe from want for the rest of your days," said Elie Magus as he

departed.

That idea entered the head of Pierre Grassou as the daylight had burst

into his garret that morning.

While he posed the father of the young person, he thought the bottle-

dealer had a good countenance, and he admired the face full of violent

tones. The mother and daughter hovered about the easel, marvelling at

all his preparations; they evidently thought him a demigod. This

visible admiration pleased Fougeres. The golden calf threw upon the

family its fantastic reflections.

"You must earn lots of money; but of course you don't spend it as you

get it," said the mother.

"No, madame," replied the painter; "I don't spend it; I have not the

means to amuse myself. My notary invests my money; he knows what I

have; as soon as I have taken him the money I never think of it

again."

"I've always been told," cried old Vervelle, "that artists were

baskets with holes in them."

"Who is your notary--if it is not indiscreet to ask?" said Madame

Vervelle.

"A good fellow, all round," replied Grassou. "His name is Cardot."

"Well, well! if that isn't a joke!" exclaimed Vervelle. "Cardot is our

notary too."

"Take care! don't move," said the painter.

"Do pray hold still, Antenor," said the wife. "If you move about

you'll make monsieur miss; you should just see him working, and then

you'd understand."

"Oh! why didn't you have me taught the arts?" said Mademoiselle

Vervelle to her parents.

"Virginie," said her mother, "a young person ought not to learn

certain things. When you are married--well, till then, keep quiet."

During this first sitting the Vervelle family became almost intimate

with the worthy artist. They were to come again two days later. As

they went away the father told Virginie to walk in front; but in spite

of this separation, she overheard the following words, which naturally

awakened her curiosity.

"Decorated--thirty-seven years old--an artist who gets orders--puts

his money with our notary. We'll consult Cardot. Hein! Madame de

Fougeres! not a bad name--doesn't look like a bad man either! One

might prefer a merchant; but before a merchant retires from business

one can never know what one's daughter may come to; whereas an

economical artist--and then you know we love Art-- Well, we'll see!"