Pierre Grassou | Page 6

and be in bed by nine o'clock. The next morning early go to some government office, ask for a place, and give up art."
"My dear friend," said Fougeres, "my picture is already condemned; it is not a verdict that I want of you, but the cause of that verdict."
"Well--you paint gray and sombre; you see nature being a crape veil; your drawing is heavy, pasty; your composition is a medley of Greuze, who only redeemed his defects by the qualities which you lack."
While detailing these faults of the picture Schinner saw on Fougeres' face so deep an expression of sadness that he carried him off to dinner and tried to console him. The next morning at seven o'clock Fougeres was at his easel working over the rejected picture; he warmed the colors; he made the corrections suggested by Schinner, he touched up his figures. Then, disgusted with such patching, he carried the picture to Elie Magus. Elie Magus, a sort of Dutch-Flemish-Belgian, had three reasons for being what he became,--rich and avaricious. Coming last from Bordeaux, he was just starting in Paris, selling old pictures and living on the boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle. Fougeres, who relied on his palette to go to the baker's, bravely ate bread and nuts, or bread and milk, or bread and cherries, or bread and cheese, according to the seasons. Elie Magus, to whom Pierre offered his first picture, eyed it for some time and then gave him fifteen francs.
"With fifteen francs a year coming in, and a thousand francs for expenses," said Fougeres, smiling, "a man will go fast and far."
Elie Magus made a gesture; he bit his thumbs, thinking that he might have had that picture for five francs.
For several days Pierre walked down from the rue des Martyrs and stationed himself at the corner of the boulevard opposite to Elie's shop, whence his eye could rest upon his picture, which did not obtain any notice from the eyes of the passers along the street. At the end of a week the picture disappeared; Fougeres walked slowly up and approached the dealer's shop in a lounging manner. The Jew was at his door.
"Well, I see you have sold my picture."
"No, here it is," said Magus; "I've framed it, to show it to some one who fancies he knows about painting."
Fougeres had not the heart to return to the boulevard. He set about another picture, and spent two months upon it,--eating mouse's meals and working like a galley-slave.
One evening he went to the boulevard, his feet leading him fatefully to the dealer's shop. His picture was not to be seen.
"I've sold your picture," said Elie Magus, seeing him.
"For how much?"
"I got back what I gave and a small interest. Make me some Flemish interiors, a lesson of anatomy, landscapes, and such like, and I'll buy them of you," said Elie.
Fougeres would fain have taken old Magus in his arms; he regarded him as a father. He went home with joy in his heart; the great painter Schinner was mistaken after all! In that immense city of Paris there were some hearts that beat in unison with Pierre's; his talent was understood and appreciated. The poor fellow of twenty-seven had the innocence of a lad of sixteen. Another man, one of those distrustful, surly artists, would have noticed the diabolical look on Elie's face and seen the twitching of the hairs of his beard, the irony of his moustache, and the movement of his shoulders which betrayed the satisfaction of Walter Scott's Jew in swindling a Christian.
Fougeres marched along the boulevard in a state of joy which gave to his honest face an expression of pride. He was like a schoolboy protecting a woman. He met Joseph Bridau, one of his comrades, and one of those eccentric geniuses destined to fame and sorrow. Joseph Bridau, who had, to use his own expression, a few sous in his pocket, took Fougeres to the Opera. But Fougeres didn't see the ballet, didn't hear the music; he was imagining pictures, he was painting. He left Joseph in the middle of the evening, and ran home to make sketches by lamp-light. He invented thirty pictures, all reminiscence, and felt himself a man of genius. The next day he bought colors, and canvases of various dimensions; he piled up bread and cheese on his table, he filled a water-pot with water, he laid in a provision of wood for his stove; then, to use a studio expression, he dug at his pictures. He hired several models and Magus lent him stuffs.
After two months' seclusion the Breton had finished four pictures. Again he asked counsel of Schinner, this time adding Bridau to the invitation. The two painters saw in three of these pictures a servile imitation of Dutch landscapes and interiors by Metzu,