In point of fact his disenchantment had begun as soon as he stepped out of the train.  Carried in the course of a night from Paris to that city, he had made his way through narrow streets where every basement window exhaled the fragrance of sauerkraut, and he had reached the cathedral square, beautified by Farina’s shop-signs, where in front of the famous Dom he had been obliged to confess that this facade, this exterior, was a huge piece of patchwork—­a delusion.  Every part of it was furbished up, and the church sheltered no sculpture under its portals; it was symmetrical, built by peg and line; its rigid forms, its hard outlines were an offence.

The interior was better, in spite of the vulgar blaze, the cheap fireworks, of ignoble modern glass.  And there, in a chapel near the choir, might be seen, for a consideration, the most famous picture of the German school, the Dombild, by Stephan Lochner, a triptych representing the Adoration of the Magi on the centre panel, with St. Ursula on the left hand shutter and St. Gereon on the right.

Durtal’s consternation had risen to the highest pitch.  The work was thus arranged.  Against a gold background, a Virgin, crowned, red-haired, bullet-headed, dressed in blue, held on her knees an Infant blessing the Kings, two kneeling on each side of the throne.  One, an old fellow with a short beard like a retired officer, and hair curled like shavings over his ears, was sumptuously arrayed in crimson velvet brocaded with gold, his hands clasped; the other, a dandy with long hair and a large beard, dressed in green shot with gold and trimmed with fur, held up a golden cup.  And behind each, other figures were standing, flourishing their swords and standards, in cavalier attitudes, and posing for the public, thinking much more of the visitors than of the Virgin.

This, then, was the type of Madonna, of the supersensual and sublimated Virgins of Cologne!  This one was puffy, redundant, chubby; she had the neck of a heifer, and flesh like cream, or hasty pudding, that quivers when it is touched.  Jesus, whose expression was the only interesting feature of the picture, a certain manly gravity that was shown without any disfigurement of the character of childhood, was also round and well-fed, and the scene took place on a lawn strewn with flowers—­primroses, violets, and strawberries painted in fine stipple with the touch of a miniaturist.

You might call this picture what you pleased, the execution, smooth and wavy, and cold in spite of the brilliant colours, was a finished piece of work, brilliant, dexterous—­but not religious; it betrayed a decadence; the work was laboured, complicated, pretty, but it was in no sense that of an early master.