“Ah!” he cried, “did you not expect such perfection?  You stand before a woman, and you are looking for a picture!  There are such depths on that canvas, the air within it is so true, that you are unable to distinguish it from the air you breathe.  Where is art?  Departed, vanished!  Here is the form itself of a young girl.  Have I not caught the color, the very life of the line which seems to terminate the body?  The same phenomenon which we notice around fishes in the water is also about objects which float in air.  See how these outlines spring forth from the background.  Do you not feel that you could pass your hand behind those shoulders?  For seven years have I studied these effects of light coupled with form.  That hair,—­is it not bathed in light?  Why, she breathes!  That bosom,—­see!  Ah! who would not worship it on bended knee?  The flesh palpitates!  Wait, she is about to rise; wait!”

“Can you see anything?” whispered Poussin to Porbus.

“Nothing.  Can you?”

“No.”

The two painters drew back, leaving the old man absorbed in ecstasy, and tried to see if the light, falling plumb upon the canvas at which he pointed, had neutralized all effects.  They examined the picture, moving from right to left, standing directly before it, bending, swaying, rising by turns.

“Yes, yes; it is really a canvas,” cried Frenhofer, mistaking the purpose of their examination.  “See, here is the frame, the easel; these are my colors, my brushes.”  And he caught up a brush which he held out to them with a naive motion.

“The old rogue is making game of us,” said Poussin, coming close to the pretended picture.  “I can see nothing here but a mass of confused color, crossed by a multitude of eccentric lines, making a sort of painted wall.”

“We are mistaken.  See!” returned Porbus.

Coming nearer, they perceived in a corner of the canvas the point of a naked foot, which came forth from the chaos of colors, tones, shadows hazy and undefined, misty and without form,—­an enchanting foot, a living foot.  They stood lost in admiration before this glorious fragment breaking forth from the incredible, slow, progressive destruction around it.  The foot seemed to them like the torso of some Grecian Venus, brought to light amid the ruins of a burned city.

“There is a woman beneath it all!” cried Porbus, calling Poussin’s attention to the layers of color which the old painter had successively laid on, believing that he thus brought his work to perfection.  The two men turned towards him with one accord, beginning to comprehend, though vaguely, the ecstasy in which he lived.

“He means it in good faith,” said Porbus.