curtains, flung in broad folds about the room to serve the painter as models for his drapery.  Anatomical casts in plaster, fragments and torsos of antique goddesses amorously polished by the kisses of centuries, jostled each other upon shelves and brackets.  Innumerable sketches, studies in the three crayons, in ink, and in red chalk covered the walls from floor to ceiling; color-boxes, bottles of oil and turpentine, easels and stools upset or standing at right angles, left but a narrow pathway to the circle of light thrown from the window in the roof, which fell full on the pale face of Porbus and on the ivory skull of his singular visitor.

The attention of the young man was taken exclusively by a picture destined to become famous after those days of tumult and revolution, and which even then was precious in the sight of certain opinionated individuals to whom we owe the preservation of the divine afflatus through the dark days when the life of art was in jeopardy.  This noble picture represents the Mary of Egypt as she prepares to pay for her passage by the ship.  It is a masterpiece, painted for Marie de Medicis, and afterwards sold by her in the days of her distress.

“I like your saint,” said the old man to Porbus, “and I will give you ten golden crowns over and above the queen’s offer; but as to entering into competition with her—­the devil!”

“You do like her, then?”

“As for that,” said the old man, “yes, and no.  The good woman is well set-up, but—­she is not living.  You young men think you have done all when you have drawn the form correctly, and put everything in place according to the laws of anatomy.  You color the features with flesh-tones, mixed beforehand on your palette,—­taking very good care to shade one side of the face darker than the other; and because you draw now and then from a nude woman standing on a table, you think you can copy nature; you fancy yourselves painters, and imagine that you have got at the secret of God’s creations!  Pr-r-r-r!—­To be a great poet it is not enough to know the rules of syntax and write faultless grammar.  Look at your saint, Porbus.  At first sight she is admirable; but at the very next glance we perceive that she is glued to the canvas, and that we cannot walk round her.  She is a silhouette with only one side, a semblance cut in outline, an image that can’t turn nor change her position.  I feel no air between this arm and the background of the picture; space and depth are wanting.  All is in good perspective; the atmospheric gradations are carefully observed, and yet in spite of your conscientious labor I cannot believe that this beautiful body has the warm breath of life.  If I put my hand on that firm, round throat I shall find it cold as marble.  No, no, my friend, blood does not run beneath that ivory skin; the purple tide of life does not swell those veins, nor stir those fibres which interlace like net-work below the translucent amber of the brow and breast.