All these things denoted the tidy ways of a small mind and the thrift of a poor man. A bureau was there, in which to put away the studio implements, a table for breakfast, a sideboard, a secretary; in short, all the articles necessary to a painter, neatly arranged and very clean. The stove participated in this Dutch cleanliness, which was all the more visible because the pure and little changing light from the north flooded with its cold clear beams the vast apartment. Fougeres, being merely a genre painter, does not need the immense machinery and outfit which ruin historical painters; he has never recognized within himself sufficient faculty to attempt high-art, and he therefore clings to easel painting.
At the beginning of the month of December of that year, a season at which the bourgeois of Paris conceive, periodically, the burlesque idea of perpetuating their forms and figures already too bulky in themselves, Pierre Grassou, who had risen early, prepared his palette, and lighted his stove, was eating a roll steeped in milk, and waiting till the frost on his windows had melted sufficiently to let the full light in. The weather was fine and dry. At this moment the artist, who ate his bread with that patient, resigned air that tells so much, heard and recognized the step of a man who had upon his life the influence such men have on the lives of nearly all artists,--the step of Elie Magus, a picture-dealer, a usurer in canvas. The next moment Elie Magus entered and found the painter in the act of beginning his work in the tidy studio.
"How are you, old rascal?" said the painter.
Fougeres had the cross of the Legion of honor, and Elie Magus bought his pictures at two and three hundred francs apiece, so he gave himself the airs of a fine artist.
"Business is very bad," replied Elie. "You artists have such pretensions! You talk of two hundred francs when you haven't put six sous' worth of color on a canvas. However, you are a good fellow, I'll say that. You are steady; and I've come to put a good bit of business in your way."
"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes," said Fougeres. "Do you know Latin?"
"No."
"Well, it means that the Greeks never proposed a good bit of business to the Trojans without getting their fair share of it. In the olden time they used to say, 'Take my horse.' Now we say, 'Take my bear.' Well, what do you want, Ulysses-Lagingeole-Elie Magus?"
These words will give an idea of the mildness and wit with which Fougeres employed what painters call studio fun.
"Well, I don't deny that you are to paint me two pictures for nothing."
"Oh! oh!"
"I'll leave you to do it, or not; I don't ask it. But you're an honest man."
"Come, out with it!"
"Well, I'm prepared to bring you a father, mother, and only daughter."
"All for me?"
"Yes--they want their portraits taken. These bourgeois--they are crazy about art--have never dared to enter a studio. The girl has a 'dot' of a hundred thousand francs. You can paint all three,--perhaps they'll turn out family portraits."
And with that the old Dutch log of wood who passed for a man and who was called Elie Magus, interrupted himself to laugh an uncanny laugh which frightened the painter. He fancied he heard Mephistopheles talking marriage.
"Portraits bring five hundred francs apiece," went on Elie; "so you can very well afford to paint me three pictures."
"True for you!" cried Fougeres, gleefully.
"And if you marry the girl, you won't forget me."
"Marry! I?" cried Pierre Grassou,--"I, who have a habit of sleeping alone; and get up at cock-crow, and all my life arranged--"
"One hundred thousand francs," said Magus, "and a quiet girl, full of golden tones, as you call 'em, like a Titian."
"What class of people are they?"
"Retired merchants; just now in love with art; have a country-house at Ville d'Avray, and ten or twelve thousand francs a year."
"What business did they do?"
"Bottles."
"Now don't say that word; it makes me think of corks and sets my teeth on edge."
"Am I to bring them?"
"Three portraits--I could put them in the Salon; I might go in for portrait-painting. Well, yes!"
Old Elie descended the staircase to go in search of the Vervelle family. To know to what extend this proposition would act upon the painter, and what effect would be produced upon him by the Sieur and Dame Vervelle, adorned by their only daughter, it is necessary to cast an eye on the anterior life of Pierre Grassou of Fougeres.
When a pupil, Fougeres had studied drawing with Servin, who was thought a great draughtsman in academic circles. After that he went to Schinner's, to learn the secrets of the powerful and magnificent color which distinguishes that master. Master and scholars were all discreet; at any rate Pierre discovered none of their secrets. From there he went to Sommervieux' atelier, to acquire that portion of the art of painting which is called composition, but composition was shy and distant to him. Then he tried to snatch from Decamps and Granet the mystery of their interior effects.