The physician van Tromp instructing his pupils.
In all, there were one hundred and fifty pictures, varnished and dusted. Some were covered with green baize curtains which were not undrawn in presence of young ladies.
Pierre Grassou stood with arms pendent, gaping mouth, and no word upon his lips as he recognized half his own pictures in these works of art. He was Rubens, he was Rembrandt, Mieris, Metzu, Paul Potter, Gerard Douw! He was twenty great masters all by himself.
"What is the matter? You've turned pale!"
"Daughter, a glass of water! quick!" cried Madame Vervelle. The painter took pere Vervelle by the button of his coat and led him to a corner on pretence of looking at a Murillo. Spanish pictures were then the rage.
"You bought your pictures from Elie Magus?"
"Yes, all originals."
"Between ourselves, tell me what he made you pay for those I shall point out to you."
Together they walked round the gallery. The guests were amazed at the gravity in which the artist proceeded, in company with the host, to examine each picture.
"Three thousand francs," said Vervelle in a whisper, as they reached the last, "but I tell everybody forty thousand."
"Forty thousand for a Titian!" said the artist, aloud. "Why, it is nothing at all!"
"Didn't I tell you," said Vervelle, "that I had three hundred thousand francs' worth of pictures?"
"I painted those pictures," said Pierre Grassou in Vervelle's ear, "and I sold them one by one to Elie Magus for less than ten thousand francs the whole lot."
"Prove it to me," said the bottle-dealer, "and I double my daughter's 'dot,' for if it is so, you are Rubens, Rembrandt, Titian, Gerard Douw!"
"And Magus is a famous picture-dealer!" said the painter, who now saw the meaning of the misty and aged look imparted to his pictures in Elie's shop, and the utility of the subjects the picture-dealer had required of him.
Far from losing the esteem of his admiring bottle-merchant, Monsieur de Fougeres (for so the family persisted in calling Pierre Grassou) advanced so much that when the portraits were finished he presented them gratuitously to his father-in-law, his mother-in-law and his wife.
At the present day, Pierre Grassou, who never misses exhibiting at the Salon, passes in bourgeois regions for a fine portrait-painter. He earns some twenty thousand francs a year and spoils a thousand francs' worth of canvas. His wife has six thousand francs a year in dowry, and he lives with his father-in-law. The Vervelles and the Grassous, who agree delightfully, keep a carriage, and are the happiest people on earth. Pierre Grassou never emerges from the bourgeois circle, in which he is considered one of the greatest artists of the period. Not a family portrait is painted between the barrier du Trone and the rue du Temple that is not done by this great painter; none of them costs less than five hundred francs. The great reason which the bourgeois families have for employing him is this:--
"Say what you will of him, he lays by twenty thousand francs a year with his notary."
As Grassou took a creditable part on the occasion of the riots of May 12th he was appointed an officer of the Legion of honor. He is a major in the National Guard. The Museum of Versailles felt it incumbent to order a battle-piece of so excellent a citizen, who thereupon walked about Paris to meet his old comrades and have the happiness of saying to them:--
"The King has given me an order for the Museum of Versailles."
Madame de Fougeres adores her husband, to whom she has presented two children. This painter, a good father and a good husband, is unable to eradicate from his heart a fatal thought, namely, that artists laugh at his work; that his name is a term of contempt in the studios; and that the feuilletons take no notice of his pictures. But he still works on; he aims for the Academy, where, undoubtedly, he will enter. And--oh! vengeance which dilates his heart!--he buys the pictures of celebrated artists who are pinched for means, and he substitutes these true works of arts that are not his own for the wretched daubs in the collection at Ville d'Avray.
There are many mediocrities more aggressive and more mischievous than that of Pierre Grassou, who is, moreover, anonymously benevolent and truly obliging.
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Bridau, Joseph The Purse A Bachelor's Establishment A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Start in Life Modeste Mignon Another Study of Woman Letters of Two Brides Cousin Betty The Member for Arcis
Cardot (Parisian notary) The Muse of the Department A Man of Business Jealousies of a Country Town The Middle Classes Cousin Pons
Grassou, Pierre A Bachelor's Establishment Cousin Betty The Middle Classes Cousin Pons
Lora, Leon de The Unconscious Humorists A Bachelor's Establishment A Start in Life Honorine Cousin Betty Beatrix
Magus, Elie The Vendetta A Marriage Settlement A Bachelor's Establishment Cousin Pons
Schinner, Hippolyte The Purse A Bachelor's Establishment A Start in Life Albert Savarus The Government Clerks Modeste Mignon The Imaginary Mistress The Unconscious Humorists