"Well, master," said Porbus, "was the ultramarine for which you sent to Bruges good for nothing? Have you not been able to pulverize your new white? Is your oil bad or are your brushes troublesome?"

   "Alas!" cried the old man, "I thought for a moment that my work was finished; but I have certainly gone wrong in some details, and my mind will not be at rest until I have cleared away my doubts. I have decided to travel, and visit Turkey, Greece, and Asia in search of models, in order to compare my picture with Nature in different forms. It may be that I have Nature herself upstairs," he continued, with a contented smile. "Sometimes I am afraid that a breath may awaken that woman and that she will disappear."

   Suddenly he rose, as if to go away.

   "Stay!" said Porbus, "I have come in time to save you the expense and fatigue of the journey."

   "How so?" demanded Frenhofer in amazement.

   "Young Poussin is beloved by a woman whose incomparable beauty is absolutely free from imperfection. But, my dear master, if he consents to lend her to you, you must at least let us see your canvas."

   The old man stood motionless, in a state of absolute amazement.

   "What!" he sorrowfully exclaimed at last, "exhibit my creation, my spouse? Tear aside the veil behind which I have modestly concealed my happiness? Why, that would be the most shocking prostitution! For ten years past, I have lived with this woman, she is mine, mine alone; she loves me. Does she not smile at each stroke of the brush that I have given her? She has a soul, a soul with which I have endowed her. She would blush if other eyes than mine did rest upon her. Exhibit her! Where is the husband, the lover, so vile as to lead his wife to dishonor? When you paint a picture for the court, you do not put your whole soul into it, you sell to courtiers naught but colored manikins. My painting is not a painting, it is a sentiment, a passion! Born in my studio, it must remain there in virgin purity, and cannot go thence except it be clothed. Poetry and women abandon themselves naked to none but their lovers! Do we possess Raphael's model, Ariosto's Angelica, Dante's Beatrice? No! we see only their figures. Mark this, that the work I have up yonder under lock is an exception in our art. It is not a canvas, it is a woman! a woman with whom I weep and laugh, and talk and think. Would you have me suddenly cast aside a joy of ten years' standing as one discards a cloak; would you have me suddenly cease to be a father, a lover, and a god? That woman is not a creature, she is a creation. Let your youth come: I will give him my treasures, my Correggios, Michael Angelos, Titiams, I will kiss his footprints in the dust; but make him my rival? shame upon me! Ah! I am more lover than painter even now. Yes, I shall have the courage to burn my Belle Noiseuse when I draw my last breath; but force her to endure the glance of another man, a young man, a painter? No, no! I would kill the man on the next day, who had sullied her with a glance. I would kill him on the spot, even you, my friend, if you did not salute her on your knees! Would you have me now subject my idol to the cold stare and the stupid criticism of fools? Ah! love is a mystery, it lives only in the lowest depths of the heart, and all is lost when a man says, even to his friend: 'There is the woman I love!' "

   The old man seemed to have become young again;his eyes sparkled with life; his pale cheeks were suffused with a bright red flush; and his hands shook. Porbus, amazed at the passionate violence with which these words were uttered, was at a loss for a fitting response to a sentiment as strange as it was intense. Was Frenhofer sane or mad? Was he under the spell of an artist's caprice, or were the ideas he expressed attributable to the strange fanaticism produced in us by the long and painful delivery of a great work? Could one hope ever to reach an understanding with that strange passion?

   Revolving all these thoughts in his mind, Porbus said to the old man:

   "But is not woman for woman? does not Poussin subject his mistress to your gaze?"

   "What mistress?" replied Frenhofer. "She will betray him sooner or later. Mine will always be true to me!"

   "Very well," rejoined Porbus, "let us say no more about it. But you may dies, leaving your work unfinished, before you find, even in Asia, a woman so lovely, so perfect, as the one of whom I speak."

   "Oh! it is finished," said Frenhofer. "Whoever should see it would believe that he was looking at a woman lying on a bed of velvet with curtains about her. By her side is a golden tripod, giving forth perfume. You would be tempted to grasp the tassel of the cord that holds back the curtains, and it would seem to you that you saw the bosom of Catherine Lescault, a famous courtesan called La Belle Noiseuse, actually rise and fall with her respiration. And yet I would be perfectly certain--"

   "Go to Asia, then," suggested Porbus, detecting something like hesitation in Frenhofer's glance. And he took two or three steps toward the door of the room.

   At that moment, Gillette and Nicolas Poussin reached the outer door of Frenhofer's house. As the girl was on the point of entering, she took her hand from the painter's arm and recoiled as if she were seized by a sudden presentiment.

   "Why have I come here?" she asked her lover, in a deep voice, looking at him with staring eyes.

   "Gillette, I left you free to do as you chose, and I wish to obey you in everything. You are my conscience and my glory. Return to the house; I shall be happier, perhaps, than if you--"

   "Do I belong to myself when you speak so to me? Ah! no, I am no more than a child. Come," she added, apparently making a mighty effort, "even if our love dies and I plant lifelong regret in my heart, will not your renown be the reward of my compliance with your wishes? Let us enter; it will be as if I still lived, if I remain a living memory on your palette."

   As they opened the street door, the lovers found themselves face to face with Porbus, who, surprised by the loveliness of Gillette, whose eyes were full of tears at the moment, seized the trembling girl's hand and led her to the old man.

   "Look," said he, "is she not the equal of all the masterpieces on Earth?"

   Frenhofer started. Gillette stood before him in the simple, artless attitude of an innocent, shy young Georgian girl, kidnapped by brigands and brought before a slave-dealer. A blush of shame tinged her cheeks, she lowered her eyes, her hands hung at her sides, her strength seemed to desert her, and her tears protested against the outrage inflicted upon her modesty. At that moment, Poussin, in despair at having brought that lovely treasure forth from its garret, cursed himself. He became more lover than artist, and a thousand scruples wrung his heart when he saw the old man's eye flash with youthful fire as, in accordance with the custom of painters, he mentally disrobed the girl, so to speak, divining her most secret charms. Thereupon he reverted to the fierce jealousy of true love.

   "Let us go, Gillette!" he cried.

   At that cry, at that tone, his mistress joyfully raised her eyes to his and rushed into his arms.

   "Ah! then you do love me?" she replied, bursting into tears.

   She had had the courage to impose silence on her suffering, but she lacked the strength to conceal her happiness.

   "Oh! leave her with me for a moment," said the old painter, "and you shall compare her with my Catherine, - yes, I consent."

   There was a ring of love in that exclamation of Frenhofer's. He seemed to be playing the coquette for his simulacrum of a woman, and to enjoy in anticipation the triumph which the beauty of his creation was destined to win over that of a girl of flesh and blood.

   "Do not let him retract his consent!" cried Porbus, laying his hand upon Poussin's shoulder. "The fruits of love soon pass away, those of art are immortal."

   "Pray, am I nothing more than a woman in his eyes?" said Gillette, gazing earnestly at Poussin and Porbus.

   Proudly she raised her head; but when, after a piercing glance at Frenhofer, she saw her lover intently contemplating anew the portrait he had once taken for a Giorgione, she exclaimed:

   "Come, let us go up! He never looked at me like that."

   "Old man," said Poussin, aroused from his meditation by Gillette's voice, "look at this sword: I will bury it in your heart at the first word of complaint uttered by this girl, I will put the torch to your house and no person shall go forth from it. Do you understand?"

   Nicolas Poussin's expression was menacing and his voice was awe-inspiring. The young painter's bearing and, more than all else, his gestures comforted Gillette, who almost forgave him for sacrificing her to the art of painting and to his glorious future. Porbus and Poussin remained at the studio door, gazing at each other in silence. Although the painter of Marie the Egyptian ventured at first upon an exclamation or two: "Ah! she is undressing, he is telling her to stand in the light! He is comparing her with the other!" Poussin's aspect soon imposed silence upon him; the young man's face was profoundly sad; and although old painters have none of those scruples which seem so trivial in presence of art, he admired them, they were so artless and winning. The young man had his hand on the hilt of his dagger, and his ear almost glued to the door. Both were standing in the shadow, like two conspirators awaiting the moment to strike down a tyrant.

   "Come in, come in," said the old man, beaming with happiness. "My work is perfect, and now I can exhibit it with pride. Never will painter, brushes, colors, canvas, and light produce a rival to Catherine Lescault, the beautiful courtesan!"

   Impelled by intense curiosity, Porbus and Poussin ran into the centre of a vast studio covered with dust, where everything was in confusion, with pictures hanging on the walls here and there. They paused at first before a life-size picture of a woman half-nude, at which they gazed in admiration.

   "Oh! do not waste time over that," said Frenhofer; "that is a canvas that I daubed to study a pose; that picture is worth nothing at all. Those are my mistakes," he continued, pointing to a number of fascinating compositions on the walls about them.

   Thereupon, Porbus and Poussin, dumfounded by that contemptuous reference to such works, looked about for the portrait he had described to them, but could not succeed in finding it.

   "Well, there it is!" said the old man, whose hair was in disorder, whose face was inflamed by supernatural excitement, whose eyes snapped, and whose breath came in gasps, like that of a young man drunk with love - "Ah!" he cried, "you did not anticipate such perfection! You are in the presence of a woman and you are looking for a picture. There is such depth of color upon that canvas, the air is so true, that you cannot distinguish it from the air about us. Where is art? lost, vanished! Those are the outlines of a real, young woman. Have I not grasped the coloring, caught the living turn of the line that seems to mark the limits of the body? Is it not the self-same phenomenon presented by objects? Mark how the outlines stand out from the background! Does it not seem to you as if you could pass your hand over that back? For seven years I have studied the effects of the joining of light and figures. See that hair, does not the light fall in a flood upon it? Why, she breathed, I verily believe! - Look at that bosom! Ah! who would not kneel and adore it! The flesh quivers. Wait, she is about to rise!"

   "Can you see anything?" Poussin asked Porbus.

   "No. And you?"

   "Nothing."

   The two painters left the old man to his raving, and looked about to see whether the light, falling too full upon the canvas that he pointed out to them, did not neutralize all its fine effects. They examined the painting from the right side and the left and in front, stooping and standing erect in turn.

   "Yes, oh! yes, that is a canvas," said Frenhofer, misunderstanding the object of that careful scrutiny. "See, there are the frame and the easel, and here are my paints, my brushes."

   And he seized a brush which he handed to them with an artless gesture.

   "The old lansquenet is making sport of us," said Poussin, returning to his position in front of the alleged picture. "I can see nothing there but colors piled one upon another in confusion, and held in restraint by a multitude of curious lines which form a wall of painting."

   "We are mistaken," said Porbus, "look!"

   On drawing nearer, they spied in one corner of the canvas the end of a bare foot standing forth from that chaos of colors, of tones, of uncertain shades, that sort of shapeless mist; but a lovely foot, a living foot! They stood fairly petrified with admiration before that fragment, which had escaped that most incredible, gradual, progressive destruction. That foot appeared there as the trunk of a Parian marble Venus would appear among the ruins of a burned city.

   "There is a woman underneath!" cried Porbus, calling Poussin's attention to the layers of paint which the old painter had laid on, one after another, believing that he was perfecting his picture.

   The two artists turned instinctively toward Frenhofer, beginning to understand, but only vaguely as yet, the trance in which he lived.

   "He speaks in perfect good faith," said Porbus.

   "Yes, my friend," interposed the old man, rousing himself, "one must have faith, faith in art, and live a long, long while with his work, to produce such a creation. Some of those shadows have cost me many hours of toil. See on that cheek, just below the eye, there is a slight penumbra which, if you observe it in Nature, will seem to you almost impossible to reproduce. Well, do you fancy that that effect did not cost me incredible labor? And so, dear Porbus, scrutinize my work with care and you will understand better what I said to you about the manner of treating the model and the contours. Look at the light on the bosom, and see how I have succeeded, by a succession of heavy strokes and relief-work, in catching the genuine light and combining it with the gleaming whiteness of thelgith tints; and how, by the contrary process, by smoothing down the lumps and roughness of the paint, I have been able, by dint of touching caressingly the contour of my figure, swimming in the half-light, to take away every suggestion of drawing and of artificial methods, and to give it the aspect, the very roundness of Nature. Go nearer and you will see that work better. At a distance, it is invisible. Look! at that point, it is very remarkable, in my opinion!"

   With the end of his brush he pointed out to the two painters a thick layer of light paint.

   Porbus put his hand on the old man's shoulder and turned toward Poussin.

   "Do you know that in this man we have a very great artist?" he said.

   "He is even more poet that artist," said Poussin, with perfect gravity.

   "That," added Porbus, pointing to the canvas, "marks the end of our art on Earth."

   "And, from that, it will pass out of sight in the skies," said Poussin.

   "How much enjoyment over that piece of canvas!" exclaimed Porbus.

   The old man, absorbed in reverie, did not listen to them; he was smiling at that imaginary woman.

   "But sooner or later he will discover that there is nothing on his canvas!" cried Poussin.

   "Nothing on my canvas!" exclaimed Frenhofer, glancing alternately at the two painters and his picture.

   "What have you done?" said Porbus in an undertone to Poussin.

   The old man seized the young man's arm roughly, and said to him:

   "You see nothing there, clown! varlet! miscreant! hound! Why, what brought you here, then? - My good Porbus," he continued, turning to the older painter, "can it be that you, you too, are mocking at me? Answer me! I am your friend; tell me, have I spoiled my picture?"

   Porbus hesitated, he dared not speak; but the anxiety depicted on the old man's white face was so heart-rendering that he pointed to the canvas saying:

   "Look!"

   Frenhofer gazed at his picture for a moment and staggered.

   "Nothing! Nothing! And I have worked ten years!

   He fell upon a chair and wept.

   "So I am an idiot, a madman! I have neither talent nor capability! I am naught save a rich man who, in walking, does nothing more than walk! So I shall have produced nothing!"

   He gazed at his canvas through his tears, then suddenly rose proudly from his chair, and cast a flashing glance upon the two painters.

   "By the blood, by the body, by the head of Christ! you are jealous dogs who seek to make me believe that it is ruined, in order to steal it from me! I see her," he cried, "she is marvellously lovely!"

   At that moment, Poussin heard Gillette weeping in a corner, where she lay forgotten.

   "What is it, my angel?" asked the painter, suddenly transformed into the lover once more.

   "Kill me," said she. "I should be a vile wretch to love you still, for I despise you. - I admire you, and you make me shudder! I love you, and I believe that I already hate you!"

   While Poussin listened to Gillette, Frenhofer covered his Catherine with a green cloth, with the grave calmness of a jeweller closing his drawers in the belief that he is in the company of adroit thieves. He cast a glance of profound hatred on the two painters, a glance overflowing with scorn and distrust, and silently turned them out of his studio with convulsive haste; standing on the threshold of the other door, he said to them:

   "Adieu, my little friends!"

   That parting salute froze the blood in their veins. The next day, Porbus, feeling anxious concerning Frenhofer, called once more at his house, and learned that he had died during the night after burning his pictures.