our, and that of the literary salon; on being
able to appear as much at home in one as in the other. Delighted at our
prowess, we often whispered, "The princess, I swear, would not believe her
eyes if she saw us now;" and then in terrible slang we shouted a
benediction on some "crib" that was going to be broken into that evening.
And we thought there was something very thrilling in leaving the Rue de la
Gaiete, returning home to dress, and presenting our spotless selves to the
_elite_. And we succeeded very well, as indeed all young men do who
waltz perfectly and avoid making love to the wrong woman.

But the excitement of climbing up and down the social ladder did not stave
off our craving for art; and there came about this time a very decisive
event in our lives. Marshall's last and really _grande passion_ had
come to a violent termination, and monetary difficulties forced him to turn
his thoughts to painting as a means of livelihood. This decided me. I asked
him to come and live with me, and to be as near our studio as possible, I
took an _appartement_ in the Passage des Panoramas. It was not
pleasant that your window should open, not to the sky, but to an unclean
prospect of glass roofing; nor was it agreeable to get up at seven in the
morning; and ten hours of work daily are trying to the resolution even of
the best intentioned. But we had sworn to forego all pleasures for the sake
of art--table d'hotes in the Rue Maubeuge, French and foreign duchesses in
the Champs Elysees, thieves in the Rue de la Gaiete.

I was entering therefore on a duel with Marshall for supremacy in an art
for which, as has already been said, I possessed no qualifications. It will
readily be understood how a mind like mine, so keenly alive to all
impulses, and so unsupported by any moral convictions, would suffer in so
keen a contest waged under such unequal and cruel conditions. It was in
truth a year of great passion and great despair. Defeat is bitter when it
comes swiftly and conclusively, but when defeat falls by inches like the
fatal pendulum in the pit, the agony is a little out of reach of words to
define. It was even so. I remember the first day of my martyrdom. The
clocks were striking eight; we chose our places, got into position. After
the first hour, I compared my drawing with Marshall's. He had, it is true,
caught the movement of the figure better than I, but the character and the
quality of his work was miserable. That of mine