ire in it. Sometimes I copy the
original in colors, but I change the colors.... See here, for instance,
this one...." (An angel by Murillo).

"Do you find it's better?"

"No, but it amused me.... And then, it's easier.... And besides, it's
all the same to me. The essential thing is that this will sell...."

At this last piece of boasting she stopped, took the color sketches
from him and burst out laughing.

"Ha! So they're even uglier than you had expected?"

He said, greatly annoyed:

"But why, why do you make things like these?"

She examined his upset visage with a kindly smile of maternal irony;
this dear little _bourgeois_ for whom everything had been so easy and
who could not conceive that one must make concessions for....

He asked once more:

"Why? Tell me, why?"

(He was quite crestfallen, as if it was he who was the botcher in
paint!... Dear little boy! She would have liked to kiss him ... very
properly, on his forehead!)

She answered gently:

"Why, in order to live."

He was quite overcome. He had never dreamed of it.

"Life is complicated," she went on in a light and mocking tone. "In the
first place it is necessary to eat, and then to eat every day. In the
evening one has dined. It's necessary to begin again the next day. And
then it's necessary to dress oneself. Dress oneself completely, body,
head, hands, feet. That's so far as clothing is concerned! And then pay
for it all. For everything. Life, it's just paying."

For the first time he saw what had escaped the shortsightedness of his
love: the modest fur in some places worn, the shoes somewhat the worse
for wear, the traces of embarrassed means which the natural elegance of
a little Parisian woman makes one forget. And his heart contracted
within him.

"Ah! couldn't I be allowed, couldn't I be permitted to help you?"

She moved away from him a bit and reddened:

"No, no," she returned, much upset, "there's no question of that....
Never!... I have no need...."

"But it would make me so happy!"

"No.... Nothing more to be said about that. Or we shall not be friends
any more...."

"We are friends, then?"

"Yes. That's to say, if you are so still after you have seen these
horrible daubs?"

"Surely, surely! It isn't your fault."

"But do they trouble you?"

"Oh, yes."

She laughed out contentedly.

"That makes you laugh, naughty girl!"

"No, it's not being naughty. You do not understand."

"Then why do you laugh?"