ly now, one would prefer being below, for the pleasure of
still having everything to do--Ah, you may laugh, but you'll see it all
for yourselves some day!'

They were indeed laughing, thinking it a paradox, or a little piece of
affectation, which they excused. To be hailed, like Bongrand, with the
name of master--was that not the height of bliss? He, with his arms
resting on the back of his chair, listened to them in silence, leisurely
puffing his pipe, and renouncing the idea of trying to make them
understand him.

Meanwhile, Dubuche, who had rather domesticated tastes, helped Sandoz
to hand the tea round, and the din continued. Fagerolles related a story
about Daddy Malgras and a female cousin by marriage, whom the dealer
offered as a model on conditions that he was given a presentment of her
in oils. Then they began to talk of models. Mahoudeau waxed furious,
because the really well-built female models were disappearing. It was
impossible to find one with a decent figure now. Then suddenly the
tumult increased again; Gagniere was being congratulated about a
connoisseur whose acquaintance he had made in the Palais Royal one
afternoon, while the band played, an eccentric gentleman living on a
small income, who never indulged in any other extravagance than that of
buying pictures. The other artists laughed and asked for the gentleman's
address. Then they fell foul of the picture dealers, dirty black-guards,
who preyed on artists and starved them. It was really a pity that
connoisseurs mistrusted painters to such a degree as to insist upon
a middleman under the impression that they would thus make a better
bargain. This question of bread and butter excited them yet more, though
Claude showed magnificent contempt for it all. The artist was robbed,
no doubt, but what did that matter, if he had painted a masterpiece,
and had some water to drink? Jory, having again expressed some low ideas
about lucre, aroused general indignation. Out with the journalist!
He was asked stringent questions. Would he sell his pen? Would he not
sooner chop off his wrist than write anything against his convictions?
But they scarcely waited for his answer, for the excitement was on the
increase; it became the superb madness of early manhood, contempt for
the whole world, an absorbing passion for good work, freed from all
human weaknesses, soaring in the sky like a very sun. Ah! how strenuous
was their desire to lose themselves, consume themselves