tors crossed the threshold than he
saw their jaws part, their eyes grow small, their entire faces expand;
and he heard the tempestuous puffing of the fat men, the rusty grating
jeers of the lean ones, amidst all the shrill, flute-like laughter of
the women. Opposite him, against the hand-rails, some young fellows went
into contortions, as if somebody had been tickling them. One lady had
flung herself on a seat, stifling and trying to regain breath with her
handkerchief over her mouth. Rumours of this picture, which was so very,
very funny, must have been spreading, for there was a rush from the four
corners of the Salon, bands of people arrived, jostling each other, and
all eagerness to share the fun. 'Where is it?' 'Over there.' 'Oh, what a
joke!' And the witticisms fell thicker than elsewhere. It was especially
the subject that caused merriment; people failed to understand it,
thought it insane, comical enough to make one ill with laughter. 'You
see the lady feels too hot, while the gentleman has put on his velveteen
jacket for fear of catching cold.' 'Not at all; she is already blue; the
gentleman has pulled her out of a pond, and he is resting at a distance,
holding his nose.' 'I tell you it's a young ladies' school out for a
ramble. Look at the two playing at leap-frog.' 'Hallo! washing day;
the flesh is blue; the trees are blue; he's dipped his picture in the
blueing tub!'

Those who did not laugh flew into a rage: that bluish tinge, that novel
rendering of light seemed an insult to them. Some old gentlemen shook
their sticks. Was art to be outraged like this? One grave individual
went away very wroth, saying to his wife that he did not like practical
jokes. But another, a punctilious little man, having looked in the
catalogue for the title of the work, in order to tell his daughter, read
out the words, '_In the Open Air_,' whereupon there came a formidable
renewal of the clamour, hisses and shouts, and what not else besides.
The title sped about; it was repeated, commented on. '_In the Open Air_!
ah, yes, the open air, the nude woman in the air, everything in the air,
tra la la laire.' The affair was becoming a scandal. The crowd still
increased. People's faces grew red with congestion in the growing heat.
Each had the stupidly gaping mouth of the ignoramus who judges painting,
and between them they indulged in all the asinine ideas, all the
preposterous reflections, all the stupid spiteful jeers that the sight
o