n which I learnt that Fagerolles ate
two boiled eggs every morning.'

He laughed over the coarse puffery which, after a first article on the
'young master's' picture, as yet seen by nobody, had for a week past
kept all Paris occupied about him. The whole fraternity of reporters
had been campaigning, stripping Fagerolles to the skin, telling their
readers all about his father, the artistic zinc manufacturer, his
education, the house in which he resided, how he lived, even revealing
the colour of his socks, and mentioning a habit he had of pinching his
nose. And he was the passion of the hour, the 'young master' according
to the tastes of the day, one who had been lucky enough to miss the
Prix de Rome, and break off with the School of Arts, whose principles,
however, he retained. After all, the success of that style of painting
which aims merely at approximating reality, not at rendering it in all
its truth, was the fortune of a season which the wind brings and blows
away again, a mere whim on the part of the great lunatic city; the stir
it caused was like that occasioned by some accident, which upsets
the crowd in the morning and is forgotten by night amidst general
indifference.

However, Naudet noticed the 'Village Funeral.'

'Hullo! that's your picture, eh?' he said. 'So you wanted to give a
companion to the "Wedding"? Well, I should have tried to dissuade you!
Ah! the "Wedding"! the "Wedding"!'

Bongrand still listened to him without ceasing to smile. Barely a twinge
of pain passed over his trembling lips. He forgot his masterpieces,
the certainty of leaving an immortal name, he was only cognisant of the
vogue which that youngster, unworthy of cleaning his palette, had so
suddenly and easily acquired, that vogue which seemed to be pushing him,
Bongrand, into oblivion--he who had struggled for ten years before he
had succeeded in making himself known. Ah! when the new generations
bury a man, if they only knew what tears of blood they make him shed in
death!

However, as he had remained silent, he was seized with the fear that he
might have let his suffering be divined. Was he falling to the baseness
of envy? Anger with himself made him raise his head--a man should die
erect. And instead of giving the violent answer which was rising to his
lips, he said in a familiar way:

'You are right, Naudet, I should have done better if I had gone to bed
on the day when the idea of that picture occurred to me.'

'Ah! ther