hool on fire. Then came the
other, a stout workman--that one, the truest painter of the century,
and altogether classical besides, a fact which not one of the dullards
understood. They yelled, of course; they shouted about profanation
and realism, when, after all, the realism was only in the subject. The
perception remained that of the old masters, and the execution
resumed and continued the best bits of work one can find in our public
galleries. Both Delacroix and Courbet came at the proper time. Each made
a stride forward. And now--ah, now!'

He ceased speaking and drew back a few steps to judge of the effect of
his picture, becoming absorbed in contemplation for a moment, and then
resuming:

'Yes, nowadays we want something different--what, I don't exactly know.
If I did, and could do it, I should be clever indeed. No one else would
be in the race with me. All I do know and feel is that Delacroix's
grand romantic scenes are foundering and splitting, that Courbet's black
painting already reeks of the mustiness of a studio which the sun never
penetrates. You understand me, don't you? We, perhaps, want the sun, the
open air, a clear, youthful style of painting, men and things such as
they appear in the real light. In short, I myself am unable to say what
our painting should be; the painting that our eyes of to-day should
execute and behold.'

His voice again fell; he stammered and found himself unable to explain
the formulas of the future that were rising within him. Deep silence
came while he continued working at the velveteen jacket, quivering all
the time.

Sandoz had been listening to him without stirring from his position. His
back was still turned, and he said slowly, as if speaking to the wall in
a kind of dream:

'No; one does not know, and still we ought to know. But each time a
professor has wanted to impress a truth upon me, I have mistrustfully
revolted, thinking: "He is either deceiving himself or deceiving me."
Their ideas exasperate me. It seems to me that truth is larger, more
general. How beautiful would it be if one could devote the whole of
one's existence to one single work, into which one would endeavour to
put everything, the beasts of the field as well as mankind; in short,
a kind of immense ark. And not in the order indicated by manuals of
philosophy, or according to the idiotic hierarchy on which we pride
ourselves, but according to the full current of life; a world in which
we should be