ET.

_And why?_

THE PAINTER.

_Because--because artists ought never to marry._

THE POET.

_That's rather too good. You dare to say that, and the lamp does not
go out suddenly, and the walls don't fall down upon your head! But just
think, wretch, that for two hours past, you have been setting before me
the enviable spectacle of the very happiness you forbid me. Are you by
chance like those odious millionaires whose well-being is in-creased by
the sufferings of others, and who better enjoy their own fireside when
they reflect that it is raining out of doors, and that there are plenty
of poor devils without a shelter?_

THE PAINTER.

_Think of me what you will. I have too much affection for you to help
you to commit a folly--an irreparable folly._

THE POET.

_Come! what is it? You are not satisfied? And yet it seems to me that
one breathes in happiness here, just as freely as one does the air of
heaven at a country window._

THE PAINTER.

_You are right, I am happy, completely happy, I love my wife with all my
heart. When I think of my child, I laugh aloud to myself with pleasure.
Marriage for me has been a harbour of calm and safe waters, not one in
which you make fast to a ring on the shore, at the risk of rusting
there for ever, but one of those blue creeks where sails and masts are
repaired for fresh excursions into unknown countries, I never worked as
well as I have since my marriage. All my best pictures date from then._

THE POET.

_Well then!_

THE PAINTER.

_My dear fellow, at the risk of seeming a coxcomb, I will say that I
look upon my happiness as a kind of miracle, something abnormal and
exceptional. Yes! the more I see what marriage is, the more I look back
with terror at the risk I ran. I am like those who, ignorant of the
dangers they have unwittingly gone through, turn pale when all is over,
amazed at their own audacity._

THE POET.

_But what then are these terrible dangers?_

THE PAINTER.

_The first and greatest of all, is the loss or degradation of one's
talent. This should count, I think, with an artist. For observe that
at this moment, I am not speaking of the ordinary conditions of life. I
grant you, that in general marriage is an excellent thing, and that the
majority of men only begin to be of some account when the family circle
completes them or makes them greater. Often, indeed, it is necessary to
a profession. A bachelor lawyer cannot even be ima