almost became drawing. At the end of six months, like the ape in the
Arabian Nights, he wrote six kinds of writing; and imitated men's faces,
trees, and animals. At the end of a year he had made such progress that
he thought he might now give out his prospectus. He worked at it for
three months, day and night; and almost lost his sight over it. At the
end of that time he had accomplished a chef-d'oeuvre.

It was not a simple writing, but a real picture representing the
creation of the world, and divided almost like the Transfiguration of
Raphael. In the upper part, consecrated to Eden, was the Eternal Father
drawing Eve from the side of the sleeping Adam, and surrounded by those
animals which the nobility of their nature brings near to man, such as
the lion, the horse, and the dog. At the bottom was the sea, in the
depths of which were to be seen swimming the most fantastic fishes, and
on the surface a superb three-decked vessel. On the two sides, trees
full of birds put the heavens, which they touched with their topmost
branches, in communication with the earth, which they grasped with their
roots; and in the space left in the middle of all this, in the most
perfectly horizontal line, and reproduced in six different writings, was
the adverb "pitilessly." This time the artist was not deceived; the
picture produced the effect which he expected. A week afterward young
Buvat had five male and two female scholars. His reputation increased;
and Madame Buvat, after some time passed in greater ease than she had
known even in her husband's lifetime, had the satisfaction of dying
perfectly secure about her son's future.

As to him, after having sufficiently mourned his mother, he pursued the
course of his life, one day exactly like the other. He arrived thus at
the age of twenty-six or twenty-seven, having passed the stormy part of
existence in the eternal calm of his innocent and virtuous good nature.
It was about this time that the good man found an opportunity of doing a
sublime action, which he did instinctively and simply, as he did
everything; but perhaps a man of mind might have passed it over without
seeing it, or turned away from it if he had seen it. There was in the
house No. 6, in the Rue des Orties, of which Buvat occupied the attic, a
young couple who were the admiration of the whole quarter for the
harmony in which they lived. They appeared made for each other. The
husband was a man of from thirty-four to thirty-f