nightfall! Is not illusion a sort of night to the mind,
which we people with dreams? Illusion then unfolds its wings, it bears
the soul aloft to the world of fancies, a world full of voluptuous
imaginings, where the artist forgets the real world, yesterday and the
morrow, the future--everything down to its miseries, the good and the
evil alike.

At this magic hour a young painter, a man of talent, who saw in art
nothing but Art itself, was perched on a step-ladder which helped him to
work at a large high painting, now nearly finished. Criticising himself,
honestly admiring himself, floating on the current of his thoughts,
he then lost himself in one of those meditative moods which ravish and
elevate the soul, soothe it, and comfort it. His reverie had no doubt
lasted a long time. Night fell. Whether he meant to come down from his
perch, or whether he made some ill-judged movement, believing himself to
be on the floor--the event did not allow of his remembering exactly the
cause of his accident--he fell, his head struck a footstool, he lost
consciousness and lay motionless during a space of time of which he knew
not the length.

A sweet voice roused him from the stunned condition into which he had
sunk. When he opened his eyes the flash of a bright light made him close
them again immediately; but through the mist that veiled his senses he
heard the whispering of two women, and felt two young, two timid hands
on which his head was resting. He soon recovered consciousness, and by
the light of an old-fashioned Argand lamp he could make out the most
charming girl's face he had ever seen, one of those heads which are
often supposed to be a freak of the brush, but which to him suddenly
realized the theories of the ideal beauty which every artist creates
for himself and whence his art proceeds. The features of the unknown
belonged, so to say, to the refined and delicate type of Prudhon's
school, but had also the poetic sentiment which Girodet gave to the
inventions of his phantasy. The freshness of the temples, the regular
arch of the eyebrows, the purity of outline, the virginal innocence so
plainly stamped on every feature of her countenance, made the girl a
perfect creature. Her figure was slight and graceful, and frail in form.
Her dress, though simple and neat, revealed neither wealth nor penury.

As he recovered his senses, the painter gave expression to his
admiration by a look of surprise, and stammered some confused