Would you have me cease at once to be father,
lover, and creator? She is not a creature, but a creation.

"Bring your young painter here. I will give him my treasures; I will
give him pictures by Correggio and Michelangelo and Titian; I will kiss
his footprints in the dust; but make him my rival! Shame on me. Ah! ah!
I am a lover first, and then a painter. Yes, with my latest sigh I could
find strength to burn my 'Belle Noiseuse'; but--compel her to endure the
gaze of a stranger, a young man and a painter!--Ah! no, no! I would
kill him on the morrow who should sully her with a glance! Nay, you, my
friend, I would kill you with my own hands in a moment if you did not
kneel in reverence before her! Now, will you have me submit my idol
to the careless eyes and senseless criticisms of fools? Ah! love is a
mystery; it can only live hidden in the depths of the heart. You say,
even to your friend, 'Behold her whom I love,' and there is an end of
love."

The old man seemed to have grown young again; there was light and life
in his eyes, and a faint flush of red in his pale face. His hands shook.
Porbus was so amazed by the passionate vehemence of Frenhofer's words
that he knew not what to reply to this utterance of an emotion as
strange as it was profound. Was Frenhofer sane or mad? Had he fallen a
victim to some freak of the artist's fancy? or were these ideas of his
produced by the strange lightheadedness which comes over us during the
long travail of a work of art. Would it be possible to come to terms
with this singular passion?

Harassed by all these doubts, Porbus spoke--"Is it not woman for woman?"
he said. "Does not Poussin submit his mistress to your gaze?"

"What is she?" retorted the other. "A mistress who will be false to him
sooner or later. Mine will be faithful to me forever."

"Well, well," said Porbus, "let us say no more about it. But you may die
before you will find such a flawless beauty as hers, even in Asia, and
then your picture will be left unfinished.

"Oh! it is finished," said Frenhof er. "Standing before it you would
think that it was a living woman lying on the velvet couch beneath the
shadow of the curtains. Perfumes are burning on a golden tripod by her
side. You would be tempted to lay your hand upon the tassel of the cord
that holds back the curtains; it would seem to you that you saw her
breast rise and fall as she breathed; that you beheld the living
Catherine Lescault, the beautiful cou