g arches where they belonged. Imagine
such a head upon a lean and feeble body, surround it with lace of
dazzling whiteness worked in meshes like a fish-slice, festoon the black
velvet doublet of the old man with a heavy gold chain, and you will
have a faint idea of the exterior of this strange individual, to whose
appearance the dusky light of the landing lent fantastic coloring. You
might have thought that a canvas of Rembrandt without its frame had
walked silently up the stairway, bringing with it the dark atmosphere
which was the sign-manual of the great master. The old man cast a look
upon the youth which was full of sagacity; then he rapped three times
upon the door, and said, when it was opened by a man in feeble health,
apparently about forty years of age, "Good-morning, maitre."

Porbus bowed respectfully, and made way for his guest, allowing the
youth to pass in at the same time, under the impression that he came
with the old man, and taking no further notice of him; all the less
perhaps because the neophyte stood still beneath the spell which holds a
heaven-born painter as he sees for the first time an atelier filled with
the materials and instruments of his art. Daylight came from a casement
in the roof and fell, focussed as it were, upon a canvas which rested on
an easel in the middle of the room, and which bore, as yet, only three
or four chalk lines. The light thus concentrated did not reach the dark
angles of the vast atelier; but a few wandering reflections gleamed
through the russet shadows on the silvered breastplate of a horseman's
cuirass of the fourteenth century as it hung from the wall, or sent
sharp lines of light upon the carved and polished cornice of a dresser
which held specimens of rare pottery and porcelains, or touched with
sparkling points the rough-grained texture of ancient gold-brocaded
curtains, flung in broad folds about the room to serve the painter
as models for his drapery. Anatomical casts in plaster, fragments
and torsos of antique goddesses amorously polished by the kisses of
centuries, jostled each other upon shelves and brackets. Innumerable
sketches, studies in the three crayons, in ink, and in red chalk
covered the walls from floor to ceiling; color-boxes, bottles of oil and
turpentine, easels and stools upset or standing at right angles, left
but a narrow pathway to the circle of light thrown from the window in
the roof, which fell full on the pale face of Porbus and on the