whispered Poussin to Porbus.

"Nothing. Can you?"

"No."

The two painters drew back, leaving the old man absorbed in ecstasy,
and tried to see if the light, falling plumb upon the canvas at which he
pointed, had neutralized all effects. They examined the picture, moving
from right to left, standing directly before it, bending, swaying,
rising by turns.

"Yes, yes; it is really a canvas," cried Frenhofer, mistaking the
purpose of their examination. "See, here is the frame, the easel; these
are my colors, my brushes." And he caught up a brush which he held out
to them with a naive motion.

"The old rogue is making game of us," said Poussin, coming close to the
pretended picture. "I can see nothing here but a mass of confused color,
crossed by a multitude of eccentric lines, making a sort of painted
wall."

"We are mistaken. See!" returned Porbus.

Coming nearer, they perceived in a corner of the canvas the point of a
naked foot, which came forth from the chaos of colors, tones, shadows
hazy and undefined, misty and without form,--an enchanting foot, a
living foot. They stood lost in admiration before this glorious fragment
breaking forth from the incredible, slow, progressive destruction
around it. The foot seemed to them like the torso of some Grecian Venus,
brought to light amid the ruins of a burned city.

"There is a woman beneath it all!" cried Porbus, calling Poussin's
attention to the layers of color which the old painter had successively
laid on, believing that he thus brought his work to perfection. The two
men turned towards him with one accord, beginning to comprehend, though
vaguely, the ecstasy in which he lived.

"He means it in good faith," said Porbus.

"Yes, my friend," answered the old man, rousing from his abstraction,
"we need faith; faith in art. We must live with our work for years
before we can produce a creation like that. Some of these shadows have
cost me endless toil. See, there on her cheek, below the eyes, a faint
half-shadow; if you observed it in Nature you might think it could
hardly be rendered. Well, believe me, I took unheard-of pains to
reproduce that effect. My dear Porbus, look attentively at my work, and
you will comprehend what I have told you about the manner of treating
form and outline. Look at the light on the bosom, and see how by a
series of touches and higher lights firmly laid on I have managed to
grasp light itself, and combine it with the dazzling whiteness