A sly smile played about one of the corners of his mouth and his brown eyes flashed.
"I see," Falk began again; "then perhaps you know the two individuals who were sitting by the hot-beds just now, reading?"
"The philosophers? Of course, I do! The tall one is an assistant at the Public Sales Office at a salary of eighty crowns per annum, and the short one, Olle Montanus, ought to be at home at his sculpture—but since he and Ygberg have taken up philosophy, he has left off working and is fast going down hill. He has discovered that there is something sensual in art."
"What's he living on?"
"On nothing at all! Occasionally he sits to the practical Lundell and then he gets a piece of black pudding. This lasts him for about a day. In the winter Lundell lets him lie on his floor; 'he helps to warm the room,' he says, and wood is very dear; it was very cold here in April."
"How can he be a model? He looks such a God-help-me sort of chap."
"He poses for one of the thieves in Lundell's "Descent from the Cross," the one whose bones are already broken; the poor devil's suffering from hip disease; he does splendidly when he leans across the back of a chair; sometimes the artist makes him turn his back to him; then he represents the other thief."
"But why doesn't he work himself? Has he no talent?"
"Olle Montanus, my dear fellow, is a genius, but he won't work. He's a philosopher and would have become a great man if he could have gone to college. It's really extraordinary to listen to him and Ygberg talking philosophy; it's true, Ygberg has read more, but in spite of that Montanus, with his subtle brain, succeeds in cornering him every now and again; then Ygberg goes away and reads some more, but he never lends the book to Montanus."
"I see! And you like Ygberg's philosophy?" asked Falk.