"What an admirable thing is Nature," he cried, "and how culpable are men in spoiling it, as they incessantly do, under pretext of amelioration, as though Providence were not more skilful than they!"
"Bravo!" answered the other—to whom we will give, for the present, the name of Dubois under which he made himself known to us—"Bravo! Monsieur Émile; I see that you are still as enthusiastic as even at the time when I had the pleasure of first meeting you."
"Eh, Monseigneur—Monsieur, I should say—pardon this involuntary slip—do not envy us enthusiasm, we poor devils of artists; enthusiasm is faith, is youth, is hope, perhaps."
"God preserve me from such a thought. I admire you, on the contrary—I who, at my time of life, can drink nothing but absinthe."
"Bah!" gaily said the painter, "Tomorrow does not exist; it is a myth; let us be merry today. Look, what a brilliant sun; what a magnificent landscape! Will all that not make you more contented with humanity?"
"How happy is youth!" said monsieur Dubois; "Everything strikes upon it. Even in the desert, where it runs the imminent risk of dying with hunger."
"Allowing that, Monsieur, the man who has lived in Paris on nothing ought not to fear any desert."
"That leads us to a question that I wish to ask," answered the other, laughing at the artist's jest.
"Let us have the question," said the artist.
"Be so good, then, not to attribute to an indiscretion unworthy of me, but only to the lively interest I take in you, the question I propose to ask you."