“No, Célestin; I work in an atelier of my own.”
Never before in the course of his brief artistic career had praise thrilled him like this, the frank and artless homage of a girl of eighteen who found herself for the first time in her life in the presence of a real artist; there were no ateliers in the street off the Rue de Babylone, only workshops.
“At the Porte St. Martin,” said Célestin, “where sometimes Mme. Liard takes me,—she is a friend of the doorkeeper, and sometimes he gives her permits,—I have seen a very sad play. It was about an artist: he was very poor—that is to say, not so very poor at first, but he got poorer as the play went on, and thinner, till at last his cheeks were like this.” She sucked her cheeks in. “Then in the last act he tied a rope to a beam in the ceiling, and made a noose in the rope and put his head through it; I clung to Mme. Liard, I was so frightened. You cannot think how terrible it was till the door broke open and his father rushed in,—he was the son of a duke in disguise,—and the concierge came after, and a lot of people, and they cut him down. Everyone wept. There was a villain in the piece, and, oh! such a pretty girl,” finished Célestin. “But I liked the artist best. Are all artists very poor, M. Désiré?”
“Oh, we manage to scrape along,” said Toto, “when we can sell our pictures; we can’t always do that—we can’t always get them exhibited, even. I sent one last year to the Salon.”
“The Salon—where is that?” asked Célestin.
“It’s a picture show; they give prizes for the best pictures.”
“And did your picture get a prize?”
“No,” said Toto mournfully. “They would not even hang it on the walls—it was too classical, some people said; and one man, a man who ought to know, told me it was jealousy.”
“Ah, mon Dieu! how terrible! It was so with the artist in the play: he was betrayed by a man who was jealous of him—oh, poor M. Désiré!”
“Célestin,” said Toto, “do not call me monsieur; call me Désiré.”