“It is better, m’sieur, to engage upon a humble task than to wallow with the gudgeon of the Seine.”
“Pooh! Benoit, am I a likely suicide?”
“Given no meat, a man will drink betimes over-deeply of the water.”
The answer and memory of a certain grotesque figure in the Morgue gave Wynne to pause.
“You are a cold comforter,” he said. “Have you no happier suggestion to offer?”
“I speak from knowledge, m’sieur. If you are destitute you must be content with the smallest blessings.”
“But I have intellect, Benoit, in larger measure than most. Is there no market for intellect in this city of Paris?”
“There will be better intellects than yours that sleep without a roof in Paris tonight. Why should you, a stranger, look to France to buy your thoughts?”
“Because France alone, of all countries, holds out the hand of welcome to Art.”
“It may be so—and it may be in so doing she fills her own coffers. These are matters which I do not understand, but I know well, and well enough, that the stranger may learn an art in this city, but he cannot sell it here. M’sieur, when your bread is eaten I would advise that you go to Les Arles and offer your hands. There is always a value for hands, even though it be but very small, and maybe, by using them, you would in the end find profit for the brain.”