“I will buy your sketch,” he said.
“Take it,” said Porbus, as he saw the other start and flush with embarrassment, for Poussin had the pride of poverty. “Pray, take it; he has a couple of king’s ransoms in his pouch!”
The three came down together from the studio, and, talking of art by the way, reached a picturesque wooden house hard by the Pont Saint-Michel. Poussin wondered a moment at its ornament, at the knocker, at the frames of the casements, at the scroll-work designs, and in the next he stood in a vast low-ceiled room. A table, covered with tempting dishes, stood near the blazing fire, and (luck unhoped for) he was in the company of two great artists full of genial good humor.
“Do not look too long at that canvas, young man,” said Porbus, when he saw that Poussin was standing, struck with wonder, before a painting. “You would fall a victim to despair.”
It was the “Adam” painted by Mabuse to purchase his release from the prison where his creditors had so long kept him. And, as a matter of fact, the figure stood out so boldly and convincingly, that Nicolas Poussin began to understand the real meaning of the words poured out by the old artist, who was himself looking at the picture with apparent satisfaction, but without enthusiasm. “I have done better than that!” he seemed to be saying to himself.
“There is life in it,” he said aloud; “in that respect my poor master here surpassed himself, but there is some lack of truth in the background. The man lives indeed; he is rising, and will come toward us; but the atmosphere, the sky, the air, the breath of the breeze—you look and feel for them, but they are not there. And then the man himself is, after all, only a man! Ah! but the one man in the world who came direct from the hands of God must have had a something divine about him that is wanting here. Mabuse himself would grind his teeth and say so when he was not drunk.”
Poussin looked from the speaker to Porbus, and from Porbus to the speaker, with restless curiosity. He went up to the latter to ask for the name of their host; but the painter laid a finger on his lips with an air of mystery. The young man’s interest was excited; he kept silence, but hoped that sooner or later some word might be let fall that would reveal the name of his entertainer. It was evident that he was a man of talent and very wealthy, for Porbus listened to him respectfully, and the vast room was crowded with marvels of art.
A magnificent portrait of a woman, hung against the dark oak panels of the wall, next caught Poussin’s attention.
“What a glorious Giorgione!” he cried.
“No,” said his host, “it is an early daub of mine—”