nearly finished, and the enthusiasm of the family knew no bounds. The
notary had spoken in the highest praise of the painter. Pierre Grassou
was, he said, one of the most honest fellows on earth; he had laid by
thirty-six thousand francs; his days of poverty were over; he now
saved about ten thousand francs a year and capitalized the interest;
in short, he was incapable of making a woman unhappy. This last remark
had enormous weight in the scales. Vervelle's friends now heard of
nothing but the celebrated painter Fougeres.

The day on which Fougeres began the portrait of Mademoiselle Virginie,
he was virtually son-in-law to the Vervelle family. The three
Vervelles bloomed out in this studio, which they were now accustomed
to consider as one of their residences; there was to them an
inexplicable attraction in this clean, neat, pretty, and artistic
abode. Abyssus abyssum, the commonplace attracts the commonplace.
Toward the end of the sitting the stairway shook, the door was
violently thrust open by Joseph Bridau; he came like a whirlwind, his
hair flying. He showed his grand haggard face as he looked about him,
casting everywhere the lightning of his glance; then he walked round
the whole studio, and returned abruptly to Grassou, pulling his coat
together over the gastric region, and endeavouring, but in vain, to
button it, the button mould having escaped from its capsule of cloth.

"Wood is dear," he said to Grassou.

"Ah!"

"The British are after me" (slang term for creditors) "Gracious! do
you paint such things as that?"