Hortense, on going into the shop, had at once recognized the famous group, conspicuously placed on a table in the middle and in front of the door. Even without the circumstances to which she owed her knowledge of this masterpiece, it would probably have struck her by the peculiar power which we must call the /brio/--the /go/--of great works; and the girl herself might in Italy have been taken as a model for the personification of /Brio/.
Not every work by a man of genius has in the same degree that brilliancy, that glory which is at once patent even to the most ignoble beholder. Thus, certain pictures by Raphael, such as the famous /Transfiguration/, the /Madonna di Foligno/, and the frescoes of the /Stanze/ in the Vatican, do not at first captivate our admiration, as do the /Violin-player/ in the Sciarra Palace, the portraits of the Doria family, and the /Vision of Ezekiel/ in the Pitti Gallery, the /Christ bearing His Cross/ in the Borghese collection, and the /Marriage of the Virgin/ in the Brera at Milan.
The /Saint John the Baptist/ of the Tribuna, and /Saint Luke painting the Virgin's portrait/ in the Accademia at Rome, have not the charm of the /Portrait of Leo X./, and of the /Virgin/ at Dresden.
And yet they are all of equal merit. Nay, more. The /Stanze/, the /Transfiguration/, the panels, and the three easel pictures in the Vatican are in the highest degree perfect and sublime. But they demand a stress of attention, even from the most accomplished beholder, and serious study, to be fully understood; while the /Violin-player/, the /Marriage of the Virgin/, and the /Vision of Ezekiel/ go straight to the heart through the portal of sight, and make their home there. It is a pleasure to receive them thus without an effort; if it is not the highest phase of art, it is the happiest. This fact proves that, in the begetting of works of art, there is as much chance in the character of the offspring as there is in a family of children; that some will be happily graced, born beautiful, and costing their mothers little suffering, creatures on whom everything smiles, and with whom everything succeeds; in short, genius, like love, has its fairer blossoms.
This /brio/, an Italian word which the French have begun to use, is characteristic of youthful work. It is the fruit of an impetus and fire of early talent--an impetus which is met with again later in some happy hours; but this particular /brio/ no longer comes from the artist's heart; instead of his flinging it into his work as a volcano flings up its fires, it comes to him from outside, inspired by circumstances, by love, or rivalry, often by hatred, and more often still by the imperious need of glory to be lived up to.
This group by Wenceslas was to his later works what the /Marriage of the Virgin/ is to the great mass of Raphael's, the first step of a gifted artist taken with the inimitable grace, the eagerness, and delightful overflowingness of a child, whose strength is concealed under the pink-and-white flesh full of dimples which seem to echo to a mother's laughter. Prince Eugene is said to have paid four hundred thousand francs for this picture, which would be worth a million to any nation that owned no picture by Raphael, but no one would give that sum for the finest of the frescoes, though their value is far greater as works of art.
Hortense restrained her admiration, for she reflected on the amount of her girlish savings; she assumed an air of indifference, and said to the dealer:
"What is the price of that?"
"Fifteen hundred francs," replied the man, sending a glance of intelligence to a young man seated on a stool in the corner.
The young man himself gazed in a stupefaction at Monsieur Hulot's living masterpiece. Hortense, forewarned, at once identified him as the artist, from the color that flushed a face pale with endurance; she saw the spark lighted up in his gray eyes by her question; she looked on the thin, drawn features, like those of a monk consumed by asceticism; she loved the red, well-formed mouth, the delicate chin, and the Pole's silky chestnut hair.
"If it were twelve hundred," said she, "I would beg you to send it to me."
"It is antique, mademoiselle," the dealer remarked, thinking, like all his fraternity, that, having uttered this /ne plus ultra/ of bric-a-brac, there was no more to be said.
"Excuse me, monsieur," she replied very quietly, "it was made this year; I came expressly to beg you, if my price is accepted, to send the artist to see us, as it might be possible to procure him some important commissions."
"And if he is to have the twelve hundred francs, what am I to get? I am the dealer," said the man, with candid good-humor.
"To be sure!" replied the girl, with a slight curl of disdain.
"Oh! mademoiselle, take it; I will make terms with the dealer," cried the Livonian, beside himself.
Fascinated by Hortense's wonderful beauty and the love of art she displayed, he added:
"I am the sculptor of the group, and for ten days I have come here three times a day to see if anybody would recognize its merit and bargain for it. You are my first admirer--take it!"
"Come, then, monsieur, with the dealer, an hour hence.--Here is my father's card," replied Hortense.
Then, seeing the shopkeeper go into a back room to wrap the group in a piece of linen rag, she added in a low voice, to the great astonishment of the artist, who thought he must be dreaming:
"For the benefit of your future prospects, Monsieur Wenceslas, do not mention the name of the purchaser to Mademoiselle Fischer, for she is our cousin."
The word cousin dazzled the artist's mind; he had a glimpse of Paradise whence this daughter of Eve had come to him. He had dreamed of the beautiful girl of whom Lisbeth had told him, as Hortense had dreamed of her cousin's lover; and, as she had entered the shop--"Ah!" thought he, "if she could but be like this!"
The look that passed between the lovers may be imagined; it was a flame, for virtuous lovers have no hypocrisies.
"Well, what the deuce are you doing here?" her father asked her.
