Pierre Grassou

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Having lived all his life in toil and poverty, he had never had the
time to love. Poor and a bachelor, until now he did not desire to
complicate his simple life. Incapable of devising any means of
increasing his little fortune, he carried, every three months, to his
notary, Cardot, his quarterly earnings and economies. When the notary
had received about three thousand francs he invested them in some
first mortgage, the interest of which he drew himself and added to the
quarterly payments made to him by Fougeres. The painter was awaiting
the fortunate moment when his property thus laid by would give him the
imposing income of two thousand francs, to allow himself the otium cum
dignitate of the artist and paint pictures; but oh! what pictures!
true pictures! each a finished picture! chouette, Koxnoff, chocnosoff!
His future, his dreams of happiness, the superlative of his hopes--do
you know what it was? To enter the Institute and obtain the grade of
officer of the Legion of honor; to side down beside Schinner and Leon
de Lora, to reach the Academy before Bridau, to wear a rosette in his
buttonhole! What a dream! It is only commonplace men who think of
everything.

Hearing the sound of several steps on the staircase, Fougeres rubbed
up his hair, buttoned his jacket of bottle-green velveteen, and was
not a little amazed to see, entering his doorway, a simpleton face
vulgarly called in studio slang a "melon." This fruit surmounted
a pumpkin, clothed in blue cloth adorned with a bunch of
tintinnabulating baubles. The melon puffed like a walrus; the pumpkin
advanced on turnips, improperly called legs. A true painter would have
turned the little bottle-vendor off at once, assuring him that he
didn't paint vegetables. This painter looked at his client without a
smile, for Monsieur Vervelle wore a three-thousand-franc diamond in
the bosom of his shirt.

Fougeres glanced at Magus and said: "There's fat in it!" using a slang
term then much in vogue in the studios.

Hearing those words Monsieur Vervelle frowned. The worthy bourgeois
drew after him another complication of vegetables in the persons of
his wife and daughter. The wife had a fine veneer of mahogany on her
face, and in figure she resembled a cocoa-nut, surmounted by a head
and tied in around the waist. She pivoted on her legs, which were
tap-rooted, and her gown was yellow with black stripes. She proudly
exhibited unutterable mittens on a puffy pair of hands; the plumes of
a first-class funeral floated on an over-flowing bonnet; laces adorned
her shoulders, as round behind as they were before; consequently, the
spherical form of the cocoa-nut was perfect. Her feet, of a kind that
painters call abatis, rose above the varnished leather of the shoes in
a swelling that was some inches high. How the feet were ever got into
the shoes, no one knows.

Following these vegetable parents was a young asparagus, who presented
a tiny head with smoothly banded hair of the yellow-carroty tone that
a Roman adores, long, stringy arms, a fairly white skin with reddish
spots upon it, large innocent eyes, and white lashes, scarcely any
brows, a leghorn bonnet bound with white satin and adorned with two
honest bows of the same satin, hands virtuously red, and the feet of
her mother. The faces of these three beings wore, as they looked round
the studio, an air of happiness which bespoke in them a respectable
enthusiasm for Art.

"So it is you, monsieur, who are going to take our likenesses?" said
the father, assuming a jaunty air.

"Yes, monsieur," replied Grassou.

"Vervelle, he has the cross!" whispered the wife to the husband while
the painter's back was turned.

"Should I be likely to have our portraits painted by an artist who
wasn't decorated?" returned the former bottle-dealer.

Elie Magus here bowed to the Vervelle family and went away. Grassou
accompanied him to the landing.

"There's no one but you who would fish up such whales."

"One hundred thousand francs of 'dot'!"

"Yes, but what a family!"

"Three hundred thousand francs of expectations, a house in the rue
Boucherat, and a country-house at Ville d'Avray!"

"Bottles and corks! bottles and corks!" said the painter; "they set my
teeth on edge."

"Safe from want for the rest of your days," said Elie Magus as he
departed.

That idea entered the head of Pierre Grassou as the daylight had burst
into his garret that morning.

While he posed the father of the young person, he thought the
bottle-dealer had a good countenance, and he admired the face full of
violent tones. The mother and daughter hovered about the easel,
marvelling at all his preparations; they evidently thought him a
demigod. This visible admiration pleased Fougeres. The golden calf
threw upon the family its fantastic reflections.

"You must earn lots of money; but of course you don't spend it as you
get it," said the mother.

"No, madame," replied the painter; "I don't spend it; I have not the
means to amuse myself. My notary invests my money; he knows what I
have; as soon as I have taken him the money I never think of it
again."

"I've always been told," cried old Vervelle, "that artists were
baskets with holes in them."

"Who is your notary--if it is not indiscreet to ask?" said Madame
Vervelle.

"A good fellow, all round," replied Grassou. "His name is Cardot."

"Well, well! if that isn't a joke!" exclaimed Vervelle. "Cardot is our
notary too."

"Take care! don't move," said the painter.

"Do pray hold still, Antenor," said the wife. "If you move about
you'll make monsieur miss; you should just see him working, and then
you'd understand."

"Oh! why didn't you have me taught the arts?" said Mademoiselle
Vervelle to her parents.

"Virginie," said her mother, "a young person ought not to learn
certain things. When you are married--well, till then, keep quiet."

During this first sitting the Vervelle family became almost intimate
with the worthy artist. They were to come again two days later. As
they went away the father told Virginie to walk in front; but in spite
of this separation, she overheard the following words, which naturally
awakened her curiosity.

"Decorated--thirty-seven years old--an artist who gets orders--puts
his money with our notary. We'll consult Cardot. Hein! Madame de
Fougeres! not a bad name--doesn't look like a bad man either! One
might prefer a merchant; but before a merchant retires from business
one can never know what one's daughter may come to; whereas an
economical artist--and then you know we love Art--Well, we'll see!"

While the Vervelle family discussed Pierre Grassou, Pierre Grassou
discussed in his own mind the Vervelle family. He found it impossible
to stay peacefully in his studio, so he took a walk on the boulevard,
and looked at all the red-haired women who passed him. He made a
series of the oddest reasonings to himself: gold was the handsomest of
metals; a tawny yellow represented gold; the Romans were fond of
red-haired women, and he turned Roman, etc. After two years of marriage
what man would ever care about the color of his wife's hair? Beauty
fades,--but ugliness remains! Money is one-half of all happiness. That
night when he went to bed the painter had come to think Virginie
Vervelle charming.

When the three Vervelles arrived on the day of the second sitting the
artist received them with smiles. The rascal had shaved and put on
clean linen; he had also arranged his hair in a pleasing manner, and
chosen a very becoming pair of trousers and red leather slippers with
pointed toes. The family replied with smiles as flattering as those of
the artist. Virginie became the color of her hair, lowered her eyes,
and turned aside her head to look at the sketches. Pierre Grassou
thought these little affectations charming, Virginie had such grace;
happily she didn't look like her father or her mother; but whom did
she look like?

During this sitting there were little skirmishes between the family
and the painter, who had the audacity to call pere Vervelle witty.
This flattery brought the family on the double-quick to the heart of
the artist; he gave a drawing to the daughter, and a sketch to the
mother.

"What! for nothing?" they said.

Pierre Grassou could not help smiling.

"You shouldn't give away your pictures in that way; they are money,"
said old Vervelle.

At the third sitting pere Vervelle mentioned a fine gallery of
pictures which he had in his country-house at Ville d'Avray--Rubens,
Gerard Douw, Mieris, Terburg, Rembrandt, Titian, Paul Potter, etc.

"Monsieur Vervelle has been very extravagant," said Madame Vervelle,
ostentatiously. "He has over one hundred thousand francs' worth of
pictures."

"I love Art," said the former bottle-dealer.

When Madame Vervelle's portrait was begun that of her husband was
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?"

"Hold your tongue!"

"Ah! to be sure, yes."

The Vervelle family, extremely shocked by this extraordinary
apparition, passed from its ordinary red to a cherry-red, two shades
deeper.

"Brings in, hey?" continued Joseph. "Any shot in your locker?"

"How much do you want?"

"Five hundred. I've got one of those bull-dog dealers after me, and if
the fellow once gets his teeth in he won't let go while there's a bit
of me left. What a crew!"

"I'll write you a line for my notary."

"Have you got a notary?"

"Yes."

"That explains to me why you still make cheeks with pink tones like a
perfumer's sign."

Grassou could not help coloring, for Virginie was sitting.

"Take Nature as you find her," said the great painter, going on with
his lecture. "Mademoiselle is red-haired. Well, is that a sin? All
things are magnificent in painting. Put some vermillion on your
palette, and warm up those cheeks; touch in those little brown spots;
come, butter it well in. Do you pretend to have more sense than
Nature?"

"Look here," said Fougeres, "take my place while I go and write that
note."

Vervelle rolled to the table and whispered in Grassou's ear:--

"Won't that country lout spoilt it?"

"If he would only paint the portrait of your Virginie it would be
worth a thousand times more than mine," replied Fougeres, vehemently.

Hearing that reply the bourgeois beat a quiet retreat to his wife, who
was stupefied by the invasion of this ferocious animal, and very
uneasy at his co-operation in her daughter's portrait.

"Here, follow these indications," said Bridau, returning the palette,
and taking the note. "I won't thank you. I can go back now to
d'Arthez' chateau, where I am doing a dining-room, and Leon de Lora
the tops of the doors--masterpieces! Come and see us."

And off he went without taking leave, having had enough of looking at
Virginie.

"Who is that man?" asked Madame Vervelle.

"A great artist," answered Grassou.

There was silence for a moment.

"Are you quite sure," said Virginie, "that he has done no harm to my
portrait? He frightened me."

"He has only done it good," replied Grassou.

"Well, if he is a great artist, I prefer a great artist like you,"
said Madame Vervelle.

The ways of genius had ruffled up these orderly bourgeois.

The phase of autumn so pleasantly named "Saint Martin's summer" was
just beginning. With the timidity of a neophyte in presence of a man
of genius, Vervelle risked giving Fougeres an invitation to come out
to his country-house on the following Sunday. He knew, he said, how
little attraction a plain bourgeois family could offer to an artist.

"You artists," he continued, "want emotions, great scenes, and witty
talk; but you'll find good wines, and I rely on my collection of
pictures to compensate an artist like you for the bore of dining with
mere merchants."

This form of idolatry, which stroked his innocent self-love, was
charming to our poor Pierre Grassou, so little accustomed to such
compliments. The honest artist, that atrocious mediocrity, that heart
of gold, that loyal soul, that stupid draughtsman, that worthy fellow,
decorated by royalty itself with the Legion of honor, put himself
under arms to go out to Ville d'Avray and enjoy the last fine days of
the year. The painter went modestly by public conveyance, and he could
not but admire the beautiful villa of the bottle-dealer, standing in a
park of five acres at the summit of Ville d'Avray, commanding a noble
view of the landscape. Marry Virginie, and have that beautiful villa
some day for his own!

He was received by the Vervelles with an enthusiasm, a joy, a
kindliness, a frank bourgeois absurdity which confounded him. It was
indeed a day of triumph. The prospective son-in-law was marched about
the grounds on the nankeen-colored paths, all raked as they should be
for the steps of so great a man. The trees themselves looked brushed
and combed, and the lawns had just been mown. The pure country air
wafted to the nostrils a most enticing smell of cooking. All things
about the mansion seemed to say:

"We have a great artist among us."

Little old Vervelle himself rolled like an apple through his park, the
daughter meandered like an eel, the mother followed with dignified
step. These three beings never let go for one moment of Pierre Grassou
for seven hours. After dinner, the length of which equalled its
magnificence, Monsieur and Madame Vervelle reached the moment of their
grand theatrical effect,--the opening of the picture gallery
illuminated by lamps, the reflections of which were managed with the
utmost care. Three neighbours, also retired merchants, an old uncle
(from whom were expectations), an elderly Demoiselle Vervelle, and a
number of other guests invited to be present at this ovation to a
great artist followed Grassou into the picture gallery, all curious to
hear his opinion of the famous collection of pere Vervelle, who was
fond of oppressing them with the fabulous value of his paintings. The
bottle-merchant seemed to have the idea of competing with King
Louis-Philippe and the galleries of Versailles.

The pictures, magnificently framed, each bore labels on which was read
in black letters on a gold ground:

Rubens
Dance of fauns and nymphs

Rembrandt
Interior of a dissecting room. The physician van Tromp
instructing his pupils.

In all, there were one hundred and fifty pictures, varnished and
dusted. Some were covered with green baize curtains which were not
undrawn in presence of young ladies.

Pierre Grassou stood with arms pendent, gaping mouth, and no word upon
his lips as he recognized half his own pictures in these works of art.
He was Rubens, he was Rembrandt, Mieris, Metzu, Paul Potter, Gerard
Douw! He was twenty great masters all by himself.

"What is the matter? You've turned pale!"

"Daughter, a glass of water! quick!" cried Madame Vervelle. The
painter took pere Vervelle by the button of his coat and led him to a
corner on pretence of looking at a Murillo. Spanish pictures were then
the rage.

"You bought your pictures from Elie Magus?"

"Yes, all originals."

"Between ourselves, tell me what he made you pay for those I shall
point out to you."

Together they walked round the gallery. The guests were amazed at the
gravity in which the artist proceeded, in company with the host, to
examine each picture.

"Three thousand francs," said Vervelle in a whisper, as they reached
the last, "but I tell everybody forty thousand."

"Forty thousand for a Titian!" said the artist, aloud. "Why, it is
nothing at all!"

"Didn't I tell you," said Vervelle, "that I had three hundred thousand
francs' worth of pictures?"

"I painted those pictures," said Pierre Grassou in Vervelle's ear,
"and I sold them one by one to Elie Magus for less than ten thousand
francs the whole lot."

"Prove it to me," said the bottle-dealer, "and I double my daughter's
'dot,' for if it is so, you are Rubens, Rembrandt, Titian, Gerard
Douw!"

"And Magus is a famous picture-dealer!" said the painter, who now saw
the meaning of the misty and aged look imparted to his pictures in
Elie's shop, and the utility of the subjects the picture-dealer had
required of him.

Far from losing the esteem of his admiring bottle-merchant, Monsieur
de Fougeres (for so the family persisted in calling Pierre Grassou)
advanced so much that when the portraits were finished he presented
them gratuitously to his father-in-law, his mother-in-law and his
wife.

At the present day, Pierre Grassou, who never misses exhibiting at the
Salon, passes in bourgeois regions for a fine portrait-painter. He
earns some twenty thousand francs a year and spoils a thousand francs'
worth of canvas. His wife has six thousand francs a year in dowry, and
he lives with his father-in-law. The Vervelles and the Grassous, who
agree delightfully, keep a carriage, and are the happiest people on
earth. Pierre Grassou never emerges from the bourgeois circle, in
which he is considered one of the greatest artists of the period. Not
a family portrait is painted between the barrier du Trone and the rue
du Temple that is not done by this great painter; none of them costs
less than five hundred francs. The great reason which the bourgeois
families have for employing him is this:--

"Say what you will of him, he lays by twenty thousand francs a year
with his notary."

As Grassou took a creditable part on the occasion of the riots of May
12th he was appointed an officer of the Legion of honor. He is a major
in the National Guard. The Museum of Versailles felt it incumbent to
order a battle-piece of so excellent a citizen, who thereupon walked
about Paris to meet his old comrades and have the happiness of saying
to them:--

"The King has given me an order for the Museum of Versailles."

Madame de Fougeres adores her husband, to whom she has presented two
children. This painter, a good father and a good husband, is unable to
eradicate from his heart a fatal thought, namely, that artists laugh
at his work; that his name is a term of contempt in the studios; and
that the feuilletons take no notice of his pictures. But he still
works on; he aims for the Academy, where, undoubtedly, he will enter.
And--oh! vengeance which dilates his heart!--he buys the pictures of
celebrated artists who are pinched for means, and he substitutes these
true works of arts that are not his own for the wretched daubs in the
collection at Ville d'Avray.

There are many mediocrities more aggressive and more mischievous than
that of Pierre Grassou, who is, moreover, anonymously benevolent and
truly obliging.

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Bridau, Joseph
The Purse
A Bachelor's Establishment
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Start in Life
Modeste Mignon
Another Study of Woman
Letters of Two Brides
Cousin Betty
The Member for Arcis

Cardot (Parisian notary)
The Muse of the Department
A Man of Business
Jealousies of a Country Town
The Middle Classes
Cousin Pons

Grassou, Pierre
A Bachelor's Establishment
Cousin Betty
The Middle Classes
Cousin Pons

Lora, Leon de
The Unconscious Humorists
A Bachelor's Establishment
A Start in Life
Honorine
Cousin Betty
Beatrix

Magus, Elie
The Vendetta
A Marriage Settlement
A Bachelor's Establishment
Cousin Pons

Schinner, Hippolyte
The Purse
A Bachelor's Establishment
A Start in Life
Albert Savarus
The Government Clerks
Modeste Mignon
The Imaginary Mistress
The Unconscious Humorists

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