In two days
Rubens finished his _grisaille_, and the glazing was done with
certainty, with skill, with ease in half an hour! He could get more
depth of colour with a glaze than any one can to-day, however much
paint is put on the canvas. The old masters had method; now there's
none. One brush as well as another, rub the paint up or down, it
doesn't matter so long as the canvas is covered. Manet began it, and
Cezanne has--well, filed the petition: painting is bankrupt."
I listened to him a little wearily, for I had heard all he was saying
many times before; but Octave always talked as he wanted to talk, and
this evening he wanted to talk of painting, not of Marie, and I was
glad when we came to the spot where our ways parted.
"You know that the Russian is coming to the studio to-morrow; I hope
he'll buy the portrait."
"I hope he will," I said. "I'd buy it myself if I could afford it."
"I'd prefer you to have something I have done since, unless it be the
woman you're after ... but one minute. You're coming to sit to me the
day after to-morrow?"
"Yes," I said, "I'll come."
"And then I'll be able to tell you if he has bought the picture."
Three days afterwards I asked Octave on the threshold if the Russian
had bought the portrait, and he told me nothing had been definitely
settled yet.
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