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Lepany, who evidently relished every chance of showing off, fell into a picturesque attitude and prepared to hold forth. Valentin winked at one or two of his own clique, and lit a cigar.
"I should scarcely have supposed that Monsieur Valentin would jest upon such a subject as a canon of the art he professes," said Lepany, becoming more and more dignified. "Are you asking me for my definition of the Ideal, Monsieur Valentin?" "Well, if it's not giving you too much trouble yes."
When we came in, these two young men, Droz and De Lepany, were discussing, in enthusiastic but somewhat unintelligible language, the merits of a certain Monsieur Lemonnier, of whom, although till that moment ignorant of his name and fame, I at once perceived that he must be some celebrated chef de cuisine. "He will never surpass that last thing of his," said the Byzantine youth. "Heavens!
"Mais, mon Dieu!" exclaimed the proprietor, mopping his head and face violently with his pocket-handkerchief, "was the man a ghost, that he should vanish into the air?" "Parbleu! a ghost with muscles of iron," said Müller. "Talk of the strength of a madman he has the strength of a whole lunatic asylum!" "He gave me a most confounded blow in the ribs, anyhow!" said Lepany.
"Nay," said Valentin, "we concede that Monsieur de Lepany is sublime; we recognise with admiration that he is eloquent; but we submit that he is wholly unintelligible." And having delivered this parting shot, the club-footed realist slipped his arm through the arm of the fat student, and went off to a distant table and a game at dominoes. Then followed an outburst of offended idealism.
Another big, burly, warm-complexioned, with bright open blue eyes, curling reddish beard and moustache, slouched hat, black velvet blouse, immaculate linen, and an abundance of rings, chains, and ornaments was made up in excellent imitation of the well-known portrait of Rubens. This gentleman's name, as I presently learned, was Caesar de Lepany.
"What shall I say?" pursued Lepany. "Shall I say that the Ideal is, as it were, the Real distilled and sublimated in the alembic of the imagination? Shall I say that the Ideal is an image projected by the soul of genius upon the background of the universe?
"You ask me," began Lepany, "to define the Ideal in other words, to define the indefinite, which alas! whether from a metaphysical, a philosophical, or an aesthetic point of view, is a task transcending immeasurably my circumscribed powers of expression." "Gracious heavens!" whispered Müller in my ear. "He must have been reared from infancy on words of five syllables!"
His own clique crowded round Lepany as the champion of their school. They shook hands with him. They embraced him. They fooled him to the top of his bent. In the midst of the chatter and bustle which this incident occasioned, a pale, earnest-looking man of about five-and-thirty, coming past our table on his way out of the Café, touched Müller on the arm, bent down, and said quietly:
How smooth it is! How buttery! How pulpy!" "Ay and yet with all that lusciousness of quality, he never wants piquancy," added De Lepany. "I think his greens are apt to be a little raw," interposed Müller, taking part in the conversation. "Raw!" echoed the first speaker, indignantly. "Eh, mon Dieu! What can you be thinking of! They are almost too hot!"
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