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Updated: June 9, 2025
"Well," he added, "it was all very interesting, wasn't it?" "Very especially your own demonstrations. I had no idea that you were in correspondence with Deboutin." He laughed; then, with a knowing look, said: "Ah, my dear fellow, nowadays it doesn't do to tell anyone of your own researches.
Deboutin is thinking of his dry-points; the woman is incapable of thought. If questioned about her life she would probably answer, "je suis a la coule". But there is no implication of drunkenness in the phrase. In England this class of woman is constantly drunk, in France hardly ever; and the woman Degas has painted is typical of her class, and she wears the habitual expression of her class.
Walter Sickert suggests, but simply Au Cafe. Mr. Walter Crane writes: "Here is a study of human degradation, male and female." Perhaps Mr. Walter Crane will feel inclined to apologise for his language when he learns that the man who sits tranquilly smoking his pipe is a portrait of the engraver Deboutin, a man of great talent and at least Mr. Walter Crane's equal as a writer and as a designer.
"Look at the head of the old Bohemian the engraver Deboutin a man whom I have known all my life, and yet he never really existed for me until I saw this picture. There is the hat I have always known, on the back of his head as I have always seen it, and the wooden pipe is held tight in his teeth as I have always seen him hold it. How large, how profound, how simple the drawing!
When, hypocritically, I said the picture was a lesson, I referred to the woman, who happens to be sitting next to M. Deboutin. Mr. Crane, Mr. Richmond, and others have jumped to the conclusion that M. Deboutin has come to the cafe with the woman, and that they are "boozing" together. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Deboutin always came to the cafe alone, as did Manet, Degas, Duranty.
The picture represents M. Deboutin in the cafe of the Nouvelle Athenes He has come down from his studio for breakfast, and he will return to his dry-points when he has finished his pipe. I have known M. Deboutin a great number of years, and a more sober man does not exist; and Mr. Crane's accusations of drunkenness might as well be made against Mr. Bernard Shaw.
Deboutin, as every medical man is aware, is the first authority on nervous disorders, and his lectures have won for him a world-wide reputation. I had read all his books, and being especially struck with "Névroses et Idées Fixes," a most convincing work, had longed to be present at one of his demonstrations. Therefore, forgetful that I was there for some unknown reason, I settled myself to listen.
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