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Updated: May 9, 2025
"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."
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. The bottle-merchant seemed to have the idea of competing with King Louis-Philippe and the galleries of Versailles.
"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.
"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."
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.
"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!"
"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.
"Am I to bring them?" "Three portraits I could put them in the Salon; I might go in for portrait-painting. Well, yes!" Old Elie descended the staircase to go in search of the Vervelle family.
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.
"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.
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