his collection, struck by certain pictures, an original phraseology,
the mechanism of his imagination, primitive yet complicated by
simplicity. All this attracted him, and then the man interested him
too. He sent a short complimentary note to Clerambault who came to
thank him, overflowing with gratitude, and ties of friendship were
formed between the two men. They had few points of resemblance;
Clerambault had lyrical gifts and ordinary intelligence dominated by
his feelings, and Perrotin was gifted with a most lucid mind, never
hampered by flights of the imagination. What they had in common were
dignity of life, intellectual probity, and a disinterested love of art
and learning, for its own sake, and not for success. None the less as
may be seen, this had not prevented Perrotin from getting on in the
world; honours and places had sought him, not he them; but he did not
reject them; he neglected nothing.

Clerambault found him busy unwinding the wrappings with which the
readers of centuries had covered over the original thought of a
Chinese philosopher. At this game which was habitual with him, he came
naturally to the discovery of the contrary of what appeared at first
to be the meaning; passing from hand to hand the idol had become
black.

Perrotin received Clerambault in this vein, polite, but a trifle
absent-minded. Even when he listened to society gossip he was inwardly
critical, tickling his sense of humour at its expense.

Clerambault spread his new acquisitions before him, starting from
the recognised unworthiness of the enemy-nation as from a certain,
well-known fact; the whole question being to decide if one should see
in this the irremediable decadence of a great people, or the proof,