this wheel; he dipped his brush into cadmium yellow and whisked it
round, that's all." Nor had we any more understanding for Renoir's rich
sensualities of tone; nor did the mastery with which he achieves an
absence of shadow appeal to us. You see colour and light in his pictures
as you do in nature, and the child's criticism of a portrait--"Why is
one side of the face black?" is answered. There was a half-length nude
figure of a girl. How the round fresh breasts palpitate in the light!
such a glorious glow of whiteness was attained never before. But we saw
nothing except that the eyes were out of drawing.

For art was not for us then as it is now,--a mere emotion, right or
wrong only in proportion to its intensity; we believed then in the
grammar of art, perspective, anatomy, and _la jambe qui porte_; and we
found all this in Julien's studio.

A year passed; a year of art and dissipation--one part art, two parts
dissipation. We mounted and descended at pleasure the rounds of
society's ladder. One evening we would spend at Constant's, Rue de la
Gaieté, in the company of thieves and housebreakers; on the following
evening we were dining with a duchess or a princess in the Champs
Elysées. And we prided ourselves vastly on our versatility in using with
equal facility the language of the "fence's" parlour, and that of the
literary _salon_; on being able to appear as much at home in one as in
the other. Delighted at our prowess, we often whispered, "The princess,
I swear, would not believe her eyes if she saw us now;" and then in
terrible slang we shouted a benediction on some "crib" that was going to
be broken into that evening. And we thought there was something very
thrilling in leaving the Rue de la Gaieté, returning home to dress, and
presenting our spotless selves to the _élite_. And we succeeded very
well, as indeed all young men do who waltz perfectly and avoid making