"For how much?"

"I got back what I gave and a small interest. Make me some Flemish
interiors, a lesson of anatomy, landscapes, and such like, and I'll
buy them of you," said Elie.

Fougeres would fain have taken old Magus in his arms; he regarded him
as a father. He went home with joy in his heart; the great painter
Schinner was mistaken after all! In that immense city of Paris there
were some hearts that beat in unison with Pierre's; his talent was
understood and appreciated. The poor fellow of twenty-seven had the
innocence of a lad of sixteen. Another man, one of those distrustful,
surly artists, would have noticed the diabolical look on Elie's face
and seen the twitching of the hairs of his beard, the irony of his
moustache, and the movement of his shoulders which betrayed the
satisfaction of Walter Scott's Jew in swindling a Christian.

Fougeres marched along the boulevard in a state of joy which gave to
his honest face an expression of pride. He was like a schoolboy
protecting a woman. He met Joseph Bridau, one of his comrades, and one
of those eccentric geniuses destined to fame and sorrow. Joseph
Bridau, who had, to use his own expression, a few sous in his pocket,
took Fougeres to the Opera. But Fougeres didn't see the ballet, didn't
hear the music; he was imagining pictures, he was painting. He left
Joseph in the middle of the evening, and ran home to make sketches by
lamp-light. He invented thirty pictures, all reminiscence, and felt
himself a man of genius. The next day he bought colors, and canvases
of various dimensions; he piled up bread and cheese on his table, he
filled a water-pot with water, he laid in a provision of wood for his
stove; then, to use a studio expression, he dug at his pictures. He