wines secretly provided by the mother, holding forth authoritatively
before the often-renewed bottle and the box of cigars lying open on the
table. One night, he slept on the divan, as he had no regular quarters.
After that first night, he lived entirely in the studio.

Julio soon discovered in him an admirable reflex of his own personality.
He knew that Argensola had come third-class from Madrid with twenty
francs in his pocket, in order to "capture glory," to use his own words.
Upon observing that the Spaniard was painting with as much difficulty
as himself, with the same wooden and childish strokes, which are so
characteristic of the make-believe artists and pot-boilers, the routine
workers concerned themselves with color and other rank fads. Argensola
was a psychological artist, a painter of souls. And his disciple, felt
astonished and almost displeased on learning what a comparatively simple
thing it was to paint a soul. Upon a bloodless countenance, with a chin
as sharp as a dagger, the gifted Spaniard would trace a pair of nearly
round eyes, and at the centre of each pupil he would aim a white brush
stroke, a point of light . . . the soul. Then, planting himself
before the canvas, he would proceed to classify this soul with his
inexhaustible imagination, attributing to it almost every kind of stress
and extremity. So great was the sway of his rapture that Julio, too, was
able to see all that the artist flattered himself into believing that he
had put into the owlish eyes. He, also, would paint souls . . . souls of
women.

In spite of the ease with which he developed his psychological
creations, Argensola preferred to talk, stretched on a divan, or to
read, hugging the fire while his friend and protector was outside.
Another advantage this fondness for reading gave young Desnoyers was
that he was no longer obliged to open a volume, scanning the index and