"Nothing. Can you?"

"No."

The two painters drew back, leaving the old man absorbed in ecstasy,
and tried to see if the light, falling plumb upon the canvas at which
he pointed, had neutralized all effects. They examined the picture,
moving from right to left, standing directly before it, bending,
swaying, rising by turns.

"Yes, yes; it is really a canvas," cried Frenhofer, mistaking the
purpose of their examination. "See, here is the frame, the easel;
these are my colors, my brushes." And he caught up a brush which he
held out to them with a naive motion.

"The old rogue is making game of us," said Poussin, coming close to
the pretended picture. "I can see nothing here but a mass of confused
color, crossed by a multitude of eccentric lines, making a sort of
painted wall."

"We are mistaken. See!" returned Porbus.

Coming nearer, they perceived in a corner of the canvas the point of a
naked foot, which came forth from the chaos of colors, tones, shadows
hazy and undefined, misty and without form,--an enchanting foot, a
living foot. They stood lost in admiration before this glorious
fragment breaking forth from the incredible, slow, progressive
destruction around it. The foot seemed to them like the torso of some
Grecian Venus, brought to light amid the ruins of a burned city.