He found it impossible
to stay peacefully in his studio, so he took a walk on the boulevard,
and looked at all the red-haired women who passed him. He made a
series of the oddest reasonings to himself: gold was the handsomest of
metals; a tawny yellow represented gold; the Romans were fond of
red-haired women, and he turned Roman, etc. After two years of marriage
what man would ever care about the color of his wife's hair? Beauty
fades,--but ugliness remains! Money is one-half of all happiness. That
night when he went to bed the painter had come to think Virginie
Vervelle charming.
When the three Vervelles arrived on the day of the second sitting the
artist received them with smiles. The rascal had shaved and put on
clean linen; he had also arranged his hair in a pleasing manner, and
chosen a very becoming pair of trousers and red leather slippers with
pointed toes. The family replied with smiles as flattering as those of
the artist. Virginie became the color of her hair, lowered her eyes,
and turned aside her head to look at the sketches. Pierre Grassou
thought these little affectations charming, Virginie had such grace;
happily she didn't look like her father or her mother; but whom did
she look like?
During this sitting there were little skirmishes between the family
and the painter, who had the audacity to call pere Vervelle witty.
This flattery brought the family on the double-quick to the heart of
the artist; he gave a drawing to the daughter, and a sketch to the
mother.
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