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XLIII

n Tuesdays and Fridays masters spent the morning
Oat Amitrano’s, criticising the work done. In France
the painter earns little unless he paints portraits and is pa-
tronised by rich Americans; and men of reputation are glad
to increase their incomes by spending two or three hours
once a week at one of the numerous studios where art is
taught. Tuesday was the day upon which Michel Rollin
came to Amitrano’s. He was an elderly man, with a white
beard and a florid complexion, who had painted a num-
ber of decorations for the State, but these were an object of
derision to the students he instructed: he was a disciple of
Ingres, impervious to the progress of art and angrily im-
patient with that tas de farceurs whose names were Manet,
Degas, Monet, and Sisley; but he was an excellent teacher,
helpful, polite, and encouraging. Foinet, on the other hand,
who visited the studio on Fridays, was a difficult man to get
on with. He was a small, shrivelled person, with bad teeth
and a bilious air, an untidy gray beard, and savage eyes; his
voice was high and his tone sarcastic. He had had pictures
bought by the Luxembourg, and at twenty-five looked for-
ward to a great career; but his talent was due to youth rather
than to personality, and for twenty years he had done noth-
ing but repeat the landscape which had brought him his
early success. When he was reproached with monotony, he

1 Of Human Bondage