portrait of three ragged workmen, badly clothed, unshorn, fleshy, gross, with disquieting haunches and fists? To reveal the full extent of his horror, Dupoissy had written that the picture exhaled an odor of sweat and red herring and onions; that he scented its low debauchery.
Another exposition was held in Paris. Marbol entered a picture no less audacious than the first, and, to the redoubled stupefaction of the hostile and timorous clan, the jurors awarded him the grand medal.
Even though the high priests of painting maliciously ranged themselves in opposition to the young painter, these successes, shortly afterward ratified in Munich, Vienna and London, gave the amateurs and collectors of Antwerp high society something to brood upon. It could not be denied that the fellow was making a success. If he had been able to prove his superiority only by what is called fame; magazine articles, applause from the starving, who, when they lack food, find nourishment in dreams, had this been the case, practical people would have continued to shrug their shoulders at this blustering bungler. But from the minute that he was able to finger his gold pieces his case became interesting.
"Well, well! Surely a weird taste! Painting that isn't at all decorative; pictures that one would not wish to hang in one's home, at least not in a lady's sitting room. But he is a clever business man, and very shrewd after all. He did not make his plans so very badly, either. And what difference does it make that he paints pictures that one would not touch with a pair of tongs, since we all entertain that nice chap Vanderzeepen, even though we all know that the
