Observing the shabby cap of the youth, he pulled from his belt a leathern purse from which he took two gold-pieces and offered them to him, saying:
"I buy your drawing."
"Take them," said Porbus to Poussin, seeing that the latter trembled and blushed with shame, for the young scholar had the pride of poverty; "take them, he has the ransom of two kings in his pouch."
The three left the atelier and proceeded, talking all the way of art, to a handsome wooden house standing near the Pont Saint-Michel, whose window-casings and arabesque decoration amazed Poussin. The embryo painter soon found himself in one of the rooms on the ground floor seated, beside a good fire, at a table covered with appetizing dishes, and, by unexpected good fortune, in company with two great artists who treated him with kindly attention.
"Young man," said Porbus, observing that he was speechless, with his eyes fixed on a picture, "do not look at that too long, or you will fall into despair."
It was the Adam of Mabuse, painted by that wayward genius to enable him to get out of the prison where his creditors had kept him so long. The figure presented such fulness and force of reality that Nicolas Poussin began to comprehend the meaning of the bewildering talk of the
