In fact, a portly man stood there, solidly planted on his fat legs, and admiring his handiwork.  With his head sunk between his shoulders, he had the heavy, handsome features of a Hindu idol.  He was said to be the son of a veterinary surgeon of the neighbourhood of Amiens.  At forty-five he had already produced twenty masterpieces:  statues all simplicity and life, flesh modern and palpitating, kneaded by a workman of genius, without any pretension to refinement; and all this was chance production, for he furnished work as a field bears harvest, good one day, bad the next, in absolute ignorance of what he created.  He carried the lack of critical acumen to such a degree that he made no distinction between the most glorious offspring of his hands and the detestably grotesque figures which now and then he chanced to put together.  Never troubled by nervous feverishness, never doubting, always solid and convinced, he had the pride of a god.

‘Wonderful, the “Sower"!’ whispered Claude.  ’What a figure! and what an attitude!’

Fagerolles, who had not looked at the statue, was highly amused by the great man, and the string of young, open-mouthed disciples whom as usual he dragged at his tail.

’Just look at them, one would think they are taking the sacrament, ‘pon my word—­and he himself, eh?  What a fine brutish face he has!’

Isolated, and quite at his ease, amidst the general curiosity, Chambouvard stood there wondering, with the stupefied air of a man who is surprised at having produced such a masterpiece.  He seemed to behold it for the first time, and was unable to get over his astonishment.  Then an expression of delight gradually stole over his broad face, he nodded his head, and burst into soft, irresistible laughter, repeating a dozen times, ’It’s comical, it’s really comical!’

His train of followers went into raptures, while he himself could find nothing more forcible to express how much he worshipped himself.  All at once there was a slight stir.  Bongrand, who had been walking about with his hands behind his back, glancing vaguely around him, had just stumbled on Chambouvard, and the public, drawing back, whispered, and watched the two celebrated artists shaking hands; the one short and of a sanguine temperament, the other tall and restless.  Some expressions of good-fellowship were overheard.  ‘Always fresh marvels.’  ’Of course!  And you, nothing this year?’ ‘No, nothing; I am resting, seeking—­’ ‘Come, you joker!  There’s no need to seek, the thing comes by itself.’  ‘Good-bye.’  ‘Good-bye.’  And Chambouvard, followed by his court, was already moving slowly away among the crowd, with the glances of a king, who enjoys life, while Bongrand, who had recognised Claude and his friends, approached them with outstretched feverish hands, and called attention to the sculptor with a nervous jerk of the chin, saying, ’There’s a fellow I envy!  Ah! to be confident of always producing masterpieces!’