Page:The Revolt of the Angels v2.djvu/230

 were attentively scrutinizing the work, while Père Guinardon was belauding the depth of the shadows and the sublimity of the expression. He was raising his arms aloft to convey an idea of the greatness of Theotocopuli, who derived from Tintoretto, whom, however, he surpassed in loftiness by a hundred cubits.

“He was chaste and pure and strong; a mystic, a visionary.”

Comte Desmaisons declared that El Greco was his favourite painter. In his inmost heart Blanemesnil was not so entirely struck with it.

The door opened, and Monsieur Gaétan quite unexpectedly appeared on the scene.

He gave a glance at the Saint Francis, and said:

“Bless my soul!”

Monsieur Blancmesnil, anxious to improve his knowledge, asked him what he thought of this artist who was now so much in vogue. Gaétan replied, glibly enough, that he did not regard El Greco as the eccentric, the madman that people used to take him for. It was rather his opinion that a defect of vision from which Theotocopuli suffered compelled him to deform his figures.

“Being afflicted with astigmatism and strabismus,” Gaétan went on, “he painted the things he saw exactly as he used to see them.”

Comte Desmaisons was not readily disposed to accept so natural an explanation, which, however,