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Artists' Wives, by Alphonse Daudet
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Title: Artists' Wives
Author: Alphonse Daudet
Illustrator: De Bieler, Myrbach; and Rossi
Translator: Laura Ensor
Release Date: September 5, 2007 [EBook #22522]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARTISTS' WIVES ***
Produced by David Widger
ARTISTS' WIVES
By Alphonse Daudet
Translated by Laura Ensor
Illustrated by De Bieler, Myrbach; And Rossi
[Illustration: Frontispiece]
[Illustration: Titlepage]
[Illustration: p007-018]
PROLOGUE.
Stretched at full length, on the great divan of a studio, cigar in mouth, two friends--a poet and a painter--were talking together one evening after dinner.
It was the hour of confidences and effusion. The lamp burned softly beneath its shade, limiting its circle of light to the intimacy of the conversation, leaving scarcely distinct the capricious luxury of the vast walls, cumbered with canvases, hangings, panoplies, surmounted by a glass roof through which the sombre blue shades of the night penetrated unhindered. The portrait of a woman, leaning slightly forward, as if to listen, alone stood out a little from the shadow; young with intelligent eyes, a grave and sweet mouth and a spirituel smile which seemed to defend