For my part I was conscious of no new respect, for to tell the truth, I was no further along than before. I did not remember ever having heard his name, and I said so, in all honesty, to Rachel Boyer, who was greatly astonished. It looked as if I had committed a sacrilege. She then informed me, that M. Groult was a man who had made an immense fortune in business, a fact that did not leave me gasping with admiration. She added that he was spending a great part of his fortune upon pictures. “M. Groult,” said Rachel Boyer ecstatically, “has brought together the most beautiful treasures of art that a man has ever possessed.” That was very interesting, unquestionably, but I kept thinking, quietly, that such a hobby could hardly leave leisure to a man, however rich, to do the good he might do with his money. I believe I should have been much more impressed if I had heard her speak of some of his philanthropies. I finally concluded, however, that out of regard to my hostess, I should have to believe the collection to be so colossal that everything else was insignificant in comparison with it. Some days later Rachel Boyer took me, with another of her friends, to see M. Groult’s famous collection. The collection was far from being as interesting to me as the collector, who, by reason of his personality, appeared to me to be much more curious than his works of art. He led us at first in front of a great show case and, with refined and reverential gestures, disclosed to us the most marvellous imaginable collection of butterflies. There were 18,000 of them. He pointed out four in particular, and told us that he had bought the whole lot for the sake of those, and he added, to my great confusion, that that was because they looked like me. “These colours are you,” he said almost crudely. “Just see what richness. That rose, that blue, that’s you. It is really you.” While he was saying that, he kept looking at me just as if he were afraid I might suspect his sincerity and that I should mistake his statements of fact for compliments. In simple language he expressed the most intense artistic convictions. One felt them to be innate; they came from the depths of his being, and they transformed him to such a degree that I saw him at the moment a transfigured soul. He took us to another part of the hall, and showed us several panels of something that looked to me like coloured marble, highly polished. “Look,” he said softly. “There you are again. I bought these panels, for they again are you.” And turning them toward the light, he caused all the colours of the rainbow to radiate from their surfaces. “Is it marble?” I asked, in order to have something to say. I felt worried by all this admiration. He looked at me almost scornfully, and replied: “Marble, marble, no indeed. These are slabs of petrified wood.”