I go on--always the same thing. At the entrance of the studio, I come against the house-owner, as a ship against a rock. Oh, the rent! But the man approaches me and says,-- "My dear sir, though I have annoyed you sometimes, believe me, I have so much--just permit me simply--" With that he seizes me around the neck and hugs me. Ha! I understand, Antek must have told him that I am going to marry; and he thinks that in future I shall pay my rent regularly. Let him think so. I thunder upstairs. On the way I hear a noise in our quarters. I rush in. The studio is dark from smoke. There I find Yulek Rysinski, Wah Poterkevich, Franek Tsepkovski, old Sludetski, Karminski, Voytek Mihalak,--all amusing themselves by driving the elegant Bobus around on a string; but seeing me, they let him go, barely alive, in the middle of the studio; then they raise an unearthly uproar. "We congratulate! congratulate! congratulate!" "Up with him!" In one moment I am in their arms, and for a certain time they hurl me up, howling meanwhile in a way befitting a pack of wolves; at last I find myself on the floor. I thank them as best I can, and declare that they must all be at my wedding, especially Antek, whom I engage in advance as my best man. Antek raises his hands and says,-- "That soap thinks that we are congratulating him on his marriage." "But on what are you congratulating me?" "How is that, don't you know?" asked every voice. "I know nothing; what the hangman do you want?" "Give him the morning number of 'The Kite,'" cries Poterkevich. They give me the morning number of "The Kite," shouting, one interrupting the other, "Look among the despatches!" I look at the despatches, and read the following,-- "Special telegram to the 'The Kite.' Magorski's picture, 'The Jews on the river of Babylon,' received the great gold medal of the Salon of the present year. The critics cannot find words to describe the genius of the master. Albert Wolff has called the picture a revelation. Baron Hirsch offers fifteen thousand francs for it." I am fainting! Help! I have lost my senses to that degree that I cannot utter a word. I knew that my picture was a success, but of such a success I had not even dreamed. The number of "The Kite" falls from my hand. They raise it and read to me among current comments the following notes on the despatch,-- "Note I. We learn from the lips of the master himself that he intends to exhibit his picture in our garden of sirens. "Note II. In answer to a question put by the vice-president of the Society of Fine Arts to our master, whether he intends to exhibit his masterpiece in Warsaw, he answered: 'I would rather not sell it in Paris than not exhibit it in Warsaw.' We hope that those words will be read by our posterity (God grant remote) on the monument to the master. "Note III. The mother of our master, on receiving the despatch from Paris, fell seriously ill from emotion.