pure of every blemish and of every alien, base trace — or nearly pure. She is woman dominant and strong, not by her deceit and her hypocrisy, but by her truthfulness, her sincerity, and her devotion.

She is woman bearing within her folds the spirit of "Rembrandt," the strength of "Michelangelo," and the truthfulness of "Goya" — woman in every room of the house, as she appears to the child's natural eye, and to the eye of the believing, loving man.

She is Eve as God created her — in the beginning!... But was it God, one wonders, who created woman?... The companion searching for the pencil does not believe this; he holds, without hesitation or doubt, that man is the creator of woman. He offers these canvases as proof of his

claim, and literary storytelling as evidence for it. Did not the master of Scheherazade create a woman? Did not Alexandre Dumas create his enchanting lady? Did not "Zola" fashion his woman "Nana" as he willed? And Gustave Flaubert? And Anatole France? And Da Vinci... and Rembrandt... and Rubens?! And this Renoir!

No... no doubt will ever cross "Jean's" mind that woman is the work of man alone!...

Renoir, at eighty years of age, waits in the next room for his pencil...

What, one wonders, will he paint? Has he not yet reached the seventh day of his creation?... Has his hour of rest not yet come?

Life had wearied him, and illness pursued him step by step until it fastened upon his feet. He

entered the hospitals; no operation availed him and no surgery gave him rest.

And rheumatism began to eat at his joints one by one, down to the tips of his creating fingers, so that the brush no longer found a comfortable resting place between them.

But the creator pays no heed to pain though it surround him, for from his own self he gives without reckoning, and from his heart he brings forth his works without stinting or measure.

The companion still remembers how Renoir would stand erect before his canvases, his long, obedient brush between his fingers, giving body to his vision and real-izing, from the depths of his soul, a new and captivating being, his eyes full of joy and delight, and on his