Dinner, a meal frugal enough for a convent, he
took at home. All the forenoons he spent among his treasures, walking
up and down the gallery where they hung in their glory. He would dust
everything himself, furniture and pictures; he never wearied of
admiring. Then he would go downstairs to his daughter, drink deep of a
father's happiness, and start out upon his walks through Paris, to
attend sales or visit exhibitions and the like.
If Elie Magus found a great work of art under the right conditions,
the discovery put new life into the man; here was a bit of sharp
practice, a bargain to make, a battle of Marengo to win. He would pile
ruse on ruse to buy the new sultana as cheaply as possible. Magus had
a map of Europe on which all great pictures were marked; his
co-religionists in every city spied out business for him, and received
a commission on the purchase. And then, what rewards for all his
pains! The two lost Raphaels so earnestly sought after by Raphael
lovers are both in his collection. Elie Magus owns the original
portrait of _Giorgione's Mistress_, the woman for whom the painter
died; the so-called originals are merely copies of the famous picture,
which is worth five hundred thousand francs, according to its owner's
estimation. This Jew possesses Titian's masterpiece, an _Entombment_
painted for Charles V., sent by the great man to the great Emperor
with a holograph letter, now fastened down upon the lower part of the
canvas.
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