Read "His Masterpiece" by Émile Zola online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
ON the 15th May, a Friday, Claude, who had returned at three o'clock in the morning from Sandoz's, was still asleep at nine, when Madame Joseph brought him up a large bouquet of white lilac which a commissionaire had just left downstairs. He understood at once. Christine had wished to be beforehand in celebrating the success of his painting. For this was a great day for him, the opening day of the ‘Salon of the Rejected,' which was first instituted that year,* and at which his picture -- refused by the hanging committee of the official Salon -- was to be exhibited.
* This was in 1863. -- ED.