“To hell with art,” murmured Flanagan. “I want to get ginny.”
Lawson took no notice of the interruption.
“Now look here, when Olympia was shown at the Salon, Zola — amid the jeers of the Philistines and the hisses of the pompiers, the academicians, and the public, Zola said: ‘I look forward to the day when Manet’s picture will hang in the Louvre opposite the Odalisque of Ingres, and it will not be the Odalisque which will gain by comparison.’ It’ll be there. Every day I see the time grow nearer. In ten years the Olympia will be in the Louvre.”