"I would ask him to give me his definition of drawing. 'You don't know a thing about it,' he would always end up saying. And without fail he would go on to this apologue: that the Muses do their work on their own, each apart from the others, and that they never talk shop. The day's work over, there are no discussions, no comparisons of their respective labors. 'They just dance,' he [Degas] would shout."