The city of Glitz is a few time zones away.

It's still a good afternoon.

The spring sun is warm but not dazzling, and it hangs warmly in the sky.

Young people riding on verdant mountain roads skirt the cliffs, and the ancient lakeside manor on the distant plains comes into view, and the white sea of clouds and the Greek pillar-like manor dome almost merge into one, like an unreal mirage.

Today, the old house of the Elena family is very lively.

The manor was bustling with people, and the male and female guests whispered and chuckled as they held trays of delicate food.

The blue-purple curtains of the Roman court stretched for hundreds of meters, stretching from the lawn of the flower fields to the lakeside pier where two white vaporetto boats were moored.

The smell of classical music and gin floats in the air, and it seems like an afternoon tea party is taking place.

"August?"

Somewhere in the garden,

A dog with off-white spots on the front of the chest and bright brown hair on the back of the back raised its head smartly from a lazy nap in the afternoon.

Its two large, festive dark ears dangling at the side of its face twitched slightly, making sure it heard its master's call.

The dog happily jumped out towards the sea of yellow-white flowers in the European primrose fields that bloomed in early spring.

As a big dog who thinks he is noble and proud,

A large dog who owns 1,500 acres of manor land, including surrounding woodland and some lakes.

In nature, only predators at the top of the food chain, such as brown bears or leopards, have such large territories.

It was like an emperor among dogs.

The big dog has always been on the road to those who were petted twice by passers-by at will, and then happily abandoned the dignity of being a dog, and wagged their tails like a small tambourine and shameless bewitching sluts, and repaid their disdain from the bottom of their hearts.

It moved its slender limbs and nimbly avoided two bikini girls who sat up from a lakeside sun beach chair and screamed "so cute".

By the way, he bared his teeth and scared off a human cub who had crept over from the long table where the buffet food was kept, and who looked to be only five or six years old, but who was dressed in a handmade formal suit and meticulously tied tie.

hum

The other party even tried to exchange a piece of steak in vain and secretly touched its tail!

It didn't bother with the ribeye steak it had thrown at him, didn't even sniff it, and slick a tennis ball out of the grass.

Biting the ball gently, I continued to run along the path on the edge of the ridge.

The big dog made a few familiar turns in the field, and found his target in the shade of a secluded walnut tree.

It leaned over to the young woman in the wheelchair and flatteringly handed the tennis ball up, grinning flatteringly and baring its sharp front teeth.

"Auguste, you are already a middle-aged old fellow, we must exercise more, bask in the sun more, and ensure that we live to the age of fifteen, and strive to live to the age of eighteen."

The woman in the cream chiffon dress reached out and grabbed the tennis ball and put it on the ground, scratched the dog's ear, and whispered softly.

The dog was scratched and rolled happily on the ground,

It wagged its tail and licked the woman's palm, then obediently lay on the side of the sun and played with the tennis ball with its forefoot.

That tennis ball was its toy from childhood to adulthood.

The dog's perennial biting makes the surface of the tennis ball slightly pitted, and the line "AUGUSTE" is written on the grass-colored surface with a faded marker.

What should be the name of the first pet you adopted in your life?

Anna and her aunt had studied it for a long time.

Anna wanted to call it "Renoir".

The aunt suggested naming the dog after her favorite sculptor, Rodin, and insisted that the smooth curves of the dog's back were similar to Rodin's bronze sculptures.

thereupon

One night the two of them had an idea, and the dog was finally called August.

"AUGUSTE" is not only the Christian name of the sculptor Auguste Rodin, but also the middle name of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the master of oil painting that Anna admires.

The two masters were born in the same era.

One has shaped the history of modern European sculpture, and the other has changed the trend of world art.

"August? What do you think I'm doing? ”

Anna, in the shade of the tree, called her dog to her side, pointed to the hazy paint on the canvas in front of her, and asked casually.

The dog didn't know if he understood, and whimpered low in his throat.

"Well, it's true that the color spots are very average, but there is a little bit of aura, my August is really a very demanding artist."

Anna patted August as he stood up, almost as tall as her wheelchair, and smiled to herself.

Nine years ago,

My aunt was diagnosed with cancer,

She remembers that it was the Easter holiday at her girls' school, and that her aunt was taking her to the wedding of a member of the royal family in the British Isles.

Before returning to Austria.

My aunt suddenly decided to go to the pet store to adopt a puppy.

When they returned to Elena Manor, the housekeeper who accompanied them had the Spaniel spaniel from Ireland in his pet suitcase.

In addition to art,

Anna is a girl with a cold personality in her daily life, and she didn't like pets like other girls when she was a child.

If she had to raise something, Anna actually preferred the English Shorthair like the Silent Elf.

This Springer spaniel did not look beautiful as a child, and his pedigree was not pure enough.

Two pairs of big ears like a puff fan are even a bit rustic.

Compared to the cute elf-like puppies in the hands of the noblewomen in the circle who are worth 70,000 or even 80,000 euros and can win prizes in European pet beauty contests, Auguste's pedigree is completely a country boy who cannot be put on the stage.

In pet stores, they are all items that are handled at a low price.

Even the clerk repeatedly confirmed that the aunt, who was dressed with a luxurious face, really wanted this earth dog that was only priced at 1,160 pounds, and then he made a deal with twelve points of incomprehension.

When her aunt pushed Anna's wheelchair out of the storefront, she could still hear the clerk behind her regretting that she hadn't done a big business.

"Anna, you are a strong child, but you can't survive alone forever, you have to try to love something."

"Biologically, canines have a much higher IQ than cats, and they can reach the level of a toddler of several years old. They can easily understand human commands, listen to music, and can even tell if their owner is happy by the smell of their bodies. Auntie explained as she stroked her hair.

"A lot of beautiful beauty dogs are crossbred by breeding companies for the preferences of the wealthy class. The bones are thin and fragile, and less than half the lifespan of a normal dog can lead to respiratory failure or paralysis. Although this puppy looks a little silly, it is healthy. It can spend many years with you in my place until you meet the person you truly love. ”

My aunt was right.

At that time, August had just been born, and it was only a palm-sized lump, and even Anna, who was still a little girl, could easily hold it in her arms.

My aunt has been buried in the family cemetery of Melk Monastery for a long time.

And August is still healthy.

It is nine years old and is already a large dog half a meter long and weighs nearly 60 pounds.

With the exception of a few exceptions to extraordinarily long lives,

The normal lifespan of a Springer Spaniel is around eleven to fourteen years old.

Nine-year-old Auguste may have begun to grow gray hair when converted to a human, but fortunately he does not show any signs of aging for the time being.

Occasionally, he took a caregiver to the city center to relax, and if August was in the mood, he could still jump up and down other people's pets like rabbits in the sun.

And Miss Elena, she didn't care about the other party's bloodline for a long time.

"Do you remember the story in "The Little Prince" that you loved to watch when you were a child? As long as you spend enough time with it, watch it grow little by little, bathe it, groom it, accompany it to throw tennis balls, walk with it in a wheelchair at sunset, and even enjoy the artwork together, you will love it one day. ”

"Then August will be more adorable to you than all the beautiful lady dogs in the whole world combined." When my aunt wrote its name on the tennis ball with a marker, her tone was like a deep prophet.

Thinking of this,

Anna pulled her thoughts back from the memories of the past, sighed softly, and lovingly touched the big fluffy ears of the Springer Spaniel lop rabbit.

She withdrew her hand, her fingertips stroking over the canvas in front of her, the half-solidified touch of paint coming from her skin.

"Auguste, many times I really feel quite frustrated, and there is no reason for such a thing as artistic talent."

Anna shook her hair, and there was a little girlish stubbornness on her queenly cold face.

"I obviously have such boiling feelings in my heart, but I am trapped in mediocre techniques and cannot express them. Obviously, I tried so hard to practice and try to draw Grandma Kara's original feeling, but all I got was a piece of craftsmanship without any aura. 100% hard work does not pay for a point. ”

Anna bit her lip slightly.

On the drawing board in front of her.

It is also a cover painting of the Little Prince, a "copy" of Anna's pen.

Recently

Detective Cat's outstanding skills and expressive ability of the picture of the work are like a little spark that ignites the unquenchable desire to create in Miss Elena's heart.

That kind of brilliant brushstrokes,

There seemed to be a mysterious magic that touched something on her mind.

Anna had the idea to draw an illustration of the little prince after the composition of the detective cat's big sister.

The painting is not going to be of any practical use.

It is simply a tribute to the master from the perspective of an art lover, a kind of self-soothing for her soul.

The reason for this is that

Maybe it's also because Anna has always had a vague regret in her subconscious.

August smelled the melancholy sadness of his master, and he shook his fur and sneezed like a sniffle.

"You think I'm a little greedy, right?"

Anna looked at the big dog at her feet and pinched her fingers gently.

She believes that the detective cat version of "The Little Prince" illustration will definitely become a milestone work in the history of illustration in the next 10, 15 or even 50 years.

Anna was convinced of this conclusion.

I shouldn't have any regrets about seeing this technique that is even more outstanding than my original most optimistic expectations.

It was also the case,

Miss Elena is sincerely honored to be able to participate in the creation of such a work herself.

But......

There is a little bit of inadequacy in her heart and her unwillingness to be an outsider.

It's not because the detective cat lady is not good enough, on the contrary, the completion of the other party's picture is too high, and Anna will feel the regret that the full moon is missing and the mirror is dusty.

It's a sign of respect for the finest works of art.

Anna doesn't care how many clumsy mistakes a crude work has.

She would be heartbroken by the slightest scratch on a painting that was so perfect that it was close to sacred.

The governess who taught her classical music as a child once sighed in front of Anna.

If Debussy's composition can have the solemnity of Haydn, and Haydn's symphony can have the varied and passionate of Debussy, then it will be the most sacred piece of music in the world. She is willing to go to the soup and fire, just to listen to the moment so natural.

After seeing the painting of the detective cat, Anna felt the same way.

If the detective cat can draw her emotions, or have her own skills, don't ...... Even if it's only a third of the Algerian big sister's technique.

What a perfect work that would have been made!

Anna can tell from the painting that Detective Cat Lady is not a person who is very familiar with "The Little Prince", at least not someone who is really touched by the Little Prince to the depths of her heart.

She has done her best to help the other party, but there is still a layer of estrangement.

The two of them seemed to exchange breaths forcefully through a layer of wet paper.

She could only smell the sporadic breath she was exhaling.

Miss Irina tried her best, but she could only inject some of her very small emotions into the other party through the sound of reading.

After all, people's joys and sorrows are not the same.

There are no two people in the world who really have the same heartbeat at the same frequency.

Anna is too embarrassed to share her regrets with the other party.

When drawing illustrations, a painter who can read the background text provided by the employer is already in the category of very dedicated.

When many magazine illustrators are busy, they just have to scan a few pages of content and keywords, determine the content of the picture, and then throw the text aside and start drawing.

Where do I have that free time to study the ideas of articles, the mood of the works, and so on?

If you were to do this line of painting, you have to do a set of reading comprehension in advance, and the painters would have already lifted the table and scolded their mothers.

Or more simply, directly enter keywords into MidJourney, StableDiffusion, and other well-established and commonly used AI neural network painting software.

Let the computer run several sets of programs.

The artist only needs to tell the website the painting style you need, from knife painting to watercolor painting, from graffiti white drawing to flat style, even if you type in a "cyberpunk + Dunhuang mural collage style".

Artificial intelligence can also analyze what is called "cyberpunk + Dunhuang murals" in the database, and then try to figure it out for you.

Ten images can be produced in 30 seconds, and you can sift through them slowly.

That's how at least 30 percent of the work in the industry is done today.

The emotions contained in the picture of Detective Cat Lady are already in the category of very, very touching in the illustration industry, and there is no one in ten thousand.

(End of chapter)