Can you help me?
I’m looking for an old story about two painters/artists who travel to the big city to make their fortunes. It is very expensive, so one painter gets a normal job. By the time the other painter becomes famous the one that sacrificed their dream for the other no longer has hands with enough finesse and softness to paint.
I was thinking about this and wondering whether the author might have been Guy de Maupassant? Short story, perhaps?