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His Masterpiece: Chapter 11

Chapter 11

CLAUDE set to work again on the very next day, and months elapsed,
indeed the whole summer went by, in heavy quietude. He had found a
job, some little paintings of flowers for England, the proceeds of
which sufficed for their daily bread. All his available time was again
devoted to his large canvas, and he no longer went into the same fits
of anger over it, but seemed to resign himself to that eternal task,
evincing obstinate, hopeless industry. However, his eyes retained
their crazy expression--one could see the death of light, as it were,
in them, when they gazed upon the failure of his existence.

About this period Sandoz also experienced great grief. His mother
died, his whole life was upset--that life of three together, so homely
in its character, and shared merely by a few friends. He began to hate
the pavilion of the Rue Nollet, and, moreover, success suddenly
declared itself with respect to his books, which hitherto had sold but
moderately well. So, prompted by the advent of comparative wealth, he
rented in the Rue de Londres a spacious flat, the arrangements of
which occupied him and his wife for several months. Sandoz's grief had
drawn him closer to Claude again, both being disgusted with
everything. After the terrible blow of the Salon, the novelist had
felt very anxious about his old chum, divining that something had
irreparably snapped within him, that there was some wound by which
life ebbed away unseen. Then, however, finding Claude so cold and
quiet, he ended by growing somewhat reassured.

Sandoz often walked up to the Rue Tourlaque, and whenever he found
only Christine at home, he questioned her, realising that she also
lived in apprehension of a calamity of which she never spoke. Her face
bore a look of worry, and now and again she started nervously, like a
mother who watches over her child and trembles at the slightest sound,
with the fear that death may be entering the chamber.

One July morning Sandoz asked her: 'Well, are you pleased? Claude's
quiet, he works a deal.'

She gave the large picture her usual glance, a side glance full of
terror and hatred.

'Yes, yes, he works,' she said. 'He wants to finish everything else
before taking up the woman again.' And without confessing the fear
that harassed her, she added in a lower tone: 'But his eyes--have you
noticed his eyes? They always have the same wild expression. I know
very well that he lies, despite his pretence of taking things so
easily. Pray, come and see him, and take him out with you, so as to
change the current of his thoughts. He only has you left; help me, do
help me!'

After that Sandoz diligently devised motives for various walks,
arriving at Claude's early in the morning, and carrying him away from
his work perforce. It was almost always necessary to drag him from his
steps, on which he habitually sat, even when he was not painting. A
feeling of weariness stopped him, a kind of torpor benumbed him for
long minutes, during which he did not give a single stroke with the
brush. In those moments of mute contemplation, his gaze reverted with
pious fervour to the woman's figure which he no longer touched: it was
like a hesitating desire combined with sacred awe, a passion which he
refused to satisfy, as he felt certain that it would cost him his
life. When he set to work again at the other figures and the
background of the picture, he well knew that the woman's figure was
still there, and his glance wavered whenever he espied it; he felt
that he would only remain master of himself as long as he did not
touch it again.

One evening, Christine, who now visited at Sandoz's and never missed a
single Thursday there, in the hope of seeing her big sick child of an
artist brighten up in the society of his friends, took the novelist
aside and begged him to drop in at their place on the morrow. And on
the next day Sandoz, who, as it happened, wanted to take some notes
for a novel, on the other side of Montmartre, went in search of
Claude, carried him off and kept him idling about until night-time.

On this occasion they went as far as the gate of Clignancourt, where a
perpetual fair was held, with merry-go-rounds, shooting-galleries, and
taverns, and on reaching the spot they were stupefied to find
themselves face to face with Chaine, who was enthroned in a large and
stylish booth. It was a kind of chapel, highly ornamented. There were
four circular revolving stands set in a row and loaded with articles
in china and glass, all sorts of ornaments and nick-nacks, whose
gilding and polish shone amid an harmonica-like tinkling whenever the
hand of a gamester set the stand in motion. It then spun round,
grating against a feather, which, on the rotatory movement ceasing,
indicated what article, if any, had been won. The big prize was a live
rabbit, adorned with pink favours, which waltzed and revolved
unceasingly, intoxicated with fright. And all this display was set in
red hangings, scalloped at the top; and between the curtains one saw
three pictures hanging at the rear of the booth, as in the sanctuary
of some tabernacle. They were Chaine's three masterpieces, which now
followed him from fair to fair, from one end of Paris to the other.
The 'Woman taken in Adultery' in the centre, the copy of the Mantegna
on the left, and Mahoudeau's stove on the right. Of an evening, when
the petroleum lamps flamed and the revolving stands glowed and
radiated like planets, nothing seemed finer than those pictures
hanging amid the blood-tinged purple of the hangings, and a gaping
crowd often flocked to view them.

The sight was such that it wrung an exclamation from Claude: 'Ah, good
heavens! But those paintings look very well--they were surely intended
for this.'

The Mantegna, so naively harsh in treatment, looked like some faded
coloured print nailed there for the delectation of simple-minded folk;
whilst the minutely painted stove, all awry, hanging beside the
gingerbread Christ absolving the adulterous woman, assumed an
unexpectedly gay aspect.

However, Chaine, who had just perceived the two friends, held out his
hand to them, as if he had left them merely the day before. He was
calm, neither proud nor ashamed of his booth, and he had not aged,
having still a leathery aspect; though, on the other hand, his nose
had completely vanished between his cheeks, whilst his mouth, clammy
with prolonged silence, was buried in his moustache and beard.

'Hallo! so we meet again!' said Sandoz, gaily. 'Do you know, your
paintings have a lot of effect?'

'The old humbug!' added Claude. 'Why, he has his little Salon all to
himself. That's very cute indeed.'

Chaine's face became radiant, and he dropped the remark: 'Of course!'

Then, as his artistic pride was roused, he, from whom people barely
wrung anything but growls, gave utterance to a whole sentence:

'Ah! it's quite certain that if I had had any money, like you fellows,
I should have made my way, just as you have done, in spite of
everything.'

That was his conviction. He had never doubted of his talent, he had
simply forsaken the profession because it did not feed him. When he
visited the Louvre, at sight of the masterpieces hanging there he felt
convinced that time alone was necessary to turn out similar work.

'Ah, me!' said Claude, who had become gloomy again. 'Don't regret what
you've done; you alone have succeeded. Business is brisk, eh?'

But Chaine muttered bitter words. No, no, there was nothing doing, not
even in his line. People wouldn't play for prizes; all the money found
its way to the wine-shops. In spite of buying paltry odds and ends,
and striking the table with the palm of one's hand, so that the
feather might not indicate one of the big prizes, a fellow barely had
water to drink nowadays. Then, as some people had drawn near, he
stopped short in his explanation to call out: 'Walk up, walk up, at
every turn you win!' in a gruff voice which the two others had never
known him to possess, and which fairly stupefied them.

A workman who was carrying a sickly little girl with large covetous
eyes, let her play two turns. The revolving stands grated and the
nick-nacks danced round in dazzling fashion, while the live rabbit,
with his ears lowered, revolved and revolved so rapidly that the
outline of his body vanished and he became nothing but a whitish
circle. There was a moment of great emotion, for the little girl had
narrowly missed winning him.

Then, after shaking hands with Chaine, who was still trembling with
the fright this had given him, the two friends walked away.

'He's happy,' said Claude, after they had gone some fifty paces in
silence.

'He!' cried Sandoz; 'why, he believes he has missed becoming a member
of the Institute, and it's killing him.'

Shortly after this meeting, and towards the middle of August, Sandoz
devised a real excursion which would take up a whole day. He had met
Dubuche--Dubuche, careworn and mournful, who had shown himself
plaintive and affectionate, raking up the past and inviting his two
old chums to lunch at La Richaudiere, where he should be alone with
his two children for another fortnight. Why shouldn't they go and
surprise him there, since he seemed so desirous of renewing the old
intimacy? But in vain did Sandoz repeat that he had promised Dubuche
on oath to bring Claude with him; the painter obstinately refused to
go, as if he were frightened at the idea of again beholding
Bennecourt, the Seine, the islands, all the stretch of country where
his happy years lay dead and buried. It was necessary for Christine to
interfere, and he finished by giving way, although full of repugnance
to the trip. It precisely happened that on the day prior to the
appointment he had worked at his painting until very late, being taken
with the old fever again. And so the next morning--it was Sunday
--being devoured with a longing to paint, he went off most
reluctantly, tearing himself away from his picture with a pang. What
was the use of returning to Bennecourt? All that was dead, it no
longer existed. Paris alone remained, and even in Paris there was but
one view, the point of the Cite, that vision which haunted him always
and everywhere, that one corner where he ever left his heart.

Sandoz, finding him nervous in the railway carriage, and seeing that
his eyes remained fixed on the window as if he had been leaving the
city--which had gradually grown smaller and seemed shrouded in mist
--for years, did all he could to divert his mind, telling him, for
instance, what he knew about Dubuche's real position. At the outset,
old Margaillan, glorifying in his bemedalled son-in-law, had trotted
him about and introduced him everywhere as his partner and successor.
There was a fellow who would conduct business briskly, who would build
houses more cheaply and in finer style than ever, for hadn't he grown
pale over books? But Dubuche's first idea proved disastrous; on some
land belonging to his father-in-law in Burgundy he established a
brickyard in so unfavourable a situation, and after so defective a
plan, that the venture resulted in the sheer loss of two hundred
thousand francs. Then he turned his attention to erecting houses,
insisting upon bringing personal ideas into execution, a certain
general scheme of his which would revolutionise the building art.
These ideas were the old theories he held from the revolutionary chums
of his youth, everything that he had promised he would realise when he
was free; but he had not properly reduced the theories to method, and
he applied them unseasonably, with the awkwardness of a pupil lacking
the sacred fire; he experimented with terra-cotta and pottery
ornamentation, large bay windows, and especially with the employment
of iron--iron girders, iron staircases, and iron roofings; and as the
employment of these materials increased the outlay, he again ended
with a catastrophe, which was all the greater as he was a pitiful
manager, and had lost his head since he had become rich, rendered the
more obtuse, it seemed, by money, quite spoilt and at sea, unable even
to revert to his old habits of industry. This time Margaillan grew
angry; he for thirty years had been buying ground, building and
selling again, estimating at a glance the cost and return of house
property; so many yards of building at so much the foot having to
yield so many suites of rooms at so much rent. He wouldn't have
anything more to do with a fellow who blundered about lime, bricks,
millstones, and in fact everything, who employed oak when deal would
have suited, and who could not bring himself to cut up a storey--like
a consecrated wafer--into as many little squares as was necessary. No,
no, none of that! He rebelled against art, after having been ambitious
to introduce a little of it into his routine, in order to satisfy a
long-standing worry about his own ignorance. And after that matters
had gone from bad to worse, terrible quarrels had arisen between the
son-in-law and the father-in-law, the former disdainful, intrenching
himself behind his science, and the latter shouting that the commonest
labourer knew more than an architect did. The millions were in danger,
and one fine day Margaillan turned Dubuche out of his offices,
forbidding him ever to set foot in them again, since he did not even
know how to direct a building-yard where only four men worked. It was
a disaster, a lamentable failure, the School of Arts collapsing,
derided by a mason!

At this point of Sandoz's story, Claude, who had begun to listen to
his friend, inquired:

'Then what is Dubuche doing now?'

'I don't know--nothing probably,' answered Sandoz. 'He told me that he
was anxious about his children's health, and was taking care of them.'

That pale woman, Madame Margaillan, as slender as the blade of a
knife, had died of tubercular consumption, which was plainly the
hereditary disease, the source of the family's degeneracy, for her
daughter, Regine, had been coughing ever since her marriage. She was
now drinking the waters at Mont-Dore, whither she had not dared to
take her children, as they had been very poorly the year before, after
a season spent in that part, where the air was too keen for them. This
explained the scattering of the family: the mother over yonder with
her maid; the grandfather in Paris, where he had resumed his great
building enterprises, battling amid his four hundred workmen, and
crushing the idle and the incapable beneath his contempt; and the
father in exile at La Richaudiere, set to watch over his son and
daughter, shut up there, after the very first struggle, as if it had
broken him down for life. In a moment of effusion Dubuche had even let
Sandoz understand that as his wife was so extremely delicate he now
lived with her merely on friendly terms.

'A nice marriage,' said Sandoz, simply, by way of conclusion.

It was ten o'clock when the two friends rang at the iron gate of La
Richaudiere. The estate, with which they were not acquainted, amazed
them. There was a superb park, a garden laid out in the French style,
with balustrades and steps spreading away in regal fashion; three huge
conservatories and a colossal cascade--quite a piece of folly, with
its rocks brought from afar, and the quantity of cement and the number
of conduits that had been employed in arranging it. Indeed, the owner
had sunk a fortune in it, out of sheer vanity. But what struck the
friends still more was the melancholy, deserted aspect of the domain;
the gravel of the avenues carefully raked, with never a trace of
footsteps; the distant expanses quite deserted, save that now and then
a solitary gardener passed by; and the house looking lifeless, with
all its windows closed, excepting two, which were barely set ajar.

However, a valet who had decided to show himself began to question
them, and when he learnt that they wished to see 'monsieur,' he became
insolent, and replied that 'monsieur' was behind the house in the
gymnasium, and then went indoors again.

Sandoz and Claude followed a path which led them towards a lawn, and
what they saw there made them pause. Dubuche, who stood in front of a
trapeze, was raising his arms to support his son, Gaston, a poor
sickly boy who, at ten years of age, still had the slight, soft limbs
of early childhood; while the girl, Alice, sat in a perambulator
awaiting her turn. She was so imperfectly developed that, although she
was six years old, she could not yet walk. The father, absorbed in his
task, continued exercising the slim limbs of his little boy, swinging
him backwards and forwards, and vainly trying to make him raise
himself up by his wrists. Then, as this slight effort sufficed to
bring on perspiration, he removed the little fellow from the trapeze
and rolled him in a rug. And all this was done amid complete silence,
alone under the far expanse of sky, his face wearing a look of
distressful pity as he knelt there in that splendid park. However, as
he rose up he perceived the two friends.

'What! it's you? On a Sunday, and without warning me!'

He had made a gesture of annoyance, and at once explained that the
maid, the only woman to whom he could trust the children, went to
Paris on Sundays, and that it was consequently impossible for him to
leave Gaston and Alice for a minute.

'I'll wager that you came to lunch?' he added.

As Claude gave Sandoz an imploring glance, the novelist made haste to
answer:

'No, no. As it happens, we only have time enough to shake hands with
you. Claude had to come down here on a business matter. He lived at
Bennecourt, as you know. And as I accompanied him, we took it into our
heads to walk as far as here. But there are people waiting for us, so
don't disturb yourself in the least.'

Thereupon, Dubuche, who felt relieved, made a show of detaining them.
They certainly had an hour to spare, dash it all! And they all three
began to talk. Claude looked at Dubuche, astonished to find him so
aged; his flabby face had become wrinkled--it was of a yellowish hue,
and streaked with red, as if bile had splashed his skin; whilst his
hair and his moustaches were already growing grey. In addition, his
figure appeared to have become more compact; a bitter weariness made
each of his gestures seem an effort. Were defeats in money matters as
hard to bear, then, as defeats in art? Everything about this
vanquished man--his voice, his glance--proclaimed the shameful
dependency in which he had to live: the bankruptcy of his future which
was cast in his teeth, with the accusation of having allowed a talent
he did not possess to be set down as an asset in the marriage
contract. Then there was the family money which he nowadays stole, the
money spent on what he ate, the clothes he wore, and the pocket-money
he needed--in fact, the perpetual alms which were bestowed upon him,
just as they might have been bestowed upon some vulgar swindler, whom
one unluckily could not get rid of.

'Wait a bit,' resumed Dubuche; 'I have to stop here five minutes
longer with one of my poor duckies, and afterwards we'll go indoors.'

Gently, and with infinite motherly precautions, he removed little
Alice from the perambulator and lifted her to the trapeze. Then,
stammering coaxing words and smiling, he encouraged her, and left her
hanging for a couple of minutes, so as to develop her muscles; but he
remained with open arms, watching each movement with the fear of
seeing her smashed to pieces, should her weak little wax-like hands
relax their hold. She did not say anything, but obeyed him in spite of
the terror that this exercise caused her; and she was so pitifully
light in weight that she did not even fully stretch the ropes, being
like one of those poor scraggy little birds which fall from a young
tree without as much as bending it.

At this moment, Dubuche, having given Gaston a glance, became
distracted on remarking that the rug had slipped and that the child's
legs were uncovered.

'Good heavens! good heavens! Why, he'll catch cold on this grass! And
I, who can't move! Gaston, my little dear! It's the same thing every
day; you wait till I'm occupied with your sister. Sandoz, pray cover
him over! Ah, thanks! Pull the rug up more; don't be afraid!'

So this was the outcome of his splendid marriage--those two poor, weak
little beings, whom the least breath from the sky threatened to kill
like flies. Of the fortune he had married, all that remained to him
was the constant grief of beholding those woeful children stricken by
the final degeneracy of scrofula and phthisis. However, this big,
egotistical fellow showed himself an admirable father. The only energy
that remained to him consisted in a determination to make his children
live, and he struggled on hour after hour, saving them every morning,
and dreading to lose them every night. They alone existed now amid his
finished existence, amid the bitterness of his father-in-law's
insulting reproaches, the coldness of his sorry, ailing wife. And he
kept to his task in desperation; he finished bringing those children
into the world, as it were, by dint of unremitting tenderness.

'There, my darling, that's enough, isn't it?' he said. 'You'll soon
see how big and pretty you'll become.'

He then placed Alice in the perambulator again, took Gaston, who was
still wrapped up, on one of his arms; and when his friends wished to
help him, he declined their offer, pushing the little girl's vehicle
along with his right hand, which had remained free.

'Thanks,' he said, 'I'm accustomed to it. Ah! the poor darlings are
not heavy; and besides, with servants one can never be sure of
anything.'

On entering the house, Sandoz and Claude again saw the valet who had
been so insolent; and they noticed that Dubuche trembled before him.
The kitchen and the hall shared the contempt of the father-in-law, who
paid for everything, and treated 'madame's' husband like a beggar
whose presence was merely tolerated out of charity. Each time that a
shirt was got ready for him, each time that he asked for some more
bread, the servants' impolite gestures made him feel that he was
receiving alms.

'Well, good-bye, we must leave you,' said Sandoz, who suffered at the
sight of it all.

'No, no, wait a bit. The children are going to breakfast, and
afterwards I'll accompany you with them. They must go for their
outing.'

Each day was regulated hour by hour. Of a morning came the baths and
the gymnastics; then the breakfast, which was quite an affair, as the
children needed special food, which was duly discussed and weighed.
And matters were carried to such a point that even their wine and
water was slightly warmed, for fear that too chilly a drop might give
them a cold. On this occasion they each partook of the yolk of an egg
diluted in some broth, and a mutton cutlet, which the father cut up
into tiny morsels. Then, prior to the siesta, came the promenade.

Sandoz and Claude found themselves once more out-of-doors, walking
down the broad avenues with Dubuche, who again propelled Alice's
perambulator, whilst Gaston walked beside him. They talked about the
estate as they went towards the gate. The master glanced over the park
with timid, nervous eyes, as if he did not feel at home. Besides he
did not know anything; he did not occupy himself about anything. He
appeared even to have forgotten the profession which he was said to be
ignorant of, and seemed to have gone astray, to be bowed down by sheer
inaction.

'And your parents, how are they?' asked Sandoz.

A spark was once more kindled in Dubuche's dim eyes.

'Oh! my parents are happy,' he said; 'I bought them a little house,
where they live on the annuity which I had specified in my marriage
contract. Well, you see, mamma had advanced enough money for my
education, and I had to return it to her, as I had promised, eh? Yes,
I can at least say that my parents have nothing to reproach me with.'

Having reached the gate, they tarried there for a few minutes. At
last, still looking crushed, Dubuche shook hands with his old
comrades; and retaining Claude's hand in his, he concluded, as if
making a simple statement of fact quite devoid of anger:

'Good-bye; try to get out of worry! As for me, I've spoilt my life.'

And they watched him walk back towards the house, pushing the
perambulator, and supporting Gaston, who was already stumbling with
fatigue--he, Dubuche, himself having his back bent and the heavy tread
of an old man.

One o'clock was striking, and they both hurried down towards
Bennecourt, saddened and ravenous. But mournfulness awaited them there
as well; a murderous blast had swept over the place, both Faucheurs,
husband and wife, and old Porrette, were all dead; and the inn, having
fallen into the hands of that goose Melie, was becoming repugnant with
its filth and coarseness. An abominable repast was served them, an
omelette with hairs in it, and cutlets smelling of grease, in the
centre of the common room, to which an open window admitted the
pestilential odour of a dung heap, while the place was so full of
flies that they positively blackened the tables. The heat of the
burning afternoon came in with the stench, and Claude and Sandoz did
not even feel the courage to order any coffee; they fled.

'And you who used to extol old Mother Faucheur's omelettes!' said
Sandoz. 'The place is done for. We are going for a turn, eh?'

Claude was inclined to refuse. Ever since the morning he had had but
one idea--that of walking on as fast as possible, as if each step
would shorten the disagreeable task and bring him back to Paris. His
heart, his head, his whole being had remained there. He looked neither
to right nor to left, he glided along without distinguishing aught of
the fields or trees, having but one fixed idea in his brain, a prey to
such hallucinations that at certain moments he fancied the point of
the Cite rose up and called to him from amid the vast expanse of
stubble. However, Sandoz's proposal aroused memories in his mind; and,
softening somewhat, he replied:

'Yes, that's it, we'll have a look.'

But as they advanced along the river bank, he became indignant and
grieved. He could scarcely recognise the place. A bridge had been
built to connect Bennecourt with Bonnieres: a bridge, good heavens! in
the place of the old ferry-boat, grating against its chain--the old
black boat which, cutting athwart the current, had been so full of
interest to the artistic eye. Moreover, a dam established down-stream
at Port-Villez had raised the level of the river, most of the islands
of yore were now submerged, and the little armlets of the stream had
become broader. There were no more pretty nooks, no more rippling
alleys amid which one could lose oneself; it was a disaster that
inclined one to strangle all the river engineers!

'Why, that clump of pollards still emerging from the water on the
left,' cried Claude, 'was the Barreux Island, where we used to chat
together, lying on the grass! You remember, don't you? Ah! the
scoundrels!'

Sandoz, who could never see a tree felled without shaking his fist at
the wood-cutter, turned pale with anger, and felt exasperated that the
authorities had thus dared to mutilate nature.

Then, as Claude approached his old home, he became silent, and his
teeth clenched. The house had been sold to some middle-class folk, and
now there was an iron gate, against which he pressed his face. The
rose-bushes were all dead, the apricot trees were dead also; the
garden, which looked very trim, with its little pathways and its
square-cut beds of flowers and vegetables, bordered with box, was
reflected in a large ball of plated glass set upon a stand in the very
centre of it; and the house, newly whitewashed and painted at the
corners and round the doors and windows, in a manner to imitate
freestone, suggested some clownish parvenu awkwardly arrayed in his
Sunday toggery. The sight fairly enraged the painter. No, no, nothing
of himself, nothing of Christine, nothing of the great love of their
youth remained there! He wished to look still further; he turned round
behind the house, and sought for the wood of oak trees where they had
left the living quiver of their embraces; but the wood was dead, dead
like all the rest, felled, sold, and burnt! Then he made a gesture of
anathema, in which he cast all his grief to that stretch of country
which was now so changed that he could not find in it one single token
of his past life. And so a few years sufficed to efface the spot where
one had laboured, loved, and suffered! What was the use of man's vain
agitation if the wind behind him swept and carried away all the traces
of his footsteps? He had rightly realised that he ought not to return
thither, for the past is simply the cemetery of our illusions, where
our feet for ever stumble against tombstones!

'Let us go!' he cried; 'let us go at once! It's stupid to torture
one's heart like this!'

When they were on the new bridge, Sandoz tried to calm him by showing
him the view which had not formerly existed, the widened bed of the
Seine, full to the brim, as it were, and the water flowing onward,
proudly and slowly. But this water failed to interest Claude, until he
reflected that it was the same water which, as it passed through
Paris, had bathed the old quay walls of the Cite; and then he felt
touched, he leant over the parapet of the bridge for a moment, and
thought that he could distinguish glorious reflections in
it--the towers of Notre-Dame, and the needle-like spire of the
Sainte-Chapelle, carried along by the current towards the sea.

The two friends missed the three o'clock train, and it was real
torture to have to spend two long hours more in that region, where
everything weighed so heavily on their shoulders. Fortunately, they
had forewarned Christine and Madame Sandoz that they might return by a
night train if they were detained. So they resolved upon a bachelor
dinner at a restaurant on the Place du Havre, hoping to set themselves
all right again by a good chat at dessert as in former times. Eight
o'clock was about to strike when they sat down to table.

Claude, on leaving the terminus, with his feet once more on the Paris
pavement, had lost his nervous agitation, like a man who at last finds
himself once more at home. And with the cold, absent-minded air which
he now usually displayed, he listened to Sandoz trying to enliven him.
The novelist treated his friend like a mistress whose head he wished
to turn; they partook of delicate, highly spiced dishes and heady
wines. But mirth was rebellious, and Sandoz himself ended by becoming
gloomy. All his hopes of immortality were shaken by his excursion to
that ungrateful country village, that Bennecourt, so loved and so
forgetful, where he and Claude had not found a single stone retaining
any recollection of them. If things which are eternal forget so soon,
can one place any reliance for one hour on the memory of man?

'Do you know, old fellow,' said the novelist, 'it's that which
sometimes sends me into a cold sweat. Have you ever reflected that
posterity may not be the faultless dispenser of justice that we dream
of? One consoles oneself for being insulted and denied, by relying on
the equity of the centuries to come; just as the faithful endure all
the abominations of this earth in the firm belief of another life, in
which each will be rewarded according to his deserts. But suppose
Paradise exists no more for the artist than it does for the Catholic,
suppose that future generations prolong the misunderstanding and
prefer amiable little trifles to vigorous works! Ah! what a sell it
would be, eh? To have led a convict's life--to have screwed oneself
down to one's work--all for a mere delusion! Please notice that it's
quite possible, after all. There are some consecrated reputations
which I wouldn't give a rap for. Classical education has deformed
everything, and has imposed upon us as geniuses men of correct, facile
talent, who follow the beaten track. To them one may prefer men of
free tendencies, whose work is at times unequal; but these are only
known to a few people of real culture, so that it looks as if
immortality might really go merely to the middle-class "average"
talent, to the men whose names are forced into our brains at school,
when we are not strong enough to defend ourselves. But no, no, one
mustn't say those things; they make me shudder! Should I have the
courage to go on with my task, should I be able to remain erect amid
all the jeering around me if I hadn't the consoling illusion that I
shall some day be appreciated?'

Claude had listened with his dolorous expression, and he now made a
gesture of indifference tinged with bitterness.

'Bah! what does it matter? Well, there's nothing hereafter. We are
even madder than the fools who kill themselves for a woman. When the
earth splits to pieces in space like a dry walnut, our works won't add
one atom to its dust.'

'That's quite true,' summed up Sandoz, who was very pale. 'What's the
use of trying to fill up the void of space? And to think that we know
it, and that our pride still battles all the same!'

They left the restaurant, roamed about the streets, and foundered
again in the depths of a cafe, where they philosophised. They had come
by degrees to raking up the memories of their childhood, and this
ended by filling their hearts with sadness. One o'clock in the morning
struck when they decided to go home.

However, Sandoz talked of seeing Claude as far as the Rue Tourlaque.
That August night was a superb one, the air was warm, the sky studded
with stars. And as they went the round by way of the Quartier de
l'Europe, they passed before the old Cafe Baudequin on the Boulevard
des Batignolles. It had changed hands three times. It was no longer
arranged inside in the same manner as formerly; there were now a
couple of billiard tables on the right hand; and several strata of
customers had followed each other thither, one covering the other, so
that the old frequenters had disappeared like buried nations. However,
curiosity, the emotion they had derived from all the past things they
had been raking up together, induced them to cross the boulevard and
to glance into the cafe through the open doorway. They wanted to see
their table of yore, on the left hand, right at the back of the room.

'Oh, look!' said Sandoz, stupefied.

'Gagniere!' muttered Claude.

It was indeed Gagniere, seated all alone at that table at the end of
the empty cafe. He must have come from Melun for one of the Sunday
concerts to which he treated himself; and then, in the evening, while
astray in Paris, an old habit of his legs had led him to the Cafe
Baudequin. Not one of the comrades ever set foot there now, and he,
who had beheld another age, obstinately remained there alone. He had
not yet touched his glass of beer; he was looking at it, so absorbed
in thought that he did not even stir when the waiters began piling the
chairs on the tables, in order that everything might be ready for the
morrow's sweeping.

The two friends hurried off, upset by the sight of that dim figure,
seized as it were with a childish fear of ghosts. They parted in the
Rue Tourlaque.

'Ah! that poor devil Dubuche!' said Sandoz as he pressed Claude's
hand, 'he spoilt our day for us.'

As soon as November had come round, and when all the old friends were
back in Paris again, Sandoz thought of gathering them together at one
of those Thursday dinners which had remained a habit with him. They
were always his greatest delight. The sale of his books was
increasing, and he was growing rich; the flat in the Rue de Londres
was becoming quite luxurious compared with the little house at
Batignolles; but he himself remained immutable. On this occasion, he
was anxious, in his good nature, to procure real enjoyment for Claude
by organising one of the dear evenings of their youth. So he saw to
the invitations; Claude and Christine naturally must come; next Jory
and his wife, the latter of whom it had been necessary to receive
since her marriage, then Dubuche, who always came alone, with
Fagerolles, Mahoudeau, and finally Gagniere. There would be ten of
them--all the men comrades of the old band, without a single outsider,
in order that the good understanding and jollity might be complete.

Henriette, who was more mistrustful than her husband, hesitated when
this list of guests was decided upon.

'Oh! Fagerolles? You believe in having Fagerolles with the others?
They hardly like him--nor Claude either; I fancied I noticed a
coolness--'

But he interrupted her, bent on not admitting it.

'What! a coolness? It's really funny, but women can't understand that
fellows chaff each other. All that doesn't prevent them from having
their hearts in the right place.'

Henriette took especial care in preparing the menu for that Thursday
dinner. She now had quite a little staff to overlook, a cook, a
man-servant, and so on; and if she no longer prepared any of the
dishes herself, she still saw that very delicate fare was provided,
out of affection for her husband, whose sole vice was gluttony. She
went to market with the cook, and called in person on the
tradespeople. She and her husband had a taste for gastronomical
curiosities from the four corners of the world. On this occasion they
decided to have some ox-tail soup, grilled mullet, undercut of beef
with mushrooms, _raviolis_ in the Italian fashion, hazel-hens from
Russia, and a salad of truffles, without counting caviare and _kilkis_
as side-dishes, a _glace pralinee_, and a little emerald-coloured
Hungarian cheese, with fruit and pastry. As wine, some old Bordeaux
claret in decanters, chambertin with the roast, and sparkling moselle
at dessert, in lieu of champagne, which was voted commonplace.

At seven o'clock Sandoz and Henriette were waiting for their guests,
he simply wearing a jacket, and she looking very elegant in a plain
dress of black satin. People dined at their house in frock-coats,
without any fuss. The drawing-room, the arrangements of which they
were now completing, was becoming crowded with old furniture, old
tapestry, nick-nacks of all countries and all times--a rising and now
overflowing stream of things which had taken source at Batignolles
with an old pot of Rouen ware, which Henriette had given her husband
on one of his fete days. They ran about to the curiosity shops
together; a joyful passion for buying possessed them. Sandoz satisfied
the longings of his youth, the romanticist ambitions which the first
books he had read had given birth to. Thus this writer, so fiercely
modern, lived amid the worm-eaten middle ages which he had dreamt of
when he was a lad of fifteen. As an excuse, he laughingly declared
that handsome modern furniture cost too much, whilst with old things,
even common ones, you immediately obtained something with effect and
colour. There was nothing of the collector about him, he was entirely
concerned as to decoration and broad effects; and to tell the truth,
the drawing-room, lighted by two lamps of old Delft ware, had quite a
soft warm tint with the dull gold of the dalmaticas used for
upholstering the seats, the yellowish incrustations of the Italian
cabinets and Dutch show-cases, the faded hues of the Oriental
door-hangings, the hundred little notes of the ivory, crockery and
enamel work, pale with age, which showed against the dull red hangings
of the room.

Claude and Christine were the first to arrive. The latter had put on
her only silk dress--an old, worn-out garment which she preserved with
especial care for such occasions. Henriette at once took hold of both
her hands and drew her to a sofa. She was very fond of her, and
questioned her, seeing her so strange, touchingly pale, and with
anxious eyes. What was the matter? Did she feel poorly? No, no, she
answered that she was very gay and very pleased to come; but while she
spoke, she kept on glancing at Claude, as if to study him, and then
looked away. He seemed excited, evincing a feverishness in his words
and gestures which he had not shown for a month past. At intervals,
however, his agitation subsided, and he remained silent, with his eyes
wide open, gazing vacantly into space at something which he fancied
was calling him.

'Ah! old man,' he said to Sandoz, 'I finished reading your book last
night. It's deucedly clever; you have shut up their mouths this time!'

They both talked standing in front of the chimney-piece, where some
logs were blazing. Sandoz had indeed just published a new novel, and
although his critics did not disarm, there was at last that stir of
success which establishes a man's reputation despite the persistent
attacks of his adversaries. Besides, he had no illusions; he knew very
well that the battle, even if it were won, would begin again at each
fresh book he wrote. The great work of his life was advancing, that
series of novels which he launched forth in volumes one after another
in stubborn, regular fashion, marching towards the goal he had
selected without letting anything, obstacles, insults, or fatigue,
conquer him.

'It's true,' he gaily replied, 'they are weakening this time. There's
even one who has been foolish enough to admit that I'm an honest man!
See how everything degenerates! But they'll make up for it, never
fear! I know some of them whose nuts are too much unlike my own to let
them accept my literary formula, my boldness of language, and my
physiological characters acting under the influence of circumstances;
and I refer to brother writers who possess self-respect; I leave the
fools and the scoundrels on one side. For a man to be able to work on
pluckily, it is best for him to expect neither good faith nor justice.
To be in the right he must begin by dying.'

At this Claude's eyes abruptly turned towards a corner of the
drawing-room, as if to pierce the wall and go far away yonder, whither
something had summoned him. Then they became hazy and returned from
their journey, whilst he exclaimed:

'Oh! you speak for yourself! I should do wrong to kick the bucket. No
matter, your book sent me into a deuced fever. I wanted to paint
to-day, but I couldn't. Ah! it's lucky that I can't get jealous of
you, else you would make me too unhappy.'

However, the door had opened, and Mathilde came in, followed by Jory.
She was richly attired in a tunic of nasturtium-hued velvet and a
skirt of straw-coloured satin, with diamonds in her ears and a large
bouquet of roses on her bosom. What astonished Claude the most was
that he did not recognise her, for she had become plump, round, and
fair skinned, instead of thin and sunburnt as he had known her. Her
disturbing ugliness had departed in a swelling of the face; her mouth,
once noted for its black voids, now displayed teeth which looked
over-white whenever she condescended to smile, with a disdainful
curling of the upper lip. You could guess that she had become
immoderately respectable; her five and forty summers gave her weight
beside her husband, who was younger than herself and seemed to be her
nephew. The only thing of yore that clung to her was a violent
perfume; she drenched herself with the strongest essences, as if she
had been anxious to wash from her skin the smell of all the aromatic
simples with which she had been impregnated by her herbalist business;
however, the sharpness of rhubarb, the bitterness of elder-seed, and
the warmth of peppermint clung to her; and as soon as she crossed the
drawing-room, it was filled with an undefinable smell like that of a
chemist's shop, relieved by an acute odour of musk.

Henriette, who had risen, made her sit down beside Christine, saying:

'You know each other, don't you? You have already met here.'

Mathilde gave but a cold glance at the modest attire of that woman who
had lived for a long time with a man, so it was said, before being
married to him. She herself was exceedingly rigid respecting such
matters since the tolerance prevailing in literary and artistic
circles had admitted her to a few drawing-rooms. Henriette hated her,
however, and after the customary exchange of courtesies, not to be
dispensed with, resumed her conversation with Christine.

Jory had shaken hands with Claude and Sandoz, and, standing near them,
in front of the fireplace, he apologised for an article slashing the
novelist's new book which had appeared that very morning in his
review.

'As you know very well, my dear fellow, one is never the master in
one's own house. I ought to see to everything, but I have so little
time! I hadn't even read that article, I relied on what had been told
me about it. So you will understand how enraged I was when I read it
this afternoon. I am dreadfully grieved, dreadfully grieved--'

'Oh, let it be! It's the natural order of things,' replied Sandoz,
quietly. 'Now that my enemies are beginning to praise me, it's only
proper that my friends should attack me.'

The door again opened, and Gagniere glided in softly, like a
will-o'-the-wisp. He had come straight from Melun, and was quite
alone, for he never showed his wife to anybody. When he thus came to
dinner he brought the country dust with him on his boots, and carried
it back with him the same night on taking the last train. On the other
hand, he did not alter; or, rather, age seemed to rejuvenate him; his
complexion became fairer as he grew old.

'Hallo! Why, Gagniere's here!' exclaimed Sandoz.

Then, just as Gagniere was making up his mind to bow to the ladies,
Mahoudeau entered. He had already grown grey, with a sunken,
fierce-looking face and childish, blinking eyes. He still wore
trousers which were a good deal too short for him, and a frock-coat
which creased in the back, in spite of the money which he now earned;
for the bronze manufacturer for whom he worked had brought out some
charming statuettes of his, which one began to see on middle-class
mantel-shelves and consoles.

Sandoz and Claude had turned round, inquisitive to witness the meeting
between Mahoudeau and Mathilde. However, matters passed off very
quietly. The sculptor bowed to her respectfully, while Jory, the
husband, with his air of serene unconsciousness, thought fit to
introduce her to him, for the twentieth time, perhaps.

'Eh! It's my wife, old fellow. Shake hands together.'

Thereupon, both very grave, like people of society who are forced
somewhat over-promptly into familiarity, Mathilde and Mahoudeau shook
hands. Only, as soon as the latter had got rid of the job and had
found Gagniere in a corner of the drawing-room, they both began
sneering and recalling, in terrible language, all the abominations of
yore.

Dubuche was expected that evening, for he had formally promised to
come.

'Yes,' explained Henriette, 'there will only be nine of us. Fagerolles
wrote this morning to apologise; he is forced to go to some official
dinner, but he hopes to escape, and will join us at about eleven
o'clock.'

At that moment, however, a servant came in with a telegram. It was
from Dubuche, who wired: 'Impossible to stir. Alice has an alarming
cough.'

'Well, we shall only be eight, then,' resumed Henriette, with the
somewhat peevish resignation of a hostess disappointed by her guests.

And the servant having opened the dining-room door and announced that
dinner was ready, she added:

'We are all here. Claude, offer me your arm.'

Sandoz took Mathilde's, Jory charged himself with Christine, while
Mahoudeau and Gagniere brought up the rear, still joking coarsely
about what they called the beautiful herbalist's padding.

The dining-room which they now entered was very spacious, and the
light was gaily bright after the subdued illumination of the
drawing-room. The walls, covered with specimens of old earthenware,
displayed a gay medley of colours, reminding one of cheap coloured
prints. Two sideboards, one laden with glass and the other with silver
plate, sparkled like jewellers' show-cases. And in the centre of the
room, under the big hanging lamp girt round with tapers, the table
glistened like a _catafalque_ with the whiteness of its cloth, laid in
perfect style, with decorated plates, cut-glass decanters white with
water or ruddy with wine, and symmetrical side-dishes, all set out
around the centre-piece, a silver basket full of purple roses.

They sat down, Henriette between Claude and Mahoudeau, Sandoz with
Mathilde and Christine beside him, Jory and Gagniere at either end;
and the servant had barely finished serving the soup, when Madame Jory
made a most unfortunate remark. Wishing to show herself amiable, and
not having heard her husband's apologies, she said to the master of
the house:

'Well, were you pleased with the article in this morning's number?
Edouard personally revised the proofs with the greatest care!'

On hearing this, Jory became very much confused and stammered:

'No, no! you are mistaken! It was a very bad article indeed, and you
know very well that it was "passed" the other evening while I was
away.'

By the silent embarrassment which ensued she guessed her blunder. But
she made matters still worse, for, giving her husband a sharp glance,
she retorted in a very loud voice, so as to crush him, as it were, and
disengage her own responsibility:

'Another of your lies! I repeat what you told me. I won't allow you to
make me ridiculous, do you hear?'

This threw a chill over the beginning of the dinner. Henriette
recommended the _kilkis_, but Christine alone found them very nice.
When the grilled mullet appeared, Sandoz, who was amused by Jory's
embarrassment, gaily reminded him of a lunch they had had together at
Marseilles in the old days. Ah! Marseilles, the only city where people
know how to eat!

Claude, who for a little while had been absorbed in thought, now
seemed to awaken from a dream, and without any transition he asked:

'Is it decided? Have they selected the artists for the new decorations
of the Hotel de Ville?'

'No,' said Mahoudeau, 'they are going to do so. I sha'n't get
anything, for I don't know anybody. Fagerolles himself is very
anxious. If he isn't here to-night, it's because matters are not going
smoothly. Ah! he has had his bite at the cherry; all that painting for
millions is cracking to bits!'

There was a laugh, expressive of spite finally satisfied, and even
Gagniere at the other end of the table joined in the sneering. Then
they eased their feelings in malicious words, and rejoiced over the
sudden fall of prices which had thrown the world of 'young masters'
into consternation. It was inevitable, the predicted time was coming,
the exaggerated rise was about to finish in a catastrophe. Since the
amateurs had been panic-stricken, seized with consternation like that
of speculators when a 'slump' sweeps over a Stock Exchange, prices
were giving way day by day, and nothing more was sold. It was a sight
to see the famous Naudet amid the rout; he had held out at first, he
had invented 'the dodge of the Yankee'--the unique picture hidden deep
in some gallery, in solitude like an idol--the picture of which he
would not name the price, being contemptuously certain that he could
never find a man rich enough to purchase it, but which he finally sold
for two or three hundred thousand francs to some pig-dealer of
Chicago, who felt glorious at carrying off the most expensive canvas
of the year. But those fine strokes of business were not to be renewed
at present, and Naudet, whose expenditure had increased with his
gains, drawn on and swallowed up in the mad craze which was his own
work, could now hear his regal mansion crumbling beneath him, and was
reduced to defend it against the assault of creditors.

'Won't you take some more mushrooms, Mahoudeau?' obligingly
interrupted Henriette.

The servant was now handing round the undercut. They ate, and emptied
the decanters; but their bitterness was so great that the best things
were offered without being tasted, which distressed the master and
mistress of the house.

'Mushrooms, eh?' the sculptor ended by repeating. 'No, thanks.' And he
added: 'The funny part of it all is, that Naudet is suing Fagerolles.
Oh, quite so! he's going to distrain on him. Ah! it makes me laugh! We
shall see a pretty scouring in the Avenue de Villiers among all those
petty painters with mansions of their own. House property will go for
nothing next spring! Well, Naudet, who had compelled Fagerolles to
build a house, and who furnished it for him as he would have furnished
a place for a hussy, wanted to get hold of his nick-nacks and hangings
again. But Fagerolles had borrowed money on them, so it seems. You can
imagine the state of affairs; the dealer accuses the artist of having
spoilt his game by exhibiting with the vanity of a giddy fool; while
the painter replies that he doesn't mean to be robbed any longer; and
they'll end by devouring each other--at least, I hope so.'

Gagniere raised his voice, the gentle but inexorable voice of a
dreamer just awakened.

'Fagerolles is done for. Besides, he never had any success.'

The others protested. Well, what about the hundred thousand francs'
worth of pictures he had sold a year, and his medals and his cross of
the Legion of Honour? But Gagniere, still obstinate, smiled with a
mysterious air, as if facts could not prevail against his inner
conviction. He wagged his head and, full of disdain, replied:

'Let me be! He never knew anything about chiaroscuro.'

Jory was about to defend the talent of Fagerolles, whom he considered
to be his own creation, when Henriette solicited a little attention
for the _raviolis_. There was a short slackening of the quarrel amid
the crystalline clinking of the glasses and the light clatter of the
forks. The table, laid with such fine symmetry, was already in
confusion, and seemed to sparkle still more amid the ardent fire of
the quarrel. And Sandoz, growing anxious, felt astonished. What was
the matter with them all that they attacked Fagerolles so harshly?
Hadn't they all begun together, and were they not all to reach the
goal in the same victory? For the first time, a feeling of uneasiness
disturbed his dream of eternity, that delight in his Thursdays, which
he had pictured following one upon another, all alike, all of them
happy ones, into the far distance of the future. But the feeling was
as yet only skin deep, and he laughingly exclaimed:

'Husband your strength, Claude, here are the hazel-hens. Eh! Claude,
where are you?'

Since silence had prevailed, Claude had relapsed into his dream,
gazing about him vacantly, and taking a second help of _raviolis_
without knowing what he was about; Christine, who said nothing, but
sat there looking sad and charming, did not take her eyes off him. He
started when Sandoz spoke, and chose a leg from amid the bits of
hazel-hen now being served, the strong fumes of which filled the room
with a resinous smell.

'Do you smell that?' exclaimed Sandoz, amused; 'one would think one
were swallowing all the forests of Russia.'

But Claude returned to the matter which worried him.

'Then you say that Fagerolles will be entrusted with the paintings for
the Municipal Council's assembly room?'

And this remark sufficed; Mahoudeau and Gagniere, set on the track, at
once started off again. Ah! a nice wishy-washy smearing it would be if
that assembly room were allotted to him; and he was doing plenty of
dirty things to get it. He, who had formerly pretended to spit on
orders for work, like a great artist surrounded by amateurs, was
basely cringing to the officials, now that his pictures no longer
sold. Could anything more despicable be imagined than a painter
soliciting a functionary, bowing and scraping, showing all kinds of
cowardice and making all kinds of concessions? It was shameful that
art should be dependent upon a Minister's idiotic good pleasure!
Fagerolles, at that official dinner he had gone to, was no doubt
conscientiously licking the boots of some chief clerk, some idiot who
was only fit to be made a guy of.

'Well,' said Jory, 'he effects his purpose, and he's quite right.
_You_ won't pay his debts.'

'Debts? Have I any debts, I who have always starved?' answered
Mahoudeau in a roughly arrogant tone. 'Ought a fellow to build himself
a palace and spend money on creatures like that Irma Becot, who's
ruining Fagerolles?'

At this Jory grew angry, while the others jested, and Irma's name went
flying over the table. But Mathilde, who had so far remained reserved
and silent by way of making a show of good breeding, became intensely
indignant. 'Oh! gentlemen, oh! gentlemen,' she exclaimed, 'to talk
before _us_ about that creature. No, not that creature, I implore you!

After that Henriette and Sandoz, who were in consternation, witnessed
the rout of their menu. The truffle salad, the ice, the dessert,
everything was swallowed without being at all appreciated amidst the
rising anger of the quarrel; and the chambertin and sparkling moselle
were imbibed as if they had merely been water. In vain did Henriette
smile, while Sandoz good-naturedly tried to calm them by making
allowances for human weakness. Not one of them retreated from his
position; a single word made them spring upon each other. There was
none of the vague boredom, the somniferous satiety which at times had
saddened their old gatherings; at present there was real ferocity in
the struggle, a longing to destroy one another. The tapers of the
hanging lamp flared up, the painted flowers of the earthenware on the
walls bloomed, the table seemed to have caught fire amid the upsetting
of its symmetrical arrangements and the violence of the talk, that
demolishing onslaught of chatter which had filled them with fever for
a couple of hours past.

And amid the racket, when Henriette made up her mind to rise so as to
silence them, Claude at length remarked:

'Ah! if I only had the Hotel de Ville work, and if I could! It used to
be my dream to cover all the walls of Paris!'

They returned to the drawing-room, where the little chandelier and the
bracket-candelabra had just been lighted. It seemed almost cold there
in comparison with the kind of hot-house which had just been left; and
for a moment the coffee calmed the guests. Nobody beyond Fagerolles
was expected. The house was not an open one by any means, the Sandozes
did not recruit literary dependents or muzzle the press by dint of
invitations. The wife detested society, and the husband said with a
laugh that he needed ten years to take a liking to anybody, and then
he must like him always. But was not that real happiness, seldom
realised? A few sound friendships and a nook full of family affection.
No music was ever played there, and nobody had ever read a page of his
composition aloud.

On that particular Thursday the evening seemed a long one, on account
of the persistent irritation of the men. The ladies had begun to chat
before the smouldering fire; and when the servant, after clearing the
table, reopened the door of the dining-room, they were left alone, the
men repairing to the adjoining apartment to smoke and sip some beer.

Sandoz and Claude, who were not smokers, soon returned, however, and
sat down, side by side, on a sofa near the doorway. The former, who
was glad to see his old friend excited and talkative, recalled the
memories of Plassans apropos of a bit of news he had learnt the
previous day. Pouillaud, the old jester of their dormitory, who had
become so grave a lawyer, was now in trouble over some adventure with
a woman. Ah! that brute of a Pouillaud! But Claude did not answer,
for, having heard his name mentioned in the dining-room, he listened
attentively, trying to understand.

Jory, Mahoudeau, and Gagniere, unsatiated and eager for another bite,
had started on the massacre again. Their voices, at first mere
whispers, gradually grew louder, till at last they began to shout.

'Oh! the man, I abandon the man to you,' said Jory, who was speaking
of Fagerolles. 'He isn't worth much. And he out-generalled you, it's
true. Ah! how he did get the better of you fellows, by breaking off
from you and carving success for himself on your backs! You were
certainly not at all cute.'

Mahoudeau, waxing furious, replied:

'Of course! It sufficed for us to be with Claude, to be turned away
everywhere.'

'It was Claude who did for us!' so Gagniere squarely asserted.

And thus they went on, relinquishing Fagerolles, whom they reproached
for toadying the newspapers, for allying himself with their enemies
and wheedling sexagenarian baronesses, to fall upon Claude, who now
became the great culprit. Well, after all, the other was only a hussy,
one of the many found in the artistic fraternity, fellows who accost
the public at street corners, leave their comrades in the lurch, and
victimise them so as to get the bourgeois into their studios. But
Claude, that abortive great artist, that impotent fellow who couldn't
set a figure on its legs in spite of all his pride, hadn't he utterly
compromised them, hadn't he let them in altogether? Ah! yes, success
might have been won by breaking off. If they had been able to begin
over again, they wouldn't have been idiots enough to cling obstinately
to impossible principles! And they accused Claude of having paralysed
them, of having traded on them--yes, traded on them, but in so clumsy
and dull-witted a manner that he himself had not derived any benefit
by it.

'Why, as for me,' resumed Mahoudeau, 'didn't he make me quite idiotic
at one moment? When I think of it, I sound myself, and remain
wondering why I ever joined his band. Am I at all like him? Was there
ever any one thing in common between us, eh? Ah! it's exasperating to
find the truth out so late in the day!'

'And as for myself,' said Gagniere, 'he robbed me of my originality.
Do you think it has amused me, each time I have exhibited a painting
during the last fifteen years, to hear people saying behind me,
"That's a Claude!" Oh! I've had enough of it, I prefer not to paint
any more. All the same, if I had seen clearly in former times, I
shouldn't have associated with him.'

It was a stampede, the snapping of the last ties, in their
stupefaction at suddenly finding that they were strangers and enemies,
after a long youth of fraternity together. Life had disbanded them on
the road, and the great dissimilarity of their characters stood
revealed; all that remained in them was the bitterness left by the old
enthusiastic dream, that erstwhile hope of battle and victory to be
won side by side, which now increased their spite.

'The fact is,' sneered Jory, 'that Fagerolles did not let himself be
pillaged like a simpleton.'

But Mahoudeau, feeling vexed, became angry. 'You do wrong to laugh,'
he said, 'for you are a nice backslider yourself. Yes, you always told
us that you would give us a lift up when you had a paper of your own.'

'Ah! allow me, allow me--'

Gagniere, however, united with Mahoudeau: 'That's quite true!' he
said. 'You can't say any more that what you write about us is cut out,
for you are the master now. And yet, never a word! You didn't even
name us in your articles on the last Salon.'

Then Jory, embarrassed and stammering, in his turn flew into a rage.

'Ah! well, it's the fault of that cursed Claude! I don't care to lose
my subscribers simply to please you fellows. It's impossible to do
anything for you! There! do you understand? You, Mahoudeau, may wear
yourself out in producing pretty little things; you, Gagniere, may
even never do anything more; but you each have a label on the back,
and you'll need ten years' efforts before you'll be able to get it
off. In fact, there have been some labels that would never come off!
The public is amused by it, you know; there were only you fellows to
believe in the genius of that big ridiculous lunatic, who will be
locked up in a madhouse one of these fine mornings!'

Then the dispute became terrible, they all three spoke at once, coming
at last to abominable reproaches, with such outbursts, and such
furious motion of the jaw, that they seemed to be biting one another.

Sandoz, seated on the sofa, and disturbed in the gay memories he was
recalling, was at last obliged to lend ear to the tumult which reached
him through the open doorway.

'You hear them?' whispered Claude, with a dolorous smile; 'they are
giving it me nicely! No, no, stay here, I won't let you stop them; I
deserve it, since I have failed to succeed.'

And Sandoz, turning pale, remained there, listening to that bitter
quarrelling, the outcome of the struggle for life, that grappling of
conflicting personalities, which bore all his chimera of everlasting
friendship away.

Henriette, fortunately, became anxious on hearing the violent
shouting. She rose and went to shame the smokers for thus forsaking
the ladies to go and quarrel together. They then returned to the
drawing-room, perspiring, breathing hard, and still shaken by their
anger. And as Henriette, with her eyes on the clock, remarked that
they certainly would not see Fagerolles that evening, they, began to
sneer again, exchanging glances. Ah! he had a fine scent, and no
mistake; he wouldn't be caught associating with old friends, who had
become troublesome, and whom he hated.

In fact, Fagerolles did not come. The evening finished laboriously.
They once more went back to the dining-room, where the tea was served
on a Russian tablecloth embroidered with a stag-hunt in red thread;
and under the tapers a plain cake was displayed, with plates full of
sweetstuff and pastry, and a barbarous collection of liqueurs and
spirits, whisky, hollands, Chio raki, and kummel. The servant also
brought some punch, and bestirred himself round the table, while the
mistress of the house filled the teapot from the samovar boiling in
front of her. But all the comfort, all the feast for the eyes and the
fine perfume of the tea did not move their hearts. The conversation
again turned on the success that some men achieved and the ill-luck
that befell others. For instance, was it not shameful that art should
be dishonoured by all those medals, all those crosses, all those
rewards, which were so badly distributed to boot? Were artists always
to remain like little boys at school? All the universal platitude came
from the docility and cowardice which were shown, as in the presence
of ushers, so as to obtain good marks.

They had repaired to the drawing-room once more, and Sandoz, who was
greatly distressed, had begun to wish that they would take themselves
off, when he noticed Mathilde and Gagniere seated side by side on a
sofa and talking languishingly of music, while the others remained
exhausted, lacking saliva and power of speech. Gagniere philosophised
and poetised in a state of ecstasy, while Mathilde rolled up her eyes
and went into raptures as if titillated by some invisible wing. They
had caught sight of each other on the previous Sunday at the concert
at the Cirque, and they apprised each other of their enjoyment in
alternate, far-soaring sentences.

'Ah! that Meyerbeer, monsieur, the overture of "Struensee," that
funereal strain, and then that peasant dance, so full of dash and
colour; and then the mournful burden which returns, the duo of the
violoncellos. Ah! monsieur, the violoncellos, the violoncellos!'

'And Berlioz, madame, the festival air in "Romeo." Oh! the solo of the
clarionets, the beloved women, with the harp accompaniment! Something
enrapturing, something white as snow which ascends! The festival
bursts upon you, like a picture by Paul Veronese, with the tumultuous
magnificence of the "Marriage of Cana"; and then the love-song begins
again, oh, how softly! Oh! always higher! higher still--'

'Did you notice, monsieur, in Beethoven's Symphony in A, that knell
which ever and ever comes back and beats upon your heart? Yes, I see
very well, you feel as I do, music is a communion--Beethoven, ah, me!
how sad and sweet it is to be two to understand him and give way--'

'And Schumann, madame, and Wagner, madame--Schumann's "Reverie,"
nothing but the stringed instruments, a warm shower falling on acacia
leaves, a sunray which dries them, barely a tear in space. Wagner! ah,
Wagner! the overture of the "Flying Dutchman," are you not fond of
it?--tell me you are fond of it! As for myself, it overcomes me. There
is nothing left, nothing left, one expires--'

Their voices died away; they did not even look at each other, but sat
there elbow to elbow, with their faces turned upward, quite overcome.

Sandoz, who was surprised, asked himself where Mathilde could have
picked up that jargon. In some article of Jory's, perhaps. Besides, he
had remarked that women talk music very well, even without knowing a
note of it. And he, whom the bitterness of the others had only
grieved, became exasperated at sight of Mathilde's languishing
attitude. No, no, that was quite enough; the men tore each other to
bits; still that might pass, after all; but what an end to the evening
it was, that feminine fraud, cooing and titillating herself with
thoughts of Beethoven's and Schumann's music! Fortunately, Gagniere
suddenly rose. He knew what o'clock it was even in the depths of his
ecstasy, and he had only just time left him to catch his last train.
So, after exchanging nerveless and silent handshakes with the others,
he went off to sleep at Melun.

'What a failure he is!' muttered Mahoudeau. 'Music has killed
painting; he'll never do anything!'

He himself had to leave, and the door had scarcely closed behind his
back when Jory declared:

'Have you seen his last paperweight? He'll end by sculpturing
sleeve-links. There's a fellow who has missed his mark! To think that
he prided himself on being vigorous!'

But Mathilde was already afoot, taking leave of Christine with a curt
little inclination of the head, affecting social familiarity with
Henriette, and carrying off her husband, who helped her on with her
cloak in the ante-room, humble and terrified at the severe glance she
gave him, for she had an account to settle.

Then, the door having closed behind them, Sandoz, beside himself,
cried out: 'That's the end! The journalist was bound to call the
others abortions--yes, the journalist who, after patching up articles,
has fallen to trading upon public credulity! Ah! luckily there's
Mathilde the Avengeress!'

Of the guests Christine and Claude alone were left. The latter, since
the drawing-room had been growing empty, had remained ensconced in the
depths of an arm-chair, no longer speaking, but overcome by that
species of magnetic slumber which stiffened him, and fixed his eyes on
something far away beyond the walls. He protruded his face, a
convulsive kind of attention seemed to carry it forward; he certainly
beheld something invisible, and heard a summons in the silence.

Christine having risen in her turn, and apologised for being the last
to leave, Henriette took hold of her hands, repeated how fond she was
of her, begged her to come and see her frequently, and to dispose of
her in all things as she would with a sister. But Claude's sorrowful
wife, looking so sadly charming in her black dress, shook her head
with a pale smile.

'Come,' said Sandoz in her ear, after giving a glance at Claude, 'you
mustn't distress yourself like that. He has talked a great deal, he
has been gayer this evening. He's all right.'

But in a terrified voice she answered:

'No, no; look at his eyes--I shall tremble as long as he has his eyes
like that. You have done all you could, thanks. What you haven't done
no one will do. Ah! how I suffer at being unable to hope, at being
unable to do anything!'

Then in a loud tone she asked:

'Are you coming, Claude?'

She had to repeat her question twice, for at first he did not hear
her; he ended by starting, however, and rose to his feet, saying, as
if he had answered the summons from the horizon afar off:

'Yes, I'm coming, I'm coming.'

When Sandoz and his wife at last found themselves alone in the
drawing-room, where the atmosphere now was stifling--heated by the
lights and heavy, as it were, with melancholy silence after all the
outbursts of the quarrelling--they looked at one another and let their
arms fall, quite heart-rent by the unfortunate issue of their dinner
party. Henrietta tried to laugh it off, however, murmuring:

'I warned you, I quite understood--'

But he interrupted her with a despairing gesture. What! was that,
then, the end of his long illusion, that dream of eternity which had
made him set happiness in a few friendships, formed in childhood, and
shared until extreme old age? Ah! what a wretched band, what a final
rending, what a terrible balance-sheet to weep over after that
bankruptcy of the human heart! And he grew astonished on thinking of
the friends who had fallen off by the roadside, of the great
affections lost on the way, of the others unceasingly changing around
himself, in whom he found no change. His poor Thursdays filled him
with pity, so many memories were in mourning, it was the slow death of
all that one loves! Would his wife and himself have to resign
themselves to live as in a desert, to cloister themselves in utter
hatred of the world? Ought they rather to throw their doors wide open
to a throng of strangers and indifferent folk? By degrees a certainty
dawned in the depths of his grief: everything ended and nothing began
again in life. He seemed to yield to evidence, and, heaving a big
sigh, exclaimed:

'You were right. We won't invite them to dinner again--they would
devour one another.'

As soon as Claude and Christine reached the Place de la Trinite on
their way home, the painter let go of his wife's arm; and, stammering
that he had to go somewhere, he begged her to return to the Rue
Tourlaque without him. She had felt him shuddering, and she remained
quite scared with surprise and fear. Somewhere to go at that hour
--past midnight! Where had he to go, and what for? He had turned round
and was making off, when she overtook him, and, pretending that she
was frightened, begged that he would not leave her to climb up to
Montmartre alone at that time of night. This consideration alone
brought him back. He took her arm again; they ascended the Rue Blanche
and the Rue Lepic, and at last found themselves in the Rue Tourlaque.
And on reaching their door, he rang the bell, and then again left her.

'Here you are,' he said; 'I'm going.'

He was already hastening away, taking long strides, and gesticulating
like a madman. Without even closing the door which had been opened,
she darted off, bent on following him. In the Rue Lepic she drew near;
but for fear of exciting him still more she contented herself with
keeping him in sight, walking some thirty yards in the rear, without
his knowing that she was behind him. On reaching the end of the Rue
Lepic he went down the Rue Blanche again, and then proceeded by way of
the Rue de la Chaussee-d'Antin and the Rue du Dix Decembre as far as
the Rue de Richelieu. When she saw him turn into the last-named
thoroughfare, a mortal chill came over her: he was going towards the
Seine; it was the realisation of the frightful fear which kept her of
a night awake, full of anguish! And what could she do, good Lord? Go
with him, hang upon his neck over yonder? She was now only able to
stagger along, and as each step brought them nearer to the river, she
felt life ebbing from her limbs. Yes, he was going straight there; he
crossed the Place du Theatre Francais, then the Carrousel, and finally
reached the Pont des Saints-Peres. After taking a few steps along the
bridge, he approached the railing overlooking the water; and at the
thought that he was about to jump over, a loud cry was stifled in her
contracted throat.

But no; he remained motionless. Was it then only the Cite over yonder
that haunted him, that heart of Paris which pursued him everywhere,
which he conjured up with his fixed eyes, even through walls, and
which, when he was leagues away, cried out the constant summons heard
by him alone? She did not yet dare to hope it; she had stopped short,
in the rear, watching him with giddy anxiety, ever fancying that she
saw him take the terrible leap, but resisting her longing to draw
nearer, for fear lest she might precipitate the catastrophe by showing
herself. Oh, God! to think that she was there with her devouring
passion, her bleeding motherly heart--that she was there beholding
everything, without daring to risk one movement to hold him back!

He stood erect, looking very tall, quite motionless, and gazing into
the night.

It was a winter's night, with a misty sky of sooty blackness, and was
rendered extremely cold by a sharp wind blowing from the west. Paris,
lighted up, had gone to sleep, showing no signs of life save such as
attached to the gas-jets, those specks which scintillated and grew
smaller and smaller in the distance till they seemed but so much
starry dust. The quays stretched away showing double rows of those
luminous beads whose reverberation glimmered on the nearer frontages.
On the left were the houses of the Quai du Louvre, on the right the
two wings of the Institute, confused masses of monuments and
buildings, which became lost to view in the darkening gloom, studded
with sparks. Then between those cordons of burners, extending as far
as the eye could reach, the bridges stretched bars of lights, ever
slighter and slighter, each formed of a train of spangles, grouped
together and seemingly hanging in mid-air. And in the Seine there
shone the nocturnal splendour of the animated water of cities; each
gas-jet there cast a reflection of its flame, like the nucleus of a
comet, extending into a tail. The nearer ones, mingling together, set
the current on fire with broad, regular, symmetrical fans of light,
glowing like live embers, while the more distant ones, seen under the
bridges, were but little motionless sparks of fire. But the large
burning tails appeared to be animated, they waggled as they spread
out, all black and gold, with a constant twirling of scales, in which
one divined the flow of the water. The whole Seine was lighted up by
them, as if some fete were being given in its depths--some mysterious,
fairy-like entertainment, at which couples were waltzing beneath the
river's red-flashing window-panes. High above those fires, above the
starry quays, the sky, in which not a planet was visible, showed a
ruddy mass of vapour, that warm, phosphorescent exhalation which every
night, above the sleep of the city, seems to set the crater of a
volcano.

The wind blew hard, and Christine, shivering, her eyes full of tears,
felt the bridge move under her, as if it were bearing her away amid a
smash up of the whole scene. Had not Claude moved? Was he not climbing
over the rail? No; everything became motionless again, and she saw him
still on the same spot, obstinately stiff, with his eyes turned
towards the point of the Cite, which he could not see.

It had summoned him, and he had come, and yet he could not see it in
the depths of the darkness. He could only distinguish the bridges,
with their light framework standing out blackly against the sparkling
water. But farther off everything became confused, the island had
disappeared, he could not even have told its exact situation if some
belated cabs had not passed from time to time over the Pont-Neuf, with
their lamps showing like those shooting sparks which dart at times
through embers. A red lantern, on a level with the dam of the Mint,
cast a streamlet of blood, as it were, into the water. Something huge
and lugubrious, some drifting form, no doubt a lighter which had
become unmoored, slowly descended the stream amid the reflections.
Espied for a moment, it was immediately afterwards lost in the
darkness. Where had the triumphal island sunk? In the depths of that
flow of water? Claude still gazed, gradually fascinated by the great
rushing of the river in the night. He leant over its broad bed, chilly
like an abyss, in which the mysterious flames were dancing. And the
loud, sad wail of the current attracted him, and he listened to its
call, despairing, unto death.

By a shooting pain at her heart, Christine this time realised that the
terrible thought had just occurred to him. She held out her quivering
hands which the wind was lashing. But Claude remained there,
struggling against the sweetness of death; indeed he did not move for
another hour, he lingered there unconscious of the lapse of time, with
his eyes still turned in the direction of the Cite, as if by a miracle
of power they were about to create light, and conjure up the island so
that he might behold it.

When Claude at last left the bridge, with stumbling steps, Christine
had to pass in front and run in order to be home in the Rue Tourlaque
before him.

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