His Masterpiece: Chapter 8

Chapter 8

AT last Christine gave a final stroke with her feather-broom, and they
were settled. The studio in the Rue de Douai, small and inconvenient,
had only one little room, and a kitchen, as big as a cupboard,
attached to it. They were obliged to take their meals in the studio;
they had to live in it, with the child always tumbling about their
legs. And Christine had a deal of trouble in making their few sticks
suffice, as she wished to do, in order to save expense. After all, she
was obliged to buy a second-hand bedstead; and yielded to the
temptation of having some white muslin curtains, which cost her seven
sous the metre. The den then seemed charming to her, and she began to
keep it scrupulously clean, resolving to do everything herself, and to
dispense with a servant, as living would be a difficult matter.

During the first months Claude lived in ever-increasing excitement.
His peregrinations through the noisy streets; his feverish discussions
on the occasion of his visits to friends; all the rage and all the
burning ideas he thus brought home from out of doors, made him hold
forth aloud even in his sleep. Paris had seized hold of him again; and
in the full blaze of that furnace, a second youth, enthusiastic
ambition to see, do, and conquer, had come upon him. Never had he felt
such a passion for work, such hope, as if it sufficed for him to
stretch out his hand in order to create masterpieces that should set
him in the right rank, which was the first. While crossing Paris he
discovered subjects for pictures everywhere; the whole city, with its
streets, squares, bridges, and panoramas of life, suggested immense
frescoes, which he, however, always found too small, for he was
intoxicated with the thought of doing something colossal. Thus he
returned home quivering, his brain seething with projects; and of an
evening threw off sketches on bits of paper, in the lamp-light,
without being able to decide by what he ought to begin the series of
grand productions that he dreamt about.

One serious obstacle was the smallness of his studio. If he had
only had the old garret of the Quai de Bourbon, or even the huge
dining-room of Bennecourt! But what could he do in that oblong strip
of space, that kind of passage, which the landlord of the house
impudently let to painters for four hundred francs a year, after
roofing it in with glass? The worst was that the sloping glazed roof
looked to the north, between two high walls, and only admitted a
greenish cellar-like light. He was therefore obliged to postpone his
ambitious projects, and he decided to begin with average-sized
canvases, wisely saying to himself that the dimensions of a picture
are not a proper test of an artist's genius.

The moment seemed to him favourable for the success of a courageous
artist who, amidst the breaking up of the old schools, would at length
bring some originality and sincerity into his work. The formulas of
recent times were already shaken. Delacroix had died without leaving
any disciples. Courbet had barely a few clumsy imitators behind him;
their best pieces would merely become so many museum pictures,
blackened by age, tokens only of the art of a certain period. It
seemed easy to foresee the new formula that would spring from theirs,
that rush of sunshine, that limpid dawn which was rising in new works
under the nascent influence of the 'open air' school. It was
undeniable; those light-toned paintings over which people had laughed
so much at the Salon of the Rejected were secretly influencing many
painters, and gradually brightening every palette. Nobody, as yet,
admitted it, but the first blow had been dealt, and an evolution was
beginning, which became more perceptible at each succeeding Salon. And
what a stroke it would be if, amidst the unconscious copies of
impotent essayists, amidst the timid artful attempts of tricksters, a
master were suddenly to reveal himself, giving body to the new formula
by dint of audacity and power, without compromise, showing it such as
it should be, substantial, entire, so that it might become the truth
of the end of the century!

In that first hour of passion and hope, Claude, usually so harassed by
doubts, believed in his genius. He no longer experienced any of those
crises, the anguish of which had driven him for days into the streets
in quest of his vanished courage. A fever stiffened him, he worked on
with the blind obstinacy of an artist who dives into his entrails, to
drag therefrom the fruit that tortures him. His long rest in the
country had endowed him with singular freshness of visual perception,
and joyous delight in execution; he seemed to have been born anew to
his art, and endowed with a facility and balance of power he had never
hitherto possessed. He also felt certain of progress, and experienced
great satisfaction at some successful bits of work, in which his
former sterile efforts at last culminated. As he had said at
Bennecourt, he had got hold of his 'open air,' that carolling gaiety
of tints which astonished his comrades when they came to see him. They
all admired, convinced that he would only have to show his work to
take a very high place with it, such was its individuality of style,
for the first time showing nature flooded with real light, amid all
the play of reflections and the constant variations of colours.

Thus, for three years, Claude struggled on, without weakening, spurred
to further efforts by each rebuff, abandoning nought of his ideas, but
marching straight before him, with all the vigour of faith.

During the first year he went forth amid the December snows to place
himself for four hours a day behind the heights of Montmartre, at the
corner of a patch of waste land whence as a background he painted some
miserable, low, tumble-down buildings, overtopped by factory chimneys,
whilst in the foreground, amidst the snow, he set a girl and a ragged
street rough devouring stolen apples. His obstinacy in painting from
nature greatly complicated his work, and gave rise to almost
insuperable difficulties. However, he finished this picture out of
doors; he merely cleaned and touched it up a bit in his studio. When
the canvas was placed beneath the wan daylight of the glazed roof, he
himself was startled by its brutality. It showed like a scene beheld
through a doorway open on the street. The snow blinded one. The two
figures, of a muddy grey in tint, stood out, lamentable. He at once
felt that such a picture would not be accepted, but he did not try to
soften it; he sent it to the Salon, all the same. After swearing that
he would never again try to exhibit, he now held the view that one
should always present something to the hanging committee if merely to
accentuate its wrong-doing. Besides, he admitted the utility of the
Salon, the only battlefield on which an artist might come to the fore
at one stroke. The hanging committee refused his picture.

The second year Claude sought a contrast. He selected a bit of the
public garden of Batignolles in May; in the background were some large
chestnut trees casting their shade around a corner of greensward and
several six-storied houses; while in front, on a seat of a crude green
hue, some nurses and petty cits of the neighbourhood sat in a line
watching three little girls making sand pies. When permission to paint
there had been obtained, he had needed some heroism to bring his work
to a successful issue amid the bantering crowd. At last he made up his
mind to go there at five in the morning, in order to paint in the
background; reserving the figures, he contented himself with making
mere sketches of them from nature, and finishing them in his studio.
This time his picture seemed to him less crude; it had acquired some
of the wan, softened light which descended through the glass roof. He
thought his picture accepted, for all his friends pronounced it to be
a masterpiece, and went about saying that it would revolutionise the
Salon. There was stupefaction and indignation when a fresh refusal of
the hanging committee was rumoured. The committee's intentions could
not be denied: it was a question of systematically strangling an
original artist. He, after his first burst of passion, vented all his
anger upon his work, which he stigmatised as false, dishonest, and
execrable. It was a well-deserved lesson, which he should remember:
ought he to have relapsed into that cellar-like studio light? Was he
going to revert to the filthy cooking of imaginary figures? When the
picture came back, he took a knife and ripped it from top to bottom.

And so during the third year he obstinately toiled on a work of
revolt. He wanted the blazing sun, that Paris sun which, on certain
days, turns the pavement to a white heat in the dazzling reflection
from the house frontages. Nowhere is it hotter; even people from
burning climes mop their faces; you would say you were in some region
of Africa beneath the heavily raining glow of a sky on fire. The
subject Claude chose was a corner of the Place du Carrousel, at one
o'clock in the afternoon, when the sunrays fall vertically. A cab was
jolting along, its driver half asleep, its horse steaming, with
drooping head, vague amid the throbbing heat. The passers-by seemed,
as it were, intoxicated, with the one exception of a young woman, who,
rosy and gay under her parasol, walked on with an easy queen-like
step, as if the fiery element were her proper sphere. But what
especially rendered this picture terrible was a new interpretation of
the effects of light, a very accurate decomposition of the sunrays,
which ran counter to all the habits of eyesight, by emphasising blues,
yellows and reds, where nobody had been accustomed to see any. In the
background the Tuileries vanished in a golden shimmer; the
paving-stones bled, so to say; the figures were only so many
indications, sombre patches eaten into by the vivid glare. This time
his comrades, while still praising, looked embarrassed, all seized
with the same apprehensions. Such painting could only lead to
martyrdom. He, amidst their praises, understood well enough the
rupture that was taking place, and when the hanging committee had once
more closed the Salon against him, he dolorously exclaimed, in a
moment of lucidity:

'All right; it's an understood thing--I'll die at the task.'

However, although his obstinate courage seemed to increase, he now and
then gradually relapsed into his former doubts, consumed by the
struggle he was waging with nature. Every canvas that came back to him
seemed bad to him--above all incomplete, not realising what he had
aimed at. It was this idea of impotence that exasperated him even more
than the refusals of the hanging committee. No doubt he did not
forgive the latter; his works, even in an embryo state, were a hundred
times better than all the trash which was accepted. But what suffering
he felt at being ever unable to show himself in all his strength, in
such a master-piece as he could not bring his genius to yield! There
were always some superb bits in his paintings. He felt satisfied with
this, that, and the other. Why, then, were there sudden voids? Why
were there inferior bits, which he did not perceive while he was at
work, but which afterwards utterly killed the picture like
ineffaceable defects? And he felt quite unable to make any
corrections; at certain moments a wall rose up, an insuperable
obstacle, beyond which he was forbidden to venture. If he touched up
the part that displeased him a score of times, so a score of times did
he aggravate the evil, till everything became quite muddled and messy.

He grew anxious, and failed to see things clearly; his brush refused
to obey him, and his will was paralysed. Was it his hands or his eyes
that ceased to belong to him amid those progressive attacks of the
hereditary disorder that had already made him anxious? Those attacks
became more frequent; he once more lapsed into horrible weeks, wearing
himself out, oscillating betwixt uncertainty and hope; and his only
support during those terrible hours, which he spent in a desperate
hand-to-hand struggle with his rebellious work, was the consoling
dream of his future masterpiece, the one with which he would at last
be fully satisfied, in painting which his hands would show all the
energy and deftness of true creative skill. By some ever-recurring
phenomenon, his longing to create outstripped the quickness of his
fingers; he never worked at one picture without planning the one that
was to follow. Then all that remained to him was an eager desire to
rid himself of the work on which he was engaged, for it brought him
torture; no doubt it would be good for nothing; he was still making
fatal concessions, having recourse to trickery, to everything that a
true artist should banish from his conscience. But what he meant to do
after that--ah! what he meant to do--he beheld it superb and heroic,
above attack and indestructible. All this was the everlasting mirage
that goads on the condemned disciples of art, a falsehood that comes
in a spirit of tenderness and compassion, and without which production
would become impossible to those who die of their failure to create
life.

In addition to those constantly renewed struggles with himself,
Claude's material difficulties now increased. Was it not enough that
he could not give birth to what he felt existing within him? Must he
also battle with every-day cares? Though he refused to admit it,
painting from nature in the open air became impossible when a picture
was beyond a certain size. How could he settle himself in the streets
amidst the crowd?--how obtain from each person the necessary number of
sittings? That sort of painting must evidently be confined to certain
determined subjects, landscapes, small corners of the city, in which
the figures would be but so many silhouettes, painted in afterwards.
There were also a thousand and one difficulties connected with the
weather; the wind which threatened to carry off the easel, the rain
which obliged one to interrupt one's work. On such days Claude came
home in a rage, shaking his fist at the sky and accusing nature of
resisting him in order that he might not take and vanquish her. He
also complained bitterly of being poor; for his dream was to have a
movable studio, a vehicle in Paris, a boat on the Seine, in both of
which he would have lived like an artistic gipsy. But nothing came to
his aid, everything conspired against his work.

And Christine suffered with Claude. She had shared his hopes very
bravely, brightening the studio with her housewifely activity; but now
she sat down, discouraged, when she saw him powerless. At each picture
which was refused she displayed still deeper grief, hurt in her
womanly self-love, taking that pride in success which all women have.
The painter's bitterness soured her also; she entered into his
feelings and passions, identified herself with his tastes, defended
his painting, which had become, as it were, part of herself, the one
great concern of their lives--indeed, the only important one
henceforth, since it was the one whence she expected all her
happiness. She understood well enough that art robbed her more and
more of her lover each day, but the real struggle between herself and
art had not yet begun. For the time she yielded, and let herself be
carried away with Claude, so that they might be but one--one only in
the self-same effort. From that partial abdication of self there
sprang, however, a sadness, a dread of what might be in store for her
later on. Every now and then a shudder chilled her to the very heart.
She felt herself growing old, while intense melancholy upset her, an
unreasoning longing to weep, which she satisfied in the gloomy studio
for hours together, when she was alone there.

At that period her heart expanded, as it were, and a mother sprang
from the loving woman. That motherly feeling for her big artist child
was made up of all the vague infinite pity which filled her with
tenderness, of the illogical fits of weakness into which she saw him
fall each hour, of the constant pardons which she was obliged to grant
him. He was beginning to make her unhappy, his caresses were few and
far between, a look of weariness constantly overspread his features.
How could she love him then if not with that other affection of every
moment, remaining in adoration before him, and unceasingly sacrificing
herself? In her inmost being insatiable passion still lingered; she
was still the sensuous woman with thick lips set in obstinately
prominent jaws. Yet there was a gentle melancholy, in being merely a
mother to him, in trying to make him happy amid that life of theirs
which now was spoilt.

Little Jacques was the only one to suffer from that transfer of
tenderness. She neglected him more; the man, his father, became her
child, and the poor little fellow remained as mere testimony of their
great passion of yore. As she saw him grow up, and no longer require
so much care, she began to sacrifice him, without intentional
harshness, but merely because she felt like that. At meal-times she
only gave him the inferior bits; the cosiest nook near the stove was
not for his little chair; if ever the fear of an accident made her
tremble now and then, her first cry, her first protecting movement was
not for her helpless child. She ever relegated him to the background,
suppressed him, as it were: 'Jacques, be quiet; you tire your father.
Jacques, keep still; don't you see that your father is at work?'

The urchin suffered from being cooped up in Paris. He, who had had the
whole country-side to roll about in, felt stifled in the narrow space
where he now had to keep quiet. His rosy cheeks became pale, he grew
up puny, serious, like a little man, with eyes which stared at things
in wonder. He was five by now, and his head by a singular phenomenon
had become disproportionately large, in such wise as to make his
father say, 'He has a great man's nut!' But the child's intelligence
seemed, on the contrary, to decrease in proportion as his skull became
larger. Very gentle and timid, he became absorbed in thought for
hours, incapable of answering a question. And when he emerged from
that state of immobility he had mad fits of shouting and jumping, like
a young animal giving rein to instinct. At such times warnings 'to
keep quiet' rained upon him, for his mother failed to understand his
sudden outbursts, and became uneasy at seeing the father grow
irritated as he sat before his easel. Getting cross herself, she would
then hastily seat the little fellow in his corner again. Quieted all
at once, giving the startled shudder of one who has been too abruptly
awakened, the child would after a time doze off with his eyes wide
open, so careless of enjoying life that his toys, corks, pictures, and
empty colour-tubes dropped listlessly from his hands. Christine had
already tried to teach him his alphabet, but he had cried and
struggled, so they had decided to wait another year or two before
sending him to school, where his masters would know how to make him
learn.

Christine at last began to grow frightened at the prospect of
impending misery. In Paris, with that growing child beside them,
living proved expensive, and the end of each month became terrible,
despite her efforts to save in every direction. They had nothing
certain but Claude's thousand francs a year; and how could they live
on fifty francs a month, which was all that was left to them after
deducting four hundred francs for the rent? At first they had got out
of embarrassment, thanks to the sale of a few pictures, Claude having
found Gagniere's old amateur, one of those detested bourgeois who
possess the ardent souls of artists, despite the monomaniacal habits
in which they are confined. This one, M. Hue, a retired chief clerk in
a public department, was unfortunately not rich enough to be always
buying, and he could only bewail the purblindness of the public, which
once more allowed a genius to die of starvation; for he himself,
convinced, struck by grace at the first glance, had selected Claude's
crudest works, which he hung by the side of his Delacroix, predicting
equal fortune for them. The worst was that Papa Malgras had just
retired after making his fortune. It was but a modest competence after
all, an income of about ten thousand francs, upon which he had decided
to live in a little house at Bois Colombes, like the careful man he
was.

It was highly amusing to hear him speak of the famous Naudet, full of
disdain for the millions turned over by that speculator, 'millions
that would some day fall upon his nose,' said Malgras. Claude, having
casually met him, only succeeded in selling him a last picture, one of
his sketches from the nude made at the Boutin studio, that superb
study of a woman's trunk which the erstwhile dealer had not been able
to see afresh without feeling a revival of his old passion for it. So
misery was imminent; outlets were closing instead of new ones opening;
disquieting rumours were beginning to circulate concerning the young
painter's works, so constantly rejected at the Salon; and besides,
Claude's style of art, so revolutionary and imperfect, in which the
startled eye found nought of admitted conventionality, would of itself
have sufficed to drive away wealthy buyers. One evening, being unable
to settle his bill at his colour shop, the painter had exclaimed that
he would live upon the capital of his income rather than lower himself
to the degrading production of trade pictures. But Christine had
violently opposed such an extreme measure; she would retrench still
further; in short, she preferred anything to such madness, which would
end by throwing them into the streets without even bread to eat.

After the rejection of Claude's third picture, the summer proved so
wonderfully fine that the painter seemed to derive new strength from
it. There was not a cloud; limpid light streamed day after day upon
the giant activity of Paris. Claude had resumed his peregrinations
through the city, determined to find a masterstroke, as he expressed
it, something huge, something decisive, he did not exactly know what.
September came, and still he had found nothing that satisfied him; he
simply went mad for a week about one or another subject, and then
declared that it was not the thing after all. His life was spent in
constant excitement; he was ever on the watch, on the point of setting
his hand on the realisation of his dream, which always flew away. In
reality, beneath his intractable realism lay the superstition of a
nervous woman; he believed in occult and complex influences;
everything, luck or ill-luck, must depend upon the view selected.

One afternoon--it was one of the last fine days of the season--Claude
took Christine out with him, leaving little Jacques in the charge of
the doorkeeper, a kind old woman, as was their wont when they wanted
to go out together. That day the young painter was possessed by a
sudden whim to ramble about and revisit in Christine's company the
nooks beloved in other days; and behind this desire of his there
lurked a vague hope that she would bring him luck. And thus they went
as far as the Pont Louis-Philippe, and remained for a quarter of an
hour on the Quai des Ormes, silent, leaning against the parapet, and
looking at the old Hotel du Martoy, across the Seine, where they had
first loved each other. Then, still without saying a word, they went
their former round; they started along the quays, under the plane
trees, seeing the past rise up before them at every step. Everything
spread out again: the bridges with their arches opening upon the
sheeny water; the Cite, enveloped in shade, above which rose the
flavescent towers of Notre-Dame; the great curve of the right bank
flooded with sunlight, and ending in the indistinct silhouette of the
Pavillon de Flore, together with the broad avenues, the monuments and
edifices on both banks, and all the life of the river, the floating
wash-houses, the baths, and the lighters.

As of old, the orb in its decline followed them, seemingly rolling
along the distant housetops, and assuming a crescent shape, as it
appeared from behind the dome of the Institute. There was a dazzling
sunset, they had never beheld a more magnificent one, such a majestic
descent amidst tiny cloudlets that changed into purple network,
between the meshes of which a shower of gold escaped. But of the past
that thus rose up before their eyes there came to them nought but
invincible sadness--a sensation that things escaped them, and that it
was impossible for them to retrace their way up stream and live their
life over again. All those old stones remained cold. The constant
current beneath the bridges, the water that had ever flowed onward and
onward, seemed to have borne away something of their own selves, the
delight of early desire and the joyfulness of hope. Now that they
belonged to one another, they no longer tasted the simple happiness
born of feeling the warm pressure of their arms as they strolled on
slowly, enveloped by the mighty vitality of Paris.

On reaching the Pont des Saints-Peres, Claude, in sheer despair,
stopped short. He had relinquished Christine's arm, and had turned his
face towards the point of the Cite. She no doubt felt the severance
that was taking place and became very sad. Seeing that he lingered
there obliviously, she wished to regain her hold upon him.

'My dear,' said she, 'let us go home; it's time. Jacques will be
waiting for us, you know.'

But he went half way across the bridge, and she had to follow him.
Then once more he remained motionless, with his eyes still fixed on
the Cite, on that island which ever rode at anchor, the cradle and
heart of Paris, where for centuries all the blood of her arteries had
converged amid the constant growth of faubourgs invading the plain.
And a glow came over Claude's face, his eyes sparkled, and at last he
made a sweeping gesture:

'Look! Look!'

In the immediate foreground beneath them was the port of St. Nicolas,
with the low shanties serving as offices for the inspectors of
navigation, and the large paved river-bank sloping down, littered with
piles of sand, barrels, and sacks, and edged with a row of lighters,
still full, in which busy lumpers swarmed beneath the gigantic arm of
an iron crane. Then on the other side of the river, above a cold
swimming-bath, resounding with the shouts of the last bathers of the
season, the strips of grey linen that served as a roofing flapped in
the wind. In the middle, the open stream flowed on in rippling,
greenish wavelets tipped here and there with white, blue, and pink.
And then there came the Pont des Arts, standing back, high above the
water on its iron girders, like black lace-work, and animated by a
ceaseless procession of foot-passengers, who looked like ants
careering over the narrow line of the horizontal plane. Below, the
Seine flowed away to the far distance; you saw the old arches of the
Pont-Neuf, browny with stone-rust; on the left, as far as the Isle of
St. Louis, came a mirror-like gap; and the other arm of the river
curved sharply, the lock gates of the Mint shutting out the view with
a bar of foam. Along the Pont-Neuf passed big yellow omnibuses, motley
vehicles of all kinds, with the mechanical regularity of so many
children's toys. The whole of the background was inframed within the
perspective of the two banks; on the right were houses on the quays,
partly hidden by a cluster of lofty trees, from behind which on the
horizon there emerged a corner of the Hotel de Villa, together with
the square clock tower of St. Gervais, both looking as indistinct as
if they had stood far away in the suburbs. And on the left bank there
was a wing of the Institute, the flat frontage of the Mint, and yet
another enfilade of trees.

But the centre of the immense picture, that which rose most
prominently from the stream and soared to the sky, was the Cite,
showing like the prow of an antique vessel, ever burnished by the
setting sun. Down below, the poplars on the strip of ground that joins
the two sections of the Pont-Neuf hid the statue of Henri IV. with a
dense mass of green foliage. Higher up, the sun set the two lines of
frontages in contrast, wrapping the grey buildings of the Quai de
l'Horloge in shade, and illumining with a blaze those of the Quai des
Orfevres, rows of irregular houses which stood out so clearly that one
distinguished the smallest details, the shops, the signboards, even
the curtains at the windows. Higher up, amid the jagged outlines of
chimney stacks, behind a slanting chess-board of smaller roofs, the
pepper-caster turrets of the Palais de Justice and the garrets of the
Prefecture of Police displayed sheets of slate, intersected by a
colossal advertisement painted in blue upon a wall, with gigantic
letters which, visible to all Paris, seemed like some efflorescence of
the feverish life of modern times sprouting on the city's brow.
Higher, higher still, betwixt the twin towers of Notre-Dame, of the
colour of old gold, two arrows darted upwards, the spire of the
cathedral itself, and to the left that of the Sainte-Chapelle, both so
elegantly slim that they seemed to quiver in the breeze, as if they
had been the proud topmasts of the ancient vessel rising into the
brightness of the open sky.

'Are you coming, dear?' asked Christine, gently.

Claude did not listen to her; this, the heart of Paris, had taken full
possession of him. The splendid evening seemed to widen the horizon.
There were patches of vivid light, and of clearly defined shadow;
there was a brightness in the precision of each detail, a transparency
in the air, which throbbed with gladness. And the river life, the
turmoil of the quays, all the people, streaming along the streets,
rolling over the bridges, arriving from every side of that huge
cauldron, Paris, steamed there in visible billows, with a quiver that
was apparent in the sunlight. There was a light breeze, high aloft a
flight of small cloudlets crossed the paling azure sky, and one could
hear a slow but mighty palpitation, as if the soul of Paris here dwelt
around its cradle.

But Christine, frightened at seeing Claude so absorbed, and seized
herself with a kind of religious awe, took hold of his arm and dragged
him away, as if she had felt that some great danger was threatening
him.

'Let us go home. You are doing yourself harm. I want to get back.'

At her touch he started like a man disturbed in sleep. Then, turning
his head to take a last look, he muttered: 'Ah! heavens! Ah! heavens,
how beautiful!'

He allowed himself to be led away. But throughout the evening, first
at dinner, afterwards beside the stove, and until he went to bed, he
remained like one dazed, so deep in his cogitations that he did not
utter half a dozen sentences. And Christine, failing to draw from him
any answer to her questions, at last became silent also. She looked at
him anxiously; was it the approach of some serious illness, had he
inhaled some bad air whilst standing midway across the bridge yonder?
His eyes stared vaguely into space, his face flushed as if with some
inner straining. One would have thought it the mute travail of
germination, as if something were springing into life within him.

The next morning, immediately after breakfast, he set off, and
Christine spent a very sorrowful day, for although she had become more
easy in mind on hearing him whistle some of his old southern tunes as
he got up, she was worried by another matter, which she had not
mentioned to him for fear of damping his spirits again. That day they
would for the first time lack everything; a whole week separated them
from the date when their little income would fall due, and she had
spent her last copper that morning. She had nothing left for the
evening, not even the wherewithal to buy a loaf. To whom could she
apply? How could she manage to hide the truth any longer from him when
he came home hungry? She made up her mind to pledge the black silk
dress which Madame Vanzade had formerly given her, but it was with a
heavy heart; she trembled with fear and shame at the idea of the
pawnshop, that familiar resort of the poor which she had never as yet
entered. And she was tortured by such apprehension about the future,
that from the ten francs which were lent her she only took enough to
make a sorrel soup and a stew of potatoes. On coming out of the
pawn-office, a meeting with somebody she knew had given her the
finishing stroke.

As it happened, Claude came home very late, gesticulating merrily, and
his eyes very bright, as if he were excited by some secret joy; he was
very hungry, and grumbled because the cloth was not laid. Then, having
sat down between Christine and little Jacques, he swallowed his soup
and devoured a plateful of potatoes.

'Is that all?' he asked, when he had finished. 'You might as well have
added a scrap of meat. Did you have to buy some boots again?'

She stammered, not daring to tell him the truth, but hurt at heart by
this injustice. He, however, went on chaffing her about the coppers
she juggled away to buy herself things with; and getting more and more
excited, amid the egotism of feelings which he seemingly wished to
keep to himself, he suddenly flew out at Jacques.

'Hold your noise, you brat!--you drive one mad.'

The child, forgetting all about his dinner, had been tapping the edge
of his plate with his spoon, his eyes full of mirthful delight at this
music.

'Jacques, be quiet,' scoldingly said his mother, in her turn. 'Let
your father have his dinner in peace.'

Then the little one, abashed, at once became very quiet, and relapsed
into gloomy stillness, with his lustreless eyes fixed on his potatoes,
which, however, he did not eat.

Claude made a show of stuffing himself with cheese, while Christine,
quite grieved, offered to fetch some cold meat from a ham and beef
shop; but he declined, and prevented her going by words that pained
her still more. Then, the table having been cleared, they all sat
round the lamp for the evening, she sewing, the little one turning
over a picture-book in silence, and Claude drumming on the table with
his fingers, his mind the while wandering back to the spot whence he
had come. Suddenly he rose, sat down again with a sheet of paper and a
pencil, and began sketching rapidly, in the vivid circle of light that
fell from under the lamp-shade. And such was his longing to give
outward expression to the tumultuous ideas beating in his skull, that
soon this sketch did not suffice for his relief. On the contrary, it
goaded him on, and he finished by unburthening his mind in a flood of
words. He would have shouted to the walls; and if he addressed himself
to his wife it was because she happened to be there.

'Look, that's what we saw yesterday. It's magnificent. I spent three
hours there to-day. I've got hold of what I want--something wonderful,
something that'll knock everything else to pieces. Just look! I
station myself under the bridge; in the immediate foreground I have
the Port of St. Nicolas, with its crane, its lighters which are being
unloaded, and its crowd of labourers. Do you see the idea--it's Paris
at work--all those brawny fellows displaying their bare arms and
chests? Then on the other side I have the swimming-baths--Paris at
play--and some skiff there, no doubt, to occupy the centre of the
composition; but of that I am not as yet certain. I must feel my way.
As a matter of course, the Seine will be in the middle, broad,
immense.'

While talking, he kept on indicating outlines with his pencil,
thickening his strokes over and over again, and tearing the paper in
his very energy. She, in order to please him, bent over the sketch,
pretending to grow very interested in his explanations. But there was
such a labyrinth of lines, such a confusion of summary details, that
she failed to distinguish anything.

'You are following me, aren't you?'

'Yes, yes, very beautiful indeed.'

'Then I have the background, the two arms of the rivet with their
quays, the Cite, rising up triumphantly in the centre, and standing
out against the sky. Ah! that background, what a marvel! People see it
every day, pass before it without stopping; but it takes hold of one
all the same; one's admiration accumulates, and one fine afternoon it
bursts forth. Nothing in the world can be grander; it is Paris
herself, glorious in the sunlight. Ah! what a fool I was not to think
of it before! How many times I have looked at it without seeing!
However, I stumbled on it after that ramble along the quays! And, do
you remember, there's a dash of shadow on that side; while here the
sunrays fall quite straight. The towers are yonder; the spire of the
Sainte-Chapelle tapers upward, as slim as a needle pointing to the
sky. But no, it's more to the right. Wait, I'll show you.'

He began again, never wearying, but constantly retouching the sketch,
and adding innumerable little characteristic details which his
painter's eye had noticed; here the red signboard of a distant shop
vibrated in the light; closer by was a greenish bit of the Seine, on
whose surface large patches of oil seemed to be floating; and then
there was the delicate tone of a tree, the gamut of greys supplied by
the house frontages, and the luminous cast of the sky. She
complaisantly approved of all he said and tried to look delighted.

But Jacques once again forgot what he had been told. After long
remaining silent before his book, absorbed in the contemplation of a
wood-cut depicting a black cat, he began to hum some words of his own
composition: 'Oh, you pretty cat; oh, you ugly cat; oh, you pretty,
ugly cat,' and so on, _ad infinitum_, ever in the same lugubrious
manner.

Claude, who was made fidgety by the buzzing noise, did not at first
understand what was upsetting him. But after a time the child's
harassing phrase fell clearly upon his ear.

'Haven't you done worrying us with your cat?' he shouted furiously.

'Hold your tongue, Jacques, when your father is talking!' repeated
Christine.

Upon my word, I do believe he is becoming an idiot. Just look at his
head, if it isn't like an idiot's. It's dreadful. Just say; what do
you mean by your pretty and ugly cat?'

The little fellow, turning pale and wagging his big head, looked
stupid, and replied: 'Don't know.'

Then, as his father and mother gazed at each other with a discouraged
air, he rested his cheek on the open picture-book, and remained like
that, neither stirring nor speaking, but with his eyes wide open.

It was getting late; Christine wanted to put him to bed, but Claude
had already resumed his explanations. He now told her that, the very
next morning, he should go and make a sketch on the spot, just in
order to fix his ideas. And, as he rattled on, he began to talk of
buying a small camp easel, a thing upon which he had set his heart for
months. He kept harping on the subject, and spoke of money matters
till she at last became embarrassed, and ended by telling him of
everything--the last copper she had spent that morning, and the silk
dress she had pledged in order to dine that evening. Thereupon he
became very remorseful and affectionate; he kissed her and asked her
forgiveness for having complained about the dinner. She would excuse
him, surely; he would have killed father and mother, as he kept on
repeating, when that confounded painting got hold of him. As for the
pawn-shop, it made him laugh; he defied misery.

'I tell you that we are all right,' he exclaimed. 'That picture means
success.'

She kept silent, thinking about her meeting of the morning, which she
wished to hide from him; but without apparent cause or transition, in
the kind of torpor that had come over her, the words she would have
kept back rose invincibly to her lips.

'Madame Vanzade is dead,' she said.

He looked surprised. Ah! really? How did she, Christine, know it?

'I met the old man-servant. Oh, he's a gentleman by now, looking very
sprightly, in spite of his seventy years. I did not know him again. It
was he who spoke to me. Yes, she died six weeks ago. Her millions have
gone to various charities, with the exception of an annuity to the old
servants, upon which they are living snugly like people of the
middle-classes.'

He looked at her, and at last murmured, in a saddened voice: 'My poor
Christine, you are regretting things now, aren't you? She would have
given you a marriage portion, have found you a husband! I told you so
in days gone by. She would, perhaps, have left you all her money, and
you wouldn't now be starving with a crazy fellow like myself.'

She then seemed to wake from her dream. She drew her chair to his,
caught hold of one of his arms and nestled against him, as if her
whole being protested against his words:

'What are you saying? Oh! no; oh! no. It would have been shameful to
have thought of her money. I would confess it to you if it were the
case, and you know that I never tell lies; but I myself don't know
what came over me when I heard the news. I felt upset and saddened, so
sad that I imagined everything was over for me. It was no doubt
remorse; yes, remorse at having deserted her so brutally, poor invalid
that she was, the good old soul who called me her daughter! I behaved
very badly, and it won't bring me luck. Ah! don't say "No," I feel it
well enough; henceforth there's an end to everything for me.'

Then she wept, choked by those confused regrets, the significance of
which she failed to understand, regrets mingling with the one feeling
that her life was spoilt, and that she now had nothing but unhappiness
before her.

'Come, wipe your eyes,' said Claude, becoming affectionate once more.
'Is it possible that you, who were never nervous, can conjure up
chimeras and worry yourself in this way? Dash it all, we shall get out
of our difficulties! First of all, you know that it was through you
that I found the subject for my picture. There cannot be much of a
curse upon you, since you bring me luck.'

He laughed, and she shook her head, seeing well enough that he wanted
to make her smile. She was suffering on account of his picture
already; for on the bridge he had completely forgotten her, as if she
had ceased to belong to him! And, since the previous night, she had
realised that he was farther and farther removed from her, alone in a
world to which she could not ascend. But she allowed him to soothe
her, and they exchanged one of their kisses of yore, before rising
from the table to retire to rest.

Little Jacques had heard nothing. Benumbed by his stillness, he had
fallen asleep, with his cheek on his picture-book; and his big head,
so heavy at times that it bent his neck, looked pale in the lamplight.
Poor little offspring of genius, which, when it begets at all, so
often begets idiocy or physical imperfection! When his mother put him
to bed Jacques did not even open his eyes.

It was only at this period that the idea of marrying Christine came to
Claude. Though yielding to the advice of Sandoz, who expressed his
surprise at the prolongation of an irregular situation which no
circumstances justified, he more particularly gave way to a feeling of
pity, to a desire to show himself kind to his mistress, and to win
forgiveness for his delinquencies. He had seen her so sad of late, so
uneasy with respect to the future, that he did not know how to revive
her spirits. He himself was growing soured, and relapsing into his
former fits of anger, treating her, at times, like a servant, to whom
one flings a week's notice. Being his lawful wife, she would, no
doubt, feel herself more in her rightful home, and would suffer less
from his rough behaviour. She herself, for that matter, had never
again spoken of marriage. She seemed to care nothing for earthly
things, but entirely reposed upon him; however, he understood well
enough that it grieved her that she was not able to visit at Sandoz's.
Besides, they no longer lived amid the freedom and solitude of the
country; they were in Paris, with its thousand and one petty spites,
everything that is calculated to wound a woman in an irregular
position. In reality, he had nothing against marriage save his old
prejudices, those of an artist who takes life as he lists. Since he
was never to leave her, why not afford her that pleasure? And, in
fact, when he spoke to her about it, she gave a loud cry and threw her
arms round his neck, surprised at experiencing such great emotion.
During a whole week it made her feel thoroughly happy. But her joy
subsided long before the ceremony.

Moreover, Claude did not hurry over any of the formalities, and they
had to wait a long while for the necessary papers. He continued
getting the sketches for his picture together, and she, like himself,
did not seem in the least impatient. What was the good? It would
assuredly make no difference in their life. They had decided to be
married merely at the municipal offices, not in view of displaying any
contempt for religion, but to get the affair over quickly and simply.
That would suffice. The question of witnesses embarrassed them for a
moment. As she was absolutely unacquainted with anybody, he selected
Sandoz and Mahoudeau to act for her. For a moment he had thought of
replacing the latter by Dubuche, but he never saw the architect now,
and he feared to compromise him. He, Claude, would be content with
Jory and Gagniere. In that way the affair would pass off among
friends, and nobody would talk of it.

Several weeks had gone by; they were in December, and the weather
proved terribly cold. On the day before the wedding, although they
barely had thirty-five francs left them, they agreed that they could
not send their witnesses away with a mere shake of the hand; and,
rather than have a lot of trouble in the studio, they decided to offer
them lunch at a small restaurant on the Boulevard de Clichy, after
which they would all go home.

In the morning, while Christine was tacking a collar to a grey linsey
gown which, with the coquetry of woman, she had made for the occasion,
it occurred to Claude, who was already wearing his frock-coat and
kicking his heels impatiently, to go and fetch Mahoudeau, for the
latter, he asserted, was quite capable of forgetting all about the
appointment. Since autumn, the sculptor had been living at Montmartre,
in a small studio in the Rue des Tilleuls. He had moved thither in
consequence of a series of affairs that had quite upset him. First of
all, he had been turned out of the fruiterer's shop in the Rue du
Cherche-Midi for not paying his rent; then had come a definite rupture
with Chaine, who, despairing of being able to live by his brush, had
rushed into commercial enterprise, betaking himself to all the fairs
around Paris as the manager of a kind of 'fortune's wheel' belonging
to a widow; while last of all had come the sudden flight of Mathilde,
her herbalist's business sold up, and she herself disappearing, it
seemed, with some mysterious admirer. At present Mahoudeau lived all
by himself in greater misery than ever, only eating when he secured a
job at scraping some architectural ornaments, or preparing work for
some more prosperous fellow-sculptor.

'I am going to fetch him, do you hear?' Claude repeated to Christine.
'We still have a couple of hours before us. And, if the others come,
make them wait. We'll go to the municipal offices all together.'

Once outside, Claude hurried along in the nipping cold which loaded
his moustache with icicles. Mahoudeau's studio was at the end of a
conglomeration of tenements--'rents,' so to say--and he had to cross a
number of small gardens, white with rime, and showing the bleak, stiff
melancholy of cemeteries. He could distinguish his friend's place from
afar on account of the colossal plaster statue of the 'Vintaging
Girl,' the once successful exhibit of the Salon, for which there had
not been sufficient space in the narrow ground-floor studio. Thus it
was rotting out in the open like so much rubbish shot from a cart, a
lamentable spectacle, weather-bitten, riddled by the rain's big, grimy
tears. The key was in the door, so Claude went in.

'Hallo! have you come to fetch me?' said Mahoudeau, in surprise. 'I've
only got my hat to put on. But wait a bit, I was asking myself whether
it wouldn't be better to light a little fire. I am uneasy about my
woman there.'

Some water in a bucket was ice-bound. So cold was the studio that it
froze inside as hard as it did out of doors, for, having been
penniless for a whole week, Mahoudeau had gingerly eked out the little
coal remaining to him, only lighting the stove for an hour or two of a
morning. His studio was a kind of tragic cavern, compared with which
the shop of former days evoked reminiscences of snug comfort, such was
the tomb-like chill that fell on one's shoulders from the creviced
ceiling and the bare walls. In the various corners some statues, of
less bulky dimensions than the 'Vintaging Girl,' plaster figures which
had been modelled with passion and exhibited, and which had then come
back for want of buyers, seemed to be shivering with their noses
turned to the wall, forming a melancholy row of cripples, some already
badly damaged, showing mere stumps of arms, and all dust-begrimed and
clay-bespattered. Under the eyes of their artist creator, who had
given them his heart's blood, those wretched nudities dragged out
years of agony. At first, no doubt, they were preserved with jealous
care, despite the lack of room, but then they lapsed into the
grotesque honor of all lifeless things, until a day came when, taking
up a mallet, he himself finished them off, breaking them into mere
lumps of plaster, so as to be rid of them.

'You say we have got two hours, eh?' resumed Mahoudeau. 'Well, I'll
just light a bit of fire; it will be the wiser perhaps.'

Then, while lighting the stove, he began bewailing his fate in an
angry voice. What a dog's life a sculptor's was! The most bungling
stonemason was better off. A figure which the Government bought for
three thousand francs cost well nigh two thousand, what with its
model, clay, marble or bronze, all sorts of expenses, indeed, and for
all that it remained buried in some official cellar on the pretext
that there was no room for it elsewhere. The niches of the public
buildings remained empty, pedestals were awaiting statues in the
public gardens. No matter, there was never any room! And there were no
possible commissions from private people; at best one received an
order for a few busts, and at very rare intervals one for a memorial
statue, subscribed for by the public and hurriedly executed at reduced
terms. Sculpture was the noblest of arts, the most manly, yes, but the
one which led the most surely to death by starvation!

'Is your machine progressing?' asked Claude.

'Without this confounded cold, it would be finished,' answered
Mahoudeau. 'I'll show it you.'

He rose from his knees after listening to the snorting of the stove.
In the middle of the studio, on a packing-case, strengthened by
cross-pieces, stood a statue swathed is linen wraps which were quite
rigid, hard frozen, draping the figure with the whiteness of a shroud.
This statue embodied Mahoudeau's old dream, unrealised until now from
lack of means--it was an upright figure of that bathing girl of whom
more than a dozen small models had been knocking about his place for
years. In a moment of impatient revolt he himself had manufactured
trusses and stays out of broom-handles, dispensing with the necessary
iron work in the hope that the wood would prove sufficiently solid.
From time to time he shook the figure to try it, but as yet it had not
budged.

'The devil!' he muttered; 'some warmth will do her good. These wraps
seem glued to her--they form quite a breastplate.'

The linen was crackling between his fingers, and splinters of ice were
breaking off. He was obliged to wait until the heat produced a slight
thaw, and then with great care he stripped the figure, baring the head
first, then the bosom, and then the hips, well pleased at finding
everything intact, and smiling like a lover at a woman fondly adored.

'Well, what do you think of it?'

Claude, who had only previously seen a little rough model of the
statue, nodded his head, in order that he might not have to answer
immediately. Decidedly, that good fellow Mahoudeau was turning
traitor, and drifting towards gracefulness, in spite of himself, for
pretty things ever sprang from under his big fingers, former
stonecutter though he was. Since his colossal 'Vintaging Girl,' he had
gone on reducing and reducing the proportions of his figures without
appearing to be aware of it himself, always ready to stick out
ferociously for the gigantic, which agreed with his temperament, but
yielding to the partiality of his eyes for sweetness and gracefulness.
And indeed real nature broke at last through inflated ambition.
Exaggerated still, his 'Bathing Girl' was already possessed of great
charm, with her quivering shoulders and her tightly-crossed arms that
supported her breast.

'Well, you don't like her?' he asked, looking annoyed.

'Oh, yes, I do! I think you are right to tone things down a bit,
seeing that you feel like that. You'll have a great success with this.
Yes, it's evident it will please people very much.'

Mahoudeau, whom such praises would once have thrown into
consternation, seemed delighted. He explained that he wished to
conquer public opinion without relinquishing a tithe of his
convictions.

'Ah! dash it! it takes a weight off my mind to find you pleased,' said
he, 'for I should have destroyed it if you had told me to do so, I
give you my word! Another fortnight's work, and I'll sell my skin to
no matter whom in order to pay the moulder. I say, I shall have a fine
show at the Salon, perhaps get a medal.'

He laughed, waved his arms about, and then, breaking off:

'As we are not in a hurry, sit down a bit. I want to get the wraps
quite thawed.'

The stove, which was becoming red hot, diffused great heat. The
figure, placed close by, seemed to revive under the warm air that now
crept up her from her shins to her neck. And the two friends, who had
sat down, continued looking the statue full in the face, chatting
about it and noting each detail. The sculptor especially grew excited
in his delight, and indulged in caressing gestures.

All at once, however, Claude fancied he was the victim of some
hallucination. To him the figure seemed to be moving; a quiver like
the ripple of a wavelet crossed her stomach, and her left hip became
straightened, as if the right leg were about to step out.

'Have you noticed the smooth surface just about the loins?' Mahoudeau
went on, without noticing anything. 'Ah, my boy, I took great pains
over that!'

But by degrees the whole statue was becoming animated. The loins
swayed and the bosom swelled, as with a deep sigh, between the parted
arms. And suddenly the head drooped, the thighs bent, and the figure
came forward like a living being, with all the wild anguish, the
grief-inspired spring of a woman who is flinging herself down.

Claude at last understood things, when Mahoudeau uttered a terrible
cry. 'By heavens, she's breaking to pieces!--she is coming down!'

The clay, in thawing, had snapped the weak wooden trusses. There came
a cracking noise, as if bones indeed were splitting; and Mahoudeau,
with the same passionate gesture with which he had caressed the figure
from afar, working himself into a fever, opened both arms, at the risk
of being killed by the fall. For a moment the bathing girl swayed to
and fro, and then with one crash came down on her face, broken in
twain at the ankles, and leaving her feet sticking to the boards.

Claude had jumped up to hold his friend back.

'Dash it! you'll be smashed!' he cried.

But dreading to see her finish herself off on the floor, Mahoudeau
remained with hands outstretched. And the girl seemed to fling herself
on his neck. He caught her in his arms, winding them tightly around
her. Her bosom was flattened against his shoulder and her thighs beat
against his own, while her decapitated head rolled upon the floor. The
shock was so violent that Mahoudeau was carried off his legs and
thrown over, as far back as the wall; and there, without relaxing his
hold on the girl's trunk, he remained as if stunned lying beside her.

'Ah! confound it!' repeated Claude, furiously, believing that his
friend was dead.

With great difficulty Mahoudeau rose to his knees, and burst into
violent sobs. He had only damaged his face in the fall. Some blood
dribbled down one of his cheeks, mingling with his tears.

'Ah! curse poverty!' he said. 'It's enough to make a fellow drown
himself not to be able to buy a couple of rods! And there she is,
there she is!'

His sobs grew louder; they became an agonising wail; the painful
shrieking of a lover before the mutilated corpse of his affections.
With unsteady hands he touched the limbs lying in confusion around
him; the head, the torso, the arms that had snapped in twain; above
aught else the bosom, now caved in. That bosom, flattened, as if it
had been operated upon for some terrible disease, suffocated him, and
he unceasingly returned to it, probing the sore, trying to find the
gash by which life had fled, while his tears, mingled with blood,
flowed freely, and stained the statue's gaping wounds with red.

'Do help me!' he gasped. 'One can't leave her like this.'

Claude was overcome also, and his own eyes grew moist from a feeling
of artistic brotherliness. He hastened to his comrade's aide, but the
sculptor, after claiming his assistance, persisted in picking up the
remains by himself, as if dreading the rough handling of anybody else.
He slowly crawled about on his knees, took up the fragments one by
one, and put them together on a board. The figure soon lay there in
its entirety, as if it had been one of those girls who, committing
suicide from love, throw themselves from some monument and are
shattered by their fall, and put together again, looking both
grotesque and lamentable, to be carried to the Morgue. Mahoudeau,
seated on the floor before his statue, did not take his eyes from it,
but became absorbed in heart-rending contemplation. However, his sobs
subsided, and at last he said with a long-drawn sigh: 'I shall have to
model her lying down! There's no other way! Ah, my poor old woman, I
had such trouble to set her on her legs, and I thought her so grand
like that!'

But all at once Claude grew uneasy. What about his wedding? Mahoudeau
must change his clothes. As he had no other frock-coat than the one he
was wearing, he was obliged to make a jacket do. Then, the figure
having been covered with linen wraps once more, like a corpse over
which a sheet has been pulled, they both started off at a run. The
stove was roaring away, the thaw filled the whole studio with water,
and slush streamed from the old dust-begrimed plaster casts.

When they reached the Rue de Douai there was no one there except
little Jacques, in charge of the doorkeeper. Christine, tired of
waiting, had just started off with the three others, thinking that
there had been some mistake--that Claude might have told her that he
would go straight to the mayor's offices with Mahoudeau. The pair fell
into a sharp trot, but only overtook Christine and their comrades in
the Rue Drouot in front of the municipal edifice. They all went
upstairs together, and as they were late they met with a very cool
reception from the usher on duty. The wedding was got over in a few
minutes, in a perfectly empty room. The mayor mumbled on, and the
bride and bridegroom curtly uttered the binding 'Yes,' while their
witnesses were marvelling at the bad taste of the appointments of the
apartment. Once outside, Claude took Christine's arm again, and that
was all.

It was pleasant walking in the clear frosty weather. Thus the party
quietly went back on foot, climbing the Rue des Martyrs to reach the
restaurant on the Boulevard de Clichy. A small private room had been
engaged; the lunch was a very friendly affair, and not a word was said
about the simple formality that had just been gone through; other
subjects were spoken of all the while, as at one of their customary
gatherings.

It was thus that Christine, who in reality was very affected despite
her pretended indifference, heard her husband and his friends excite
themselves for three mortal hours about Mahoudeau's unfortunate
statue. Since the others had been made acquainted with the story, they
kept harping on every particular of it. Sandoz thought the whole thing
very wonderful; Jory and Gagniere discussed the strength of stays and
trusses; the former mainly concerned about the monetary loss involved,
and the other demonstrating with a chair that the statue might have
been kept up. As for Mahoudeau, still very shaky and growing dazed; he
complained of a stiffness which he had not felt before; his limbs
began to hurt him, he had strained his muscles and bruised his skin as
if he had been caught in the embrace of a stone siren. Christine
washed the scratch on his cheek, which had begun to bleed again, and
it seemed to her as if the mutilated bathing girl had sat down to
table with them, as if she alone was of any importance that day; for
she alone seemed to interest Claude, whose narrative, repeated a score
of times, was full of endless particulars about the emotion he had
felt on seeing that bosom and those hips of clay shattered at his
feet.

However, at dessert there came a diversion, for Gagniere all at once
remarked to Jory:

'By the way, I saw you with Mathilde the day before yesterday. Yes,
yes, in the Rue Dauphine.'

Jory, who had turned very red, tried to deny it; 'Oh, a mere
accidental meeting--honour bright!' he stammered. 'I don't know where
she hangs out, or I would tell you.'

'What! is it you who are hiding her?' exclaimed Mahoudeau. 'Well,
nobody wants to see her again!'

The truth was that Jory, throwing to the winds all his habits of
prudence and parsimony, was now secretly providing for Mathilde. She
had gained an ascendency over him by his vices.

They still lingered at table, and night was falling when they escorted
Mahoudeau to his own door. Claude and Christine, on reaching home,
took Jacques from the doorkeeper, and found the studio quite chilly,
wrapped in such dense gloom that they had to grope about for several
minutes before they were able to light the lamp. They also had to
light the stove again, and it struck seven o'clock before they were
able to draw breath at their ease. They were not hungry, so they
merely finished the remains of some boiled beef, mainly by way of
encouraging the child to eat his soup; and when they had put him to
bed, they settled themselves with the lamp betwixt them, as was their
habit every evening.

However, Christine had not put out any work, she felt too much moved
to sew. She sat there with her hands resting idly on the table,
looking at Claude, who on his side had at once become absorbed in a
sketch, a bit of his picture, some workmen of the Port Saint Nicolas,
unloading plaster. Invincible dreaminess came over the young woman,
all sorts of recollections and regrets became apparent in the depths
of her dim eyes; and by degrees growing sadness, great mute grief took
absolute possession of her, amid the indifference, the boundless
solitude into which she seemed to be drifting, although she was so
near to Claude. He was, indeed, on the other side of the table, yet
how far away she felt him to be! He was yonder before that point of
the Cite, he was even farther still, in the infinite inaccessible
regions of art; so far, indeed, that she would now never more be able
to join him! She several times tried to start a conversation, but
without eliciting any answer. The hours went by, she grew weary and
numb with doing nothing, and she ended by taking out her purse and
counting her money.

'Do you know how much we have to begin our married life with?'

Claude did not even raise his head.

'We've nine sous. Ah! talk of poverty--'

He shrugged his shoulders, and finally growled: 'We shall be rich some
day; don't fret.'

Then the silence fell again, and she did not even attempt to break it,
but gazed at her nine coppers laid in a row upon the table. At last,
as it struck midnight, she shivered, ill with waiting and chilled by
the cold.

'Let's go to bed, dear,' she murmured; 'I'm dead tired.'

He, however, was working frantically, and did not even hear her.

'The fire's gone out,' she began again, 'we shall make ourselves ill;
let's go to bed.'

Her imploring voice reached him at last, and made him start with
sudden exasperation.

'Oh! go if you like! You can see very well that I want to finish
something!'

She remained there for another minute, amazed by his sudden anger, her
face expressive of deep sorrow. Then, feeling that he would rather be
without her, that the very presence of a woman doing nothing upset
him, she rose from the table and went off, leaving the door wide open.
Half an hour, three-quarters went by, nothing stirred, not a sound
came from her room; but she was not asleep, her eyes were staring into
the gloom; and at last she timidly ventured upon a final appeal, from
the depths of the dark alcove.

An oath was the only reply she received. And nothing stirred after
that. She perhaps dozed off. The cold in the studio grew keener, and
the wick of the lamp began to carbonise and burn red, while Claude,
still bending over his sketch, did not seem conscious of the passing
minutes.

At two o'clock, however, he rose up, furious to find the lamp going
out for lack of oil. He only had time to take it into the other room,
so that he might not have to undress in the dark. But his displeasure
increased on seeing that Christine's eyes were wide open. He felt
inclined to complain of it. However, after some random remarks, he
suddenly exclaimed:

'The most surprising thing is that her trunk wasn't hurt!'

'What do you mean?' asked Christine, in amazement.

'Why, Mahoudeau's girl,' he answered.

At this she shook nervously, turned and buried her face in the pillow;
and he was quite surprised on hearing her burst into sobs.

'What! you are crying?' he exclaimed.

She was choking, sobbing with heart-rending violence.

'Come, what's the matter with you?--I've said nothing to you. Come,
darling, what's the matter?'

But, while he was speaking, the cause of her great grief dawned upon
him. No doubt, on a day like that, he ought to have shown more
affection; but his neglect was unintentional enough; he had not even
given the matter a thought. She surely knew him, said he; he became a
downright brute when he was at work. Then he bent over and embraced
her. But it was as if something irreparable had taken place, as if
something had for ever snapped, leaving a void between them. The
formality of marriage seemed to have killed love.

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