THE beginning of the week proved disastrous to Claude. He had relapsed
into one of those periods of self-doubt that made him hate painting,
with the hatred of a lover betrayed, who overwhelms the faithless one
with insults although tortured by an uncontrollable desire to worship
her yet again. So on the Thursday, after three frightful days of
fruitless and solitary battling, he left home as early as eight in
the morning, banging his door violently, and feeling so disgusted with
himself that he swore he would never take up a brush again. When he was
unhinged by one of these attacks there was but one remedy, he had to
forget himself, and, to do so, it was needful that he should look up
some comrades with whom to quarrel, and, above all, walk about and
trudge across Paris, until the heat and odour of battle rising from her
paving-stones put heart into him again.
That day, like every other Thursday, he was to dine at Sandoz’s, in
company with their friends. But what was he to do until the evening? The
idea of remaining by himself, of eating his heart out, disgusted him.
He would have gone straight to his friend, only he knew that the latter
must be at his office. Then the thought of Dubuche occurred to him, but
he hesitated, for their old friendship had lately been cooling down.
He felt that the fraternity of the earlier times of effort no longer
existed between them. He guessed that Dubuche lacked intelligence, had
become covertly hostile, and was occupied with ambitions different from
his own. However, he, Claude, must go somewhere. So he made up his mind,
and repaired to the Rue Jacob, where the architect rented a small room
on the sixth floor of a big frigid-looking house.
Claude was already on the landing of the second floor, when the
doorkeeper, calling him back, snappishly told him that M. Dubuche was
not at home, and had, in fact, stayed out all night. The young man
slowly descended the stairs and found himself in the street, stupefied,
as it were, by so prodigious an event as an escapade on the part of
Dubuche. It was a piece of inconceivable bad luck. For a moment he
strolled along aimlessly; but, as he paused at the corner of the Rue
de Seine, not knowing which way to go, he suddenly recollected what his
friend had told him about a certain night spent at the Dequersonnière
studio--a night of terrible hard work, the eve of the day on which the
pupils’ designs had to be deposited at the School of Arts. At once he
walked towards the Rue du Four, where the studio was situated. Hitherto
he had carefully abstained from calling there for Dubuche, from fear of
the yells with which outsiders were greeted. But now he made straight
for the place without flinching, his timidity disappearing so thoroughly
before the anguish of loneliness that he felt ready to undergo any
amount of insult could he but secure a companion in misfortune.
The studio was situated in the narrowest part of the Rue du Four, at
the far end of a decrepit, tumble-down building. Claude had to cross two
evil-smelling courtyards to reach a third, across which ran a sort of
big closed shed, a huge out-house of board and plaster work, which had
once served as a packing-case maker’s workshop. From outside, through
the four large windows, whose panes were daubed with a coating of white
lead, nothing could be seen but the bare whitewashed ceiling.
Having pushed the door open, Claude remained motionless on the
threshold. The place stretched out before him, with its four long tables
ranged lengthwise to the windows--broad double tables they were, which
had swarms of students on either side, and were littered with moist
sponges, paint saucers, iron candlesticks, water bowls, and wooden
boxes, in which each pupil kept his white linen blouse, his compasses,
and colours. In one corner, the stove, neglected since the previous
winter, stood rusting by the side of a pile of coke that had not been
swept away; while at the other end a large iron cistern with a tap was
suspended between two towels. And amidst the bare untidiness of this
shed, the eye was especially attracted by the walls which, above,
displayed a litter of plaster casts ranged in haphazard fashion on
shelves, and disappeared lower down behind forests of T-squares and
bevels, and piles of drawing boards, tied together with webbing straps.
Bit by bit, such parts of the partitions as had remained unoccupied
had become covered with inscriptions and drawings, a constantly rising
flotsam and jetsam of scrawls traced there as on the margin of an
ever-open book. There were caricatures of the students themselves,
coarse witticisms fit to make a gendarme turn pale, epigrammatic
sentences, addition sums, addresses, and so forth; while, above all
else, written in big letters, and occupying the most prominent place,
appeared this inscription: ‘On the 7th of June, Gorfu declared that he
didn’t care a hang for Rome.--Signed, Godemard.’*
* The allusion is to the French Art School at Rome, and the
competitions into which students enter to obtain admission
to it, or to secure the prizes offered for the best exhibits
which, during their term of residence, they send to Paris.--ED.
Claude was greeted with a growl like that of wild beasts disturbed in
their lair. What kept him motionless was the strange aspect of this
place on the morning of the ‘truck night,’ as the embryo architects
termed the crucial night of labour. Since the previous evening, the
whole studio, some sixty pupils, had been shut up there; those who had
no designs to exhibit--‘the niggers,’ as they were called remaining to
help the others, the competitors who, being behind time, had to knock
off the work of a week in a dozen hours. Already, at midnight, they had
stuffed themselves with brawn, saveloys, and similar viands, washed down
with cheap wine. Towards one o’clock they had secured the company of
some ‘ladies’; and, without the work abating, the feast had turned into
a Roman orgy, blended with a smoking competition. On the damp, stained
floor there remained a great litter of greasy paper and broken bottles;
while the atmosphere reeked of burnt tallow, musk, highly seasoned
sausages, and cheap bluish wine.
And now many voices savagely yelled: ‘Turn him out. Oh, that mug! What
does he want, that guy? Turn him out, turn him out.’
For a moment Claude, quite dazed, staggered beneath the violence of the
onslaught. But the epithets became viler, for the acme of elegance,
even for the more refined among these young fellows, was to rival
one’s friends in beastly language. He was, nevertheless, recovering
and beginning to answer, when Dubuche recognised him. The latter turned
crimson, for he detested that kind of adventure. He felt ashamed of
his friend, and rushed towards him, amidst the jeers, which were now
levelled at himself:
‘What, is it you?’ he gasped. ‘I told you never to come in. Just wait
for me a minute in the yard.’
At that moment, Claude, who was stepping back, narrowly escaped being
knocked down by a little hand-truck which two big full-bearded fellows
brought up at a gallop. It was from this truck that the night of heavy
toil derived its name: and for the last week the students who had got
behindhand with their work, through taking up petty paid jobs outside,
had been repeating the cry, ‘Oh! I’m in the truck and no mistake.’ The
moment the vehicle appeared, a clamour arose. It was a quarter to nine
o’clock, there was barely time to reach the School of Arts. However,
a helter-skelter rush emptied the studio; each brought out his chases,
amidst a general jostling; those who obstinately wished to give their
designs a last finishing touch were knocked about and carried away with
their comrades. In less than five minutes every frame was piled upon
the truck, and the two bearded fellows, the most recent additions to the
studio, harnessed themselves to it like cattle and drew it along with
all their strength, the others vociferating, and pushing from behind. It
was like the rush of a sluice; the three courtyards were crossed amidst
a torrential crash, and the street was invaded, flooded by the howling
throng.
Claude, nevertheless, had set up running by the side of Dubuche, who
came at the fag-end, very vexed at not having had another quarter of an
hour to finish a tinted drawing more carefully.
‘What are you going to do afterwards?’ asked Claude.
‘Oh! I’ve errands which will take up my whole day.’
The painter was grieved to see that even this friend escaped him. ‘All
right, then,’ said he; ‘in that case I leave you. Shall we see you at
Sandoz’s to-night?’
‘Yes, I think so; unless I’m kept to dinner elsewhere.’
Both were getting out of breath. The band of embryo architects, without
slackening their pace, had purposely taken the longest way round for the
pleasure of prolonging their uproar. After rushing down the Rue du Four,
they dashed across the Place Gozlin and swept into the Rue de l’Echaude.
Heading the procession was the truck, drawn and pushed along more and
more vigorously, and constantly rebounding over the rough paving-stones,
amid the jolting of the frames with which it was laden. Its escort
galloped along madly, compelling the passers-by to draw back close to
the houses in order to save themselves from being knocked down; while
the shop-keepers, standing open-mouthed on their doorsteps, believed
in a revolution. The whole neighbourhood seemed topsy-turvy. In the
Rue Jacob, such was the rush, so frightful were the yells, that several
house shutters were hastily closed. As the Rue Bonaparte was, at last,
being reached, one tall, fair fellow thought it a good joke to catch
hold of a little servant girl who stood bewildered on the pavement, and
drag her along with them, like a wisp of straw caught in a torrent.
‘Well,’ said Claude, ‘good-bye, then; I’ll see you to-night.’
‘Yes, to-night.’
The painter, out of breath, had stopped at the corner of the Rue des
Beaux Arts. The court gates of the Art School stood wide open in front
of him, and the procession plunged into the yard.
After drawing breath, Claude retraced his steps to the Rue de Seine. His
bad luck was increasing; it seemed ordained that he should not be able
to beguile a chum from work that morning. So he went up the street, and
slowly walked on as far as the Place du Pantheon, without any definite
aim. Then it occurred to him that he might just look into the Municipal
Offices, if only to shake hands with Sandoz. That would, at any rate,
mean ten minutes well spent. But he positively gasped when he was told
by an attendant that M. Sandoz had asked for a day off to attend a
funeral. However, he knew the trick of old. His friend always found the
same pretext whenever he wanted to do a good day’s work at home. He had
already made up his mind to join him there, when a feeling of artistic
brotherliness, the scruple of an honest worker, made him pause; yes, it
would be a crime to go and disturb that good fellow, and infect him with
the discouragement born of a difficult task, at the very moment when he
was, no doubt, manfully accomplishing his own work.
So Claude had to resign himself to his fate. He dragged his black
melancholy along the quays until mid-day, his head so heavy, so full
of thoughts of his lack of power, that he only espied the well-loved
horizons of the Seine through a mist. Then he found himself once more
in the Rue de la Femme-sans-Tête, where he breakfasted at Gomard’s wine
shop, whose sign ‘The Dog of Montargis,’ inspired him with interest.
Some stonemasons, in their working blouses, bespattered with mortar,
were there at table, and, like them, and with them, he ate his eight
sous’ ‘ordinary’--some beef broth in a bowl, in which he soaked some
bread, followed by a slice of boiled soup-beef, garnished with haricot
beans, and served up on a plate damp with dish-water. However, it
was still too good, he thought, for a brute unable to earn his bread.
Whenever his work miscarried, he undervalued himself, ranked himself
lower than a common labourer, whose sinewy arms could at least perform
their appointed task. For an hour he lingered in the tavern brutifying
himself by listening to the conversation at the tables around him. Once
outside he slowly resumed his walk in haphazard fashion.
When he got to the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, however, a fresh idea made
him quicken his pace. Why had he not thought of Fagerolles? Fagerolles
was a nice fellow, gay, and by no means a fool, although he studied at
the School of Arts. One could talk with him, even when he defended
bad painting. If he had lunched at his father’s, in the Rue
Vieille-du-Temple, he must certainly still be there.
On entering the narrow street, Claude felt a sensation of refreshing
coolness come over him. In the sun it had grown very warm, and moisture
rose from the pavement, which, however bright the sky, remained damp and
greasy beneath the constant tramping of the pedestrians. Every minute,
when a push obliged Claude to leave the footwalk, he found himself in
danger of being knocked down by trucks or vans. Still the street amused
him, with its straggling houses out of line, their flat frontages
chequered with signboards up to the very eaves, and pierced with small
windows, whence came the hum of every kind of handiwork that can be
carried on at home. In one of the narrowest parts of the street a small
newspaper shop made him stop. It was betwixt a hairdresser’s and a
tripeseller’s, and had an outdoor display of idiotic prints, romantic
balderdash mixed with filthy caricatures fit for a barrack-room. In
front of these ‘pictures,’ a lank hobbledehoy stood lost in reverie,
while two young girls nudged each other and jeered. He felt inclined to
slap their faces, but he hurried across the road, for Fagerolles’ house
happened to be opposite. It was a dark old tenement, standing forward
from the others, and was bespattered like them with the mud from the
gutters. As an omnibus came up, Claude barely had time to jump upon the
foot pavement, there reduced to the proportions of a simple ledge; the
wheels brushed against his chest, and he was drenched to his knees.
M. Fagerolles, senior, a manufacturer of artistic zinc-work, had his
workshops on the ground floor of the building, and having converted two
large front rooms on the first floor into a warehouse, he personally
occupied a small, dark, cellar-like apartment overlooking the courtyard.
It was there that his son Henri had grown up, like a true specimen of
the flora of the Paris streets, at the edge of that narrow pavement
constantly struck by the omnibus wheels, always soddened by the gutter
water, and opposite the print and newspaper shop, flanked by the
barber’s and tripeseller’s. At first his father had made an ornamental
draughtsman of him for personal use. But when the lad had developed
higher ambition, taking to painting proper, and talking about the School
of Arts, there had been quarrels, blows, a series of separations and
reconciliations. Even now, although Henri had already achieved some
successes, the manufacturer of artistic zinc-work, while letting him
have his will, treated him harshly, like a lad who was spoiling his
career.
After shaking off the water, Claude went up the deep archway entrance,
to a courtyard, where the light was quite greenish, and where there was
a dank, musty smell, like that at the bottom of a tank. There was an
overhanging roofing of glass and iron at the foot of the staircase,
which was a wide one, with a wrought-iron railing, eaten with rust. As
the painter passed the warehouse on the first floor, he glanced through
a glass door and noticed M. Fagerolles examining some patterns. Wishing
to be polite, he entered, in spite of the artistic disgust he felt for
all that zinc, coloured to imitate bronze, and having all the repulsive
mendacious prettiness of spurious art.
‘Good morning, monsieur. Is Henri still at home?’
The manufacturer, a stout, sallow-looking man, drew himself straight
amidst all his nosegay vases and cruets and statuettes. He had in
his hand a new model of a thermometer, formed of a juggling girl who
crouched and balanced the glass tube on her nose.
‘Henri did not come in to lunch,’ he answered drily.
This cool reception upset Claude. ‘Ah! he did not come back; I beg
pardon for having disturbed you, then. Good-day, monsieur.’
‘Good-day.’
Once more outside, Claude began to swear to himself. His ill-luck was
complete, Fagerolles escaped him also. He even felt vexed with himself
for having gone there, and having taken an interest in that picturesque
old street; he was infuriated by the romantic gangrene that ever
sprouted afresh within him, do what he might. It was his malady,
perhaps, the false principle which he sometimes felt like a bar across
his skull. And when he had reached the quays again, he thought of going
home to see whether his picture was really so very bad. But the mere
idea made him tremble all over. His studio seemed a chamber of horrors,
where he could no more continue to live, as if, indeed, he had left the
corpse of some beloved being there. No, no; to climb the three flights
of stairs, to open the door, to shut himself up face to face with
‘that,’ would have needed strength beyond his courage. So he crossed
the Seine and went along the Rue St. Jacques. He felt too wretched and
lonely; and, come what might, he would go to the Rue d’Enfer to turn
Sandoz from his work.
Sandoz’s little fourth-floor flat consisted of a dining-room, a bedroom,
and a strip of kitchen. It was tenanted by himself alone; his mother,
disabled by paralysis, occupied on the other side of the landing a
single room, where she lived in morose and voluntary solitude. The
street was a deserted one; the windows of the rooms overlooked the
gardens of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, above which rose the rounded crest
of a lofty tree, and the square tower of St. Jacques-du-Haut-Pas.
Claude found Sandoz in his room, bending over his table, busy with a
page of ‘copy.’
‘I am disturbing you?’ said Claude.
‘Not at all. I have been working ever since morning, and I’ve had enough
of it. I’ve been killing myself for the last hour over a sentence that
reads anyhow, and which has worried me all through my lunch.’
The painter made a gesture of despair, and the other, seeing him so
gloomy, at once understood matters.
‘You don’t get on either, eh? Well, let’s go out. A sharp walk will take
a little of the rust off us. Shall we go?’
As he was passing the kitchen, however, an old woman stopped him. It was
his charwoman, who, as a rule, came only for two hours in the morning
and two hours in the evening. On Thursdays, however, she remained the
whole afternoon in order to look after the dinner.
‘Then it’s decided, monsieur?’ she asked. ‘It’s to be a piece of skate
and a leg of mutton, with potatoes.’
‘Yes, if you like.’
‘For how many am I to lay the cloth?’
‘Oh! as for that, one never knows. Lay for five, at any rate; we’ll see
afterwards. Dinner at seven, eh? we’ll try to be home by then.’
When they were on the landing, Sandoz, leaving Claude to wait for
him, stole into his mother’s room. When he came out again, in the same
discreet affectionate manner, they both went downstairs in silence.
Outside, having sniffed to right and left, as if to see which way the
wind blew, they ended by going up the street, reached the Place de
l’Observatoire, and turned down the Boulevard du Montparnasse. This was
their ordinary promenade; they reached the spot instinctively, being
fond of the wide expanse of the outer boulevards, where they could roam
and lounge at ease. They continued silent, for their heads were heavy
still, but the comfort of being together gradually made them more
serene. Still it was only when they were opposite the Western Railway
Station that Sandoz spoke.
‘I say, suppose we go to Mahoudeau’s, to see how he’s getting on with
his big machine. I know that he has given “his gods and saints” the slip
to-day.’
‘All right,’ answered Claude. ‘Let’s go to Mahoudeau’s.’
They at once turned into the Rue du Cherche-Midi. There, at a few steps
from the boulevard, Mahoudeau, a sculptor, had rented the shop of a
fruiterer who had failed in business, and he had installed his studio
therein, contenting himself with covering the windows with a layer of
whitening. At this point, the street, wide and deserted, has a quiet,
provincial aspect, with a somewhat ecclesiastical touch. Large gateways
stand wide open showing a succession of deep roomy yards; from a
cowkeeper’s establishment comes a tepid, pungent smell of litter; and
the dead wall of a convent stretches away for a goodly length. It was
between this convent and a herbalist’s that the shop transformed into
a studio was situated. It still bore on its sign-board the inscription,
‘Fruit and Vegetables,’ in large yellow letters.
Claude and Sandoz narrowly missed being blinded by some little girls who
were skipping in the street. On the foot pavement sat several families
whose barricades of chairs compelled the friends to step down on to
the roadway. However, they were drawing nigh, when the sight of the
herbalist’s shop delayed them for a moment. Between its windows, decked
with enemas, bandages, and similar things, beneath the dried herbs
hanging above the doorway, whence came a constant aromatic smell, a
thin, dark woman stood taking stock of them, while, behind her, in
the gloom of the shop, one saw the vague silhouette of a little
sickly-looking man, who was coughing and expectorating. The friends
nudged each other, their eyes lighted up with bantering mirth; and then
they turned the handle of Mahoudeau’s door.
The shop, though tolerably roomy, was almost filled by a mass of clay:
a colossal Bacchante, falling back upon a rock. The wooden stays bent
beneath the weight of that almost shapeless pile, of which nothing but
some huge limbs could as yet be distinguished. Some water had been spilt
on the floor, several muddy buckets straggled here and there, while
a heap of moistened plaster was lying in a corner. On the shelves,
formerly occupied by fruit and vegetables, were scattered some casts
from the antique, covered with a tracery of cinder-like dust which had
gradually collected there. A wash-house kind of dampness, a stale
smell of moist clay, rose from the floor. And the wretchedness of this
sculptor’s studio and the dirt attendant upon the profession were made
still more conspicuous by the wan light that filtered through the shop
windows besmeared with whitening.
‘What! is it you?’ shouted Mahoudeau, who sat before his female figure,
smoking a pipe.
He was small and thin, with a bony face, already wrinkled at
twenty-seven. His black mane-like hair lay entangled over his very low
forehead, and his sallow mask, ugly almost to ferociousness, was lighted
up by a pair of childish eyes, bright and empty, which smiled with
winning simplicity. The son of a stonemason of Plassans, he had achieved
great success at the local art competitions, and had afterwards come to
Paris as the town laureate, with an allowance of eight hundred francs
per annum, for a period of four years. In the capital, however, he had
found himself at sea, defenceless, failing in his competitions at the
School of Arts, and spending his allowance to no purpose; so that, at
the end of his term, he had been obliged for a livelihood to enter the
employment of a dealer in church statues, at whose establishment,
for ten hours a day, he scraped away at St. Josephs, St. Rochs, Mary
Magdalens, and, in fact, all the saints of the calendar. For the last
six months, however, he had experienced a revival of ambition, on
finding himself once more among his comrades of Provence, the eldest of
whom he was--fellows whom he had known at Geraud’s boarding-school for
little boys, and who had since grown into savage revolutionaries. At
present, through his constant intercourse with impassioned artists, who
troubled his brain with all sorts of wild theories, his ambition aimed
at the gigantic.
‘The devil!’ said Claude, ‘there’s a lump.’
The sculptor, delighted, gave a long pull at his pipe, and blew a cloud
of smoke.
‘Eh, isn’t it? I am going to give them some flesh, and living flesh,
too; not the bladders of lard that they turn out.’
‘It’s a woman bathing, isn’t it?’ asked Sandoz.
‘No; I shall put some vine leaves around her head. A Bacchante, you
understand.’
At this Claude flew into a violent passion.
‘A Bacchante? Do you want to make fools of people? Does such a thing as
a Bacchante exist? A vintaging girl, eh? And quite modern, dash it all.
I know she’s nude, so let her be a peasant woman who has undressed.
And that must be properly conveyed, mind; people must realise that she
lives.’
Mahoudeau, taken aback, listened, trembling. He was afraid of Claude,
and bowed to his ideal of strength and truth. So he even improved upon
the painter’s idea.
‘Yes, yes, that’s what I meant to say--a vintaging girl. And you’ll see
whether there isn’t a real touch of woman about her.’
At that moment Sandoz, who had been making the tour of the huge block of
clay, exclaimed: ‘Why, here’s that sneak of a Chaîne.’
Behind the pile, indeed, sat Chaîne, a burly fellow who was quietly
painting away, copying the fireless rusty stove on a small canvas. It
could be told that he was a peasant by his heavy, deliberate manner and
his bull-neck, tanned and hardened like leather. His only noticeable
feature was his forehead, displaying all the bumps of obstinacy; for his
nose was so small as to be lost between his red cheeks, while a stiff
beard hid his powerful jaws. He came from Saint Firmin, a village about
six miles from Plassans, where he had been a cow-boy, until he drew for
the conscription; and his misfortunes dated from the enthusiasm that a
gentleman of the neighbourhood had shown for the walking-stick handles
which he carved out of roots with his knife. From that moment, having
become a rustic genius, an embryo great man for this local connoisseur,
who happened to be a member of the museum committee, he had been helped
by him, adulated and driven crazy with hopes; but he had successively
failed in everything--his studies and competitions--thus missing the
town’s purse. Nevertheless, he had started for Paris, after worrying his
father, a wretched peasant, into premature payment of his heritage, a
thousand francs, on which he reckoned to live for a twelvemonth while
awaiting the promised victory. The thousand francs had lasted eighteen
months. Then, as he had only twenty francs left, he had taken up his
quarters with his friend, Mahoudeau. They both slept in the same bed, in
the dark back shop; they both in turn cut slices from the same loaves
of bread--of which they bought sufficient for a fortnight at a time, so
that it might get very hard, and that they might thus be able to eat but
little of it.
‘I say, Chaîne,’ continued Sandoz, ‘your stove is really very exact.’
Chaîne, without answering, gave a chuckle of triumph which lighted up
his face like a sunbeam. By a crowning stroke of imbecility, and to
make his misfortunes perfect, his protector’s advice had thrown him into
painting, in spite of the real taste that he showed for wood carving.
And he painted like a whitewasher, mixing his colours as a hodman mixes
his mortar, and managing to make the clearest and brightest of them
quite muddy. His triumph consisted, however, in combining exactness
with awkwardness; he displayed all the naive minuteness of the primitive
painters; in fact, his mind, barely raised from the clods, delighted in
petty details. The stove, with its perspective all awry, was tame and
precise, and in colour as dingy as mire.
Claude approached and felt full of compassion at the sight of that
painting, and though he was as a rule so harsh towards bad painters, his
compassion prompted him to say a word of praise.
‘Ah! one can’t say that you are a trickster; you paint, at any rate, as
you feel. Very good, indeed.’
However, the door of the shop had opened, and a good-looking, fair
fellow, with a big pink nose, and large, blue, short-sighted eyes,
entered shouting:
‘I say, why does that herbalist woman next door always stand on her
doorstep? What an ugly mug she’s got!’
They all laughed, except Mahoudeau, who seemed very much embarrassed.
‘Jory, the King of Blunderers,’ declared Sandoz, shaking hands with the
new comer.
‘Why? What? Is Mahoudeau interested in her? I didn’t know,’ resumed
Jory, when he had at length grasped the situation. ‘Well, well, what
does it matter? When everything’s said, they are all irresistible.’
‘As for you,’ the sculptor rejoined, ‘I can see you have tumbled on your
lady-love’s finger-nails again. She has dug a bit out of your cheek!’
They all burst out laughing anew, while Jory, in his turn, reddened. In
fact, his face was scratched: there were even two deep gashes across it.
The son of a magistrate of Plassans, whom he had driven half-crazy by
his dissolute conduct, he had crowned everything by running away with
a music-hall singer under the pretext of going to Paris to follow the
literary profession. During the six months that they had been camping
together in a shady hotel of the Quartier Latin, the girl had almost
flayed him alive each time she caught him paying attention to anybody
else of her sex. And, as this often happened, he always had some fresh
scar to show--a bloody nose, a torn ear, or a damaged eye, swollen and
blackened.
At last they all began to talk, with the exception of Chaîne, who went
on painting with the determined expression of an ox at the plough. Jory
had at once gone into ecstasies over the roughly indicated figure of
the vintaging girl. He worshipped a massive style of beauty. His first
writings in his native town had been some Parnassian sonnets celebrating
the copious charms of a handsome pork-butcheress. In Paris--where he
had fallen in with the whole band of Plassans--he had taken to art
criticism, and, for a livelihood, he wrote articles for twenty francs
apiece in a small, slashing paper called ‘The Drummer.’ Indeed, one
of these articles, a study on a picture by Claude exhibited at Papa
Malgras’s, had just caused a tremendous scandal; for Jory had therein
run down all the painters whom the public appreciated to extol his
friend, whom he set up as the leader of a new school, the school of the
‘open air.’ Very practical at heart, he did not care in reality a rap
about anything that did not conduce to his own pleasures; he simply
repeated the theories he heard enunciated by his friends. ‘I say,
Mahoudeau,’ he now exclaimed, ‘you shall have an article; I’ll launch
that woman of yours. What limbs, my boys! She’s magnificent!’
Then suddenly changing the conversation: ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘my
miserly father has apologised. He is afraid I shall drag his name
through the mud, so he sends me a hundred francs a month now. I am
paying my debts.’
‘Debts! you are too careful to have any,’ muttered Sandoz, with a smile.
In fact, Jory displayed a hereditary tightness of fist which much amused
his friends. He managed to lead a profligate life without money and
without incurring debts; and with the skill he thus displayed was
allied constant duplicity, a habit of incessantly lying, which he had
contracted in the devout sphere of his family, where his anxiety to
hide his vices had made him lie about everything at all hours, and even
without occasion. But he now gave a superb reply, the cry of a sage of
deep experience.
‘Oh, you fellows, you don’t know the worth of money!’
This time he was hooted. What a philistine! And the invectives
continued, when some light taps on one of the window-panes suddenly made
the din cease.
‘She is really becoming a nuisance,’ said Mahoudeau, with a gesture of
annoyance.
‘Eh? Who is it? The herbalist woman?’ asked Jory. ‘Let her come in; it
will be great fun.’
The door indeed had already been opened, and Mahoudeau’s neighbour,
Madame Jabouille, or Mathilde, as she was familiarly called, appeared
on the threshold. She was about thirty, with a flat face horribly
emaciated, and passionate eyes, the lids of which had a bluish tinge as
if they were bruised. It was said that some members of the clergy had
brought about her marriage with little Jabouille, at a time when the
latter’s business was still flourishing, thanks to the custom of all
the pious folk of the neighbourhood. The truth was, that one sometimes
espied black cassocks stealthily crossing that mysterious shop, where
all the aromatic herbs set a perfume of incense. A kind of cloistral
quietude pervaded the place; the devotees who came in spoke in low
voices, as if in a confessional, slipped their purchases into their bags
furtively, and went off with downcast eyes. Unfortunately, some very
horrid rumours had got abroad--slander invented by the wine-shop
keeper opposite, said pious folks. At any rate, since the widower had
re-married, the business had been going to the dogs. The glass jars
seemed to have lost all their brightness, and the dried herbs, suspended
from the ceiling, were tumbling to dust. Jabouille himself was coughing
his life out, reduced to a very skeleton. And although Mathilde
professed to be religious, the pious customers gradually deserted
her, being of opinion that she made herself too conspicuous with young
fellows of the neighbourhood now that Jabouille was almost eaten out of
house and home.
For a moment Mathilde remained motionless, blinking her eyes. A pungent
smell had spread through the shop, a smell of simples, which she brought
with her in her clothes and greasy, tumbled hair; the sickly sweetness
of mallow, the sharp odour of elderseed, the bitter effluvia of rhubarb,
but, above all, the hot whiff of peppermint, which seemed like her very
breath.
She made a gesture of feigned surprise. ‘Oh, dear me! you have
company--I did not know; I’ll drop in again.’
‘Yes, do,’ said Mahoudeau, looking very vexed. ‘Besides, I am going out;
you can give me a sitting on Sunday.’
At this Claude, stupefied, fairly stared at the emaciated Mathilde, and
then at the huge vintaging woman.
‘What?’ he cried, ‘is it madame who poses for that figure? The dickens,
you exaggerate!’
Then the laughter began again, while the sculptor stammered his
explanations. ‘Oh! she only poses for the head and the hands, and merely
just to give me a few indications.’
Mathilde, however, laughed with the others, with a sharp, brazen-faced
laughter, showing the while the gaping holes in her mouth, where several
teeth were wanting.
‘Yes,’ resumed Mahoudeau. ‘I have to go out on some business now. Isn’t
it so, you fellows, we are expected over yonder?’
He had winked at his friends, feeling eager for a good lounge. They all
answered that they were expected, and helped him to cover the figure of
the vintaging girl with some strips of old linen which were soaking in a
pail of water.
However, Mathilde, looking submissive but sad, did not stir. She merely
shifted from one place to another, when they pushed against her, while
Chaîne, who was no longer painting, glanced at her over his picture. So
far, he had not opened his lips. But as Mahoudeau at last went off with
his three friends, he made up his mind to ask, in his husky voice:
‘Shall you come home to-night?’
‘Very late. Have your dinner and go to bed. Good-bye.’
Then Chaîne remained alone with Mathilde in the damp shop, amidst the
heaps of clay and the puddles of water, while the chalky light from the
whitened windows glared crudely over all the wretched untidiness.
Meantime the four others, Claude and Mahoudeau, Jory and Sandoz,
strolled along, seeming to take up the whole width of the Boulevard des
Invalides. It was the usual thing, the band was gradually increased by
the accession of comrades picked up on the way, and then came the wild
march of a horde upon the war-path. With the bold assurance of their
twenty summers, these young fellows took possession of the foot
pavement. The moment they were together trumpets seemed to sound in
advance of them; they seized upon Paris and quietly dropped it into
their pockets. There was no longer the slightest doubt about their
victory; they freely displayed their threadbare coats and old shoes,
like destined conquerors of to-morrow who disdained bagatelles, and
had only to take the trouble to become the masters of all the luxury
surrounding them. And all this was attended by huge contempt for
everything that was not art--contempt for fortune, contempt for the
world at large, and, above all, contempt for politics. What was the good
of all such rubbish? Only a lot of incapables meddled with it. A warped
view of things, magnificent in its very injustice, exalted them; an
intentional ignorance of the necessities of social life, the crazy dream
of having none but artists upon earth. They seemed very stupid at times,
but, all the same, their passion made them strong and brave.
Claude became excited. Faith in himself revived amidst the glow of
common hopes. His worry of the morning had only left a vague numbness
behind, and he now once more began to discuss his picture with Sandoz
and Mahoudeau, swearing, it is true, that he would destroy it the next
day. Jory, who was very short-sighted, stared at all the elderly ladies
he met, and aired his theories on artistic work. A man ought to give his
full measure at once in the first spurt of inspiration; as for himself,
he never corrected anything. And, still discussing, the four friends
went on down the boulevard, which, with its comparative solitude, and
its endless rows of fine trees, seemed to have been expressly designed
as an arena for their disputations. When they reached the Esplanade,
the wrangling became so violent that they stopped in the middle of that
large open space. Beside himself, Claude called Jory a numskull; was it
not better to destroy one’s work than to launch a mediocre performance
upon the world? Truckling to trade was really disgusting. Mahoudeau
and Sandoz, on their side, shouted both together at the same time. Some
passers-by, feeling uneasy, turned round to look, and at last gathered
round these furious young fellows, who seemed bent on swallowing each
other. But they went off vexed, thinking that some practical joke had
been played upon them, when they suddenly saw the quartette, all good
friends again, go into raptures over a wet-nurse, dressed in light
colours, with long cherry-tinted ribbons streaming from her cap. There,
now! That was something like--what a tint, what a bright note it set
amid the surroundings! Delighted, blinking their eyes, they followed the
nurse under the trees, and then suddenly seemed roused and astonished
to find they had already come so far. The Esplanade, open on all
sides, save on the south, where rose the distant pile of the Hôtel des
Invalides, delighted them--it was so vast, so quiet; they there had
plenty of room for their gestures; and they recovered breath there,
although they were always declaring that Paris was far too small for
them, and lacked sufficient air to inflate their ambitious lungs.
‘Are you going anywhere particular?’ asked Sandoz of Mahoudeau and Jory.
‘No,’ answered the latter, ‘we are going with you. Where are _you_
going?’
Claude, gazing carelessly about him, muttered: ‘I don’t know. That way,
if you like.’
They turned on to the Quai d’Orsay, and went as far as the Pont de la
Concorde. In front of the Corps Legislatif the painter remarked, with an
air of disgust: ‘What a hideous pile!’
‘Jules Favre made a fine speech the other day. How he did rile Rouher,’
said Jory.
However, the others left him no time to proceed, the disputes began
afresh. ‘Who was Jules Favre? Who was Rouher? Did they exist? A parcel
of idiots whom no one would remember ten years after their death.’ The
young men had now begun to cross the bridge, and they shrugged their
shoulders with compassion. Then, on reaching the Place de la Concorde,
they stopped short and relapsed into silence.
‘Well,’ opined Claude at last, ‘this isn’t bad, by any means.’
It was four o’clock, and the day was waning amidst a glorious powdery
shimmer. To the right and left, towards the Madeleine and towards the
Corps Legislatif, lines of buildings stretched away, showing against
the sky, while in the Tuileries Gardens rose gradients of lofty rounded
chestnut trees. And between the verdant borders of the pleasure walks,
the avenue of the Champs Elysées sloped upward as far as the eye could
reach, topped by the colossal Arc de Triomphe, agape in front of the
infinite. A double current, a twofold stream rolled along--horses
showing like living eddies, vehicles like retreating waves, which the
reflections of a panel or the sudden sparkle of the glass of a carriage
lamp seemed to tip with white foam. Lower down, the square--with its
vast footways, its roads as broad as lakes--was filled with a constant
ebb and flow, crossed in every direction by whirling wheels, and peopled
with black specks of men, while the two fountains plashed and streamed,
exhaling delicious coolness amid all the ardent life.
Claude, quivering with excitement, kept saying: ‘Ah! Paris! It’s ours.
We have only to take it.’
They all grew excited, their eyes opened wide with desire. Was it not
glory herself that swept from the summit of that avenue over the whole
capital? Paris was there, and they longed to make her theirs.
‘Well, we’ll take her one day,’ said Sandoz, with his obstinate air.
‘To be sure we shall,’ said Mahoudeau and Jory in the simplest manner.
They had resumed walking; they still roamed about, found themselves
behind the Madeleine, and went up the Rue Tronchet. At last, as they
reached the Place du Havre, Sandoz exclaimed, ‘So we are going to
Baudequin’s, eh?’
The others looked as if they had dropped from the sky; in fact, it did
seem as if they were going to Baudequin’s.
‘What day of the week is it?’ asked Claude. ‘Thursday, eh? Then
Fagerolles and Gagnière are sure to be there. Let’s go to Baudequin’s.’
And thereupon they went up the Rue d’Amsterdam. They had just crossed
Paris, one of their favourite rambles, but they took other routes at
times--from one end of the quays to the other; or from the Porte St.
Jacques to the Moulineaux, or else to Père-la-Chaise, followed by a
roundabout return along the outer boulevards. They roamed the streets,
the open spaces, the crossways; they rambled on for whole days, as long
as their legs would carry them, as if intent on conquering one
district after another by hurling their revolutionary theories at the
house-fronts; and the pavement seemed to be their property--all the
pavement touched by their feet, all that old battleground whence arose
intoxicating fumes which made them forget their lassitude.
The Café Baudequin was situated on the Boulevard des Batignolles, at
the corner of the Rue Darcet. Without the least why or wherefore, it had
been selected by the band as their meeting-place, though Gagnière alone
lived in the neighbourhood. They met there regularly on Sunday nights;
and on Thursday afternoons, at about five o’clock, those who were then
at liberty had made it a habit to look in for a moment. That day, as the
weather was fine and bright, the little tables outside under the awning
were occupied by rows of customers, obstructing the footway. But the
band hated all elbowing and public exhibition, so they jostled the other
people in order to go inside, where all was deserted and cool.
‘Hallo, there’s Fagerolles by himself,’ exclaimed Claude.
He had gone straight to their usual table at the end of the café, on
the left, where he shook hands with a pale, thin, young man, whose pert
girlish face was lighted up by a pair of winning, satirical grey eyes,
which at times flashed like steel. They all sat down and ordered beer,
after which the painter resumed:
‘Do you know that I went to look for you at your father’s; and a nice
reception he gave me.’
Fagerolles, who affected a low devil-may-care style, slapped his thighs.
‘Oh, the old fellow plagues me! I hooked it this morning, after a row.
He wants me to draw some things for his beastly zinc stuff. As if I
hadn’t enough zinc stuff at the Art School.’
This slap at the professors delighted the young man’s friends. He amused
them and made himself their idol by dint of alternate flattery and
blame. His smile went from one to the other, while, by the aid of a few
drops of beer spilt on the table, his long nimble fingers began tracing
complicated sketches. His art evidently came very easily to him; it
seemed as if he could do anything with a turn of the hand.
‘And Gagnière?’ asked Mahoudeau; ‘haven’t you seen him?’
‘No; I have been here for the last hour.’
Just then Jory, who had remained silent, nudged Sandoz, and directed his
attention to a girl seated with a gentleman at a table at the back of
the room. There were only two other customers present, two sergeants,
who were playing cards. The girl was almost a child, one of those young
Parisian hussies who are as lank as ever at eighteen. She suggested a
frizzy poodle--with the shower of fair little locks that fell over
her dainty little nose, and her large smiling mouth, set between rosy
cheeks. She was turning over the leaves of an illustrated paper, while
the gentleman accompanying her gravely sipped a glass of Madeira;
but every other minute she darted gay glances from over the newspaper
towards the band of artists.
‘Pretty, isn’t she?’ whispered Jory. ‘Who is she staring at? Why, she’s
looking at me.’
But Fagerolles suddenly broke in: ‘I say, no nonsense. Don’t imagine
that I have been here for the last hour merely waiting for you.’
The others laughed; and lowering his voice he told them about the girl,
who was named Irma Bécot. She was the daughter of a grocer in the Rue
Montorgueil, and had been to school in the neighbourhood till she
was sixteen, writing her exercises between two bags of lentils, and
finishing off her education on her father’s doorstep, lolling about on
the pavement, amidst the jostling of the throng, and learning all about
life from the everlasting tittle-tattle of the cooks, who retailed all
the scandal of the neighbourhood while waiting for five sous’ worth of
Gruyère cheese to be served them. Her mother having died, her father
himself had begun to lead rather a gay life, in such wise that the
whole of the grocery stores--tea, coffee, dried vegetables, and jars and
drawers of sweetstuff--were gradually devoured. Irma was still going to
school, when, one day, the place was sold up. Her father died of a fit
of apoplexy, and Irma sought refuge with a poor aunt, who gave her more
kicks than halfpence, with the result that she ended by running away,
and taking her flight through all the dancing-places of Montmartre and
Batignolles.
Claude listened to the story with his usual air of contempt for women.
Suddenly, however, as the gentleman rose and went out after whispering
in her ear, Irma Bécot, after watching him disappear, bounded from
her seat with the impulsiveness of a school girl, in order to join
Fagerolles, beside whom she made herself quite at home, giving him a
smacking kiss, and drinking out of his glass. And she smiled at the
others in a very engaging manner, for she was partial to artists,
and regretted that they were generally so miserably poor. As Jory was
smoking, she took his cigarette out of his mouth and set it in her own,
but without pausing in her chatter, which suggested that of a saucy
magpie.
‘You are all painters, aren’t you? How amusing! But why do those three
look as if they were sulking. Just laugh a bit, or I shall make you,
you’ll see!’
As a matter of fact, Sandoz, Claude, and Mahoudeau, quite taken aback,
were watching her most gravely. She herself remained listening, and,
on hearing her companion come back, she hastily gave Fagerolles an
appointment for the morrow. Then, after replacing the cigarette between
Jory’s lips, she strode off with her arms raised, and making a very
comical grimace; in such wise that when the gentleman reappeared,
looking sedate and somewhat pale, he found her in her former seat, still
looking at the same engraving in the newspaper. The whole scene had been
acted so quickly, and with such jaunty drollery, that the two sergeants
who sat nearby, good-natured fellows both of them, almost died of
laughter as they shuffled their cards afresh.
In fact, Irma had taken them all by storm. Sandoz declared that her
name of Bécot was very well suited for a novel; Claude asked whether she
would consent to pose for a sketch; while Mahoudeau already pictured her
as a Paris gamin, a statuette that would be sure to sell. She soon went
off, however, and behind the gentleman’s back she wafted kisses to the
whole party, a shower of kisses which quite upset the impressionable
Jory.
It was five o’clock, and the band ordered some more beer. Some of the
usual customers had taken possession of the adjacent tables, and these
philistines cast sidelong glances at the artists’ corner, glances in
which contempt was curiously mingled with a kind of uneasy deference.
The artists were indeed well known; a legend was becoming current
respecting them. They themselves were now talking on common-place
subjects: about the heat, the difficulty of finding room in the omnibus
to the Odeon, and the discovery of a wine-shop where real meat was
obtainable. One of them wanted to start a discussion about a number of
idiotic pictures that had lately been hung in the Luxembourg Museum; but
there was only one opinion on the subject, that the pictures were not
worth their frames. Thereupon they left off conversing; they smoked,
merely exchanging a word or a significant smile now and then.
‘Well,’ asked Claude at last, ‘are we going to wait for Gagnière?’
At this there was a protest. Gagnière was a bore. Besides, he would turn
up as soon as he smelt the soup.
‘Let’s be off, then,’ said Sandoz. ‘There’s a leg of mutton this
evening, so let’s try to be punctual.’
Each paid his score, and they all went out. Their departure threw the
café into a state of emotion. Some young fellows, painters, no doubt,
whispered together as they pointed at Claude, much in the same manner
as if he were the redoubtable chieftain of a horde of savages. Jory’s
famous article was producing its effect; the very public was becoming
his accomplice, and of itself was soon to found that school of the open
air, which the band had so far only joked about. As they gaily said, the
Café Baudequin was not aware of the honour they had done it on the day
when they selected it to be the cradle of a revolution.
Fagerolles having reinforced the group, they now numbered five, and
slowly they took their way across Paris, with their tranquil look of
victory. The more numerous they were, the more did they stretch across
the pavement, and carry away on their heels the burning life of the
streets. When they had gone down the Rue de Clichy, they went straight
along the Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin, turned towards the Rue de
Richelieu, crossed the Seine by the Pont des Arts, so as to fling their
gibes at the Institute, and finally reached the Luxembourg by way of
the Rue de Seine, where a poster, printed in three colours, the
garish announcement of a travelling circus, made them all shout with
admiration. Evening was coming on; the stream of wayfarers flowed more
slowly; the tired city was awaiting the shadows of night, ready to yield
to the first comer who might be strong enough to take her.
On reaching the Rue d’Enfer, when Sandoz had ushered his four friends
into his own apartments, he once more vanished into his mother’s room.
He remained there for a few moments, and then came out without saying
a word, but with the tender, gentle smile habitual to him on such
occasions. And immediately afterwards a terrible hubbub, of laughter,
argument, and mere shouting, arose in his little flat. Sandoz himself
set the example, all the while assisting the charwoman, who burst into
bitter language because it was half-past seven, and her leg of mutton
was drying up. The five companions, seated at table, were already
swallowing their soup, a very good onion soup, when a new comer suddenly
appeared.
‘Hallo! here’s Gagnière,’ was the vociferous chorus.
Gagnière, short, slight, and vague looking, with a doll-like startled
face, set off by a fair curly beard, stood for a moment on the threshold
blinking his green eyes. He belonged to Melun, where his well-to-do
parents, who were both dead, had left him two houses; and he had learnt
painting, unassisted, in the forest of Fontainebleau. His landscapes
were at least conscientiously painted, excellent in intention; but his
real passion was music, a madness for music, a cerebral bonfire which
set him on a level with the wildest of the band.
‘Am I in the way?’ he gently asked.
‘Not at all; come in!’ shouted Sandoz.
The charwoman was already laying an extra knife and fork.
‘Suppose she lays a place for Dubuche, while she is about it,’ said
Claude. ‘He told me he would perhaps come.’
But they were all down upon Dubuche, who frequented women in society.
Jory said that he had seen him in a carriage with an old lady and her
daughter, whose parasols he was holding on his knees.
‘Where have you come from to be so late?’ asked Fagerolles of Gagnière.
The latter, who was about to swallow his first spoonful of soup, set it
in his plate again.
‘I was in the Rue de Lancry--you know, where they have chamber music.
Oh! my boy, some of Schumann’s machines! You haven’t an idea of them!
They clutch hold of you at the back of your head just as if somebody
were breathing down your back. Yes, yes, it’s something much more
immaterial than a kiss, just a whiff of breath. ‘Pon my honour, a fellow
feels as if he were going to die.’
His eyes were moistening and he turned pale, as if experiencing some
over-acute enjoyment.
‘Eat your soup,’ said Mahoudeau; ‘you’ll tell us all about it
afterwards.’
The skate was served, and they had the vinegar bottle put on the table
to improve the flavour of the black butter, which seemed rather insipid.
They ate with a will, and the hunks of bread swiftly disappeared. There
was nothing refined about the repast, and the wine was mere common
stuff, which they watered considerably from a feeling of delicacy, in
order to lessen their host’s expenses. They had just saluted the leg of
mutton with a hurrah, and the host had begun to carve it, when the door
opened anew. But this time there were furious protests.
‘No, no, not another soul! Turn him out, turn him out.’
Dubuche, out of breath with having run, bewildered at finding himself
amidst such howling, thrust his fat, pallid face forward, whilst
stammering explanations.
‘Really, now, I assure you it was the fault of the omnibuses. I had to
wait for five of them in the Champs Elysées.’
‘No, no, he’s lying!--Let him go, he sha’n’t have any of that mutton.
Turn him out, turn him out!’
All the same, he ended by coming in, and it was then noticed that he
was stylishly attired, all in black, trousers and frock-coat alike, and
cravated and booted in the stiff ceremonious fashion of some respectable
member of the middle classes going out to dinner.
‘Hallo! he has missed his invitation,’ chaffed Fagerolles. ‘Don’t you
see that his fine ladies didn’t ask him to stay to dinner, and so now
he’s come to gobble up our leg of mutton, as he doesn’t know where else
to go?’
At this Dubuche turned red, and stammered: ‘Oh! what an idea! How
ill-natured you are! And, besides, just attend to your own business.’
Sandoz and Claude, seated next to each other, smiled, and the former,
beckoning to Dubuche, said to him: ‘Lay your own place, bring a plate
and a glass, and sit between us--like that, they’ll leave you alone.’
However, the chaff continued all the time that the mutton was being
eaten. When the charwoman had brought Dubuche a plate of soup and a
piece of skate, he himself fell in with the jokes good-naturedly. He
pretended to be famished, greedily mopped out his plate, and related a
story about a mother having refused him her daughter because he was an
architect. The end of the dinner thus became very boisterous; they all
rattled on together. The only dessert, a piece of Brie cheese, met with
enormous success. Not a scrap of it was left, and the bread almost ran
short. The wine did run short, so they each swallowed a clear draught
of water, smacking their lips the while amidst great laughter. And, with
faces beaming, and well-filled paunches, they passed into the bedroom
with the supreme content of folks who have fared very sumptuously
indeed.
Those were Sandoz’s jolly evenings. Even at the times when he was
hard up he had always had some boiled beef and broth to share with his
comrades. He felt delighted at having a number of them around him, all
friends, inspired by the same ideas. Though he was of their own age, he
beamed with fatherly feelings and satisfied good-nature when he saw them
in his rooms, around him, hand in hand, and intoxicated with hope. As he
had but two rooms, the bedroom did duty as a drawing-room, and became as
much theirs as his. For lack of sufficient chairs, two or three had to
seat themselves on the bed. And on those warm summer evenings the window
remained wide open to let in the air. From it two black silhouettes were
to be seen rising above the houses, against the clear sky--the tower of
St. Jacques du Haut-Pas and the tree of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum. When
money was plentiful there was beer. Every one brought his own tobacco,
the room soon became full of smoke, and without seeing each other they
ended by conversing far into the night, amidst the deep mournful silence
of that deserted district.
On that particular evening, at about nine o’clock, the charwoman came
in.
‘Monsieur, I have done. Can I go?’
‘Yes, go to bed. You have left the kettle on the fire, haven’t you? I’ll
make the tea myself.’
Sandoz had risen. He went off at the heels of the charwoman, and only
returned a quarter of an hour afterwards. He had no doubt been to kiss
his mother, whom he tucked up every night before she dozed off.
Meanwhile the voices had risen to a high pitch again. Fagerolles was
telling a story.
‘Yes, old fellow; at the School they even correct Nature herself.
The other day Mazel comes up to me and says: “Those two arms don’t
correspond”; whereupon I reply: “Look for yourself, monsieur--the
model’s are like that.” It was little Flore Beauchamp, you know. “Well,”
Mazel furiously replies, “if she has them like that, it’s very wrong of
her.”’
They almost all shrieked, especially Claude, to whom Fagerolles told
the story by way of paying court. For some time previously the younger
artist had yielded to the elder’s influence; and although he continued
to paint with purely tricky skill, he no longer talked of anything
but substantial, thickly-painted work, of bits of nature thrown on to
canvas, palpitating with life, such as they really were. This did not
prevent him, though, from elsewhere chaffing the adepts of the open-air
school, whom he accused of impasting with a kitchen ladle.
Dubuche, who had not laughed, his sense of rectitude being offended,
made so bold as to reply:
‘Why do you stop at the School if you think you are being brutified
there? It’s simple enough, one goes away--Oh, I know you are all against
me, because I defend the School. But, you see, my idea is that, when a
fellow wants to carry on a trade, it is not a bad thing for him to begin
by learning it.’
Ferocious shouts arose at this, and Claude had need of all his authority
to secure a hearing.
‘He is right. One must learn one’s trade. But it won’t do to learn it
under the ferule of professors who want to cram their own views forcibly
into your nut. That Mazel is a perfect idiot!’
He flung himself backward on the bed, on which he had been sitting, and
with his eyes raised to the ceiling, he went on, in an excited tone:
‘Ah! life! life! to feel it and portray it in its reality, to love it
for itself, to behold in it the only real, lasting, and changing beauty,
without any idiotic idea of ennobling it by mutilation. To understand
that all so-called ugliness is nothing but the mark of individual
character, to create real men and endow them with life--yes, that’s the
only way to become a god!’
His faith was coming back to him, the march across Paris had spurred him
on once more; he was again seized by his passion for living flesh. They
listened to him in silence. He made a wild gesture, then calmed down.
‘No doubt every one has his own ideas; but the annoyance is that at
the Institute they are even more intolerant than we are. The hanging
committee of the Salon is in their hands. I am sure that that idiot
Mazel will refuse my picture.’
Thereupon they all broke out into imprecations, for this question of
the hanging committee was the everlasting subject of their wrath. They
demanded reforms; every one had a solution of the problem ready--from
universal suffrage, applied to the election of a hanging committee,
liberal in the widest sense of the word, down to unrestricted liberty, a
Salon open to all exhibitors.*
* The reader will bear in mind that all these complaints made by
Claude and his friends apply to the old Salons, as organized
under Government control, at the time of the Second Empire.--ED.
While the others went on discussing the subject, Gagnière drew Mahoudeau
to the open window, where, in a low voice, his eyes the while staring
into space, he murmured:
‘Oh, it’s nothing at all, only four bars; a simple impression jotted
down there and then. But what a deal there is in it! To me it’s first
of all a landscape, dwindling away in the distance; a bit of melancholy
road, with the shadow of a tree that one cannot see; and then a woman
passes along, scarcely a silhouette; on she goes and you never meet her
again, no, never more again.’
Just at that moment, however, Fagerolles exclaimed, ‘I say, Gagnière,
what are you going to send to the Salon this year?’
Gagnière did not hear, but continued talking, enraptured, as it were.
‘In Schumann one finds everything--the infinite. And Wagner, too, whom
they hissed again last Sunday!’
But a fresh call from Fagerolles made him start.
‘Eh! what? What am I going to send to the Salon? A small landscape,
perhaps; a little bit of the Seine. It is so difficult to decide; first
of all I must feel pleased with it myself.’
He had suddenly become timid and anxious again. His artistic scruples,
his conscientiousness, kept him working for months on a canvas the size
of one’s hand. Following the track of the French landscape painters,
those masters who were the first to conquer nature, he worried about
correctness of tone, pondering and pondering over the precise value of
tints, till theoretical scruples ended by making his touch heavy. And he
often did not dare to chance a bright dash of colour, but painted in
a greyish gloomy key which was astonishing, when one remembered his
revolutionary passions.
‘For my part,’ said Mahoudeau, ‘I feel delighted at the prospect of
making them squint with my woman.’
Claude shrugged his shoulders. ‘Oh! you’ll get in, the sculptors have
broader minds than the painters. And, besides, you know very well what
you are about; you have something at your fingers’ ends that pleases.
There will be plenty of pretty bits about your vintaging girl.’
The compliment made Mahoudeau feel serious. He posed above all for
vigour of execution; he was unconscious of his real vein of talent, and
despised gracefulness, though it ever invincibly sprung from his big,
coarse fingers--the fingers of an untaught working-man--like a flower
that obstinately sprouts from the hard soil where the wind has flung its
seed.
Fagerolles, who was very cunning, had decided to send nothing, for fear
of displeasing his masters; and he chaffed the Salon, calling it ‘a foul
bazaar, where all the bad painting made even the good turn musty.’ In
his inmost heart he was dreaming of one day securing the Rome prize,
though he ridiculed it, as he did everything else.
However, Jory stationed himself in the middle of the room, holding up
his glass of beer. Sipping every now and then, he declared: ‘Well, your
hanging committee quite disgusts me! I say, shall I demolish it? I’ll
begin bombarding it in our very next number. You’ll give me some notes,
eh? and we’ll knock it to pieces. That will be fine fun.’
Claude was at last fully wound up, and general enthusiasm prevailed.
Yes, yes, they must start a campaign. They would all be in it, and,
pressing shoulder to shoulder, march to the battle together. At that
moment there was not one of them who reserved his share of fame, for
nothing divided them as yet; neither the profound dissemblance of their
various natures, of which they themselves were ignorant, nor their
rivalries, which would some day bring them into collision. Was not
the success of one the success of all the others? Their youth was
fermenting, they were brimming over with mutual devotion; they indulged
anew in their everlasting dream of gathering into a phalanx to conquer
the world, each contributing his individual effort; this one helping
that one forward, and the whole band reaching fame at once in one row.
Claude, as the acknowledged chief, was already sounding the victory,
distributing laurels with such lyrical abundance that he overlooked
himself. Fagerolles himself, gibing Parisian though he might be,
believed in the necessity of forming an army; while even Jory, although
he had a coarser appetite, with a deal of the provincial still about
him, displayed much useful comradeship, catching various artistic
phrases as they fell from his companions’ lips, and already preparing in
his mind the articles which would herald the advent of the band and
make them known. And Mahoudeau purposely exaggerated his intentional
roughness, and clasped his hands like an ogre kneading human flesh;
while Gagnière, in ecstasy, as if freed from the everlasting greyishness
of his art, sought to refine sensation to the utmost limits of
intelligence; and Dubuche, with his matter-of-fact convictions, threw in
but a word here and there; words, however, which were like club-blows
in the very midst of the fray. Then Sandoz, happy and smiling at seeing
them so united, ‘all in one shirt,’ as he put it, opened another bottle
of beer. He would have emptied every one in the house.
‘Eh?’ he cried, ‘we’re agreed, let’s stick to it. It’s really pleasant
to come to an understanding among fellows who have something in their
nuts, so may the thunderbolts of heaven sweep all idiots away!’
At that same moment a ring at the bell stupefied him. Amidst the sudden
silence of the others, he inquired--‘Who, to the deuce, can that be--at
eleven o’clock?’
He ran to open the door, and they heard him utter a cry of delight.
He was already coming back again, throwing the door wide open as he
said--‘Ah! it’s very kind indeed to think of us and surprise us like
this! Bongrand, gentlemen.’
The great painter, whom the master of the house announced in this
respectfully familiar way, entered, holding out both hands. They all
eagerly rose, full of emotion, delighted with that manly, cordial
handshake so willingly bestowed. Bongrand was then forty-five years
old, stout, and with a very expressive face and long grey hair. He had
recently become a member of the Institute, and wore the rosette of
an officer of the Legion of Honour in the top button-hole of his
unpretentious alpaca jacket. He was fond of young people; he liked
nothing so much as to drop in from time to time and smoke a pipe among
these beginners, whose enthusiasm warmed his heart.
‘I am going to make the tea,’ exclaimed Sandoz.
When he came back from the kitchen, carrying the teapot and cups, he
found Bongrand installed astride a chair, smoking his short cutty,
amidst the din which had again arisen. Bongrand himself was holding
forth in a stentorian voice. The grandson of a farmer of the Beauce
region, the son of a man risen to the middle classes, with peasant blood
in his veins, indebted for his culture to a mother of very artistic
tastes, he was rich, had no need to sell his pictures, and retained many
tastes and opinions of Bohemian life.
‘The hanging committee? Well, I’d sooner hang myself than belong to
it!’ said he, with sweeping gestures. ‘Am I an executioner to kick poor
devils, who often have to earn their bread, out of doors?’
‘Still, you might render us great service by defending our pictures
before the committee,’ observed Claude.
‘Oh, dear, no! I should only make matters worse for you--I don’t count;
I’m nobody.’
There was a chorus of protestations; Fagerolles objected, in a shrill
voice:
‘Well, if the painter of “The Village Wedding” does not count--’
But Bongrand was getting angry; he had risen, his cheeks afire.
‘Eh? Don’t pester me with “The Wedding”; I warn you I am getting sick of
that picture. It is becoming a perfect nightmare to me ever since it has
been hung in the Luxembourg Museum.’
This ‘Village Wedding’--a party of wedding guests roaming through a
corn-field, peasants studied from life, with an epic look of the heroes
of Homer about them--had so far remained his masterpiece. The picture
had brought about an evolution in art, for it had inaugurated a new
formula. Coming after Delacroix, and parallel with Courbet, it was
a piece of romanticism tempered by logic, with more correctness of
observation, more perfection in the handling. And though it did not
squarely tackle nature amidst the crudity of the open air, the new
school claimed connection with it.
‘There can be nothing more beautiful,’ said Claude, ‘than the two first
groups, the fiddler, and then the bride with the old peasant.’
‘And the strapping peasant girl, too,’ added Mahoudeau; the one who
is turning round and beckoning! I had a great mind to take her for the
model of a statue.’
‘And that gust of wind among the corn,’ added Gagnière, ‘and the pretty
bit of the boy and girl skylarking in the distance.’
Bongrand sat listening with an embarrassed air, and a smile of inward
suffering; and when Fagerolles asked him what he was doing just then, he
answered, with a shrug of his shoulders:
‘Well, nothing; some little things. But I sha’n’t exhibit this time.
I should like to find a telling subject. Ah, you fellows are happy at
still being at the bottom of the hill. A man has good legs then, he
feels so plucky when it’s a question of getting up. But when once he is
a-top, the deuce take it! the worries begin. A real torture, fisticuffs,
efforts which must be constantly renewed, lest one should slip down too
quickly. Really now, one would prefer being below, for the pleasure of
still having everything to do--Ah, you may laugh, but you’ll see it all
for yourselves some day!’
They were indeed laughing, thinking it a paradox, or a little piece of
affectation, which they excused. To be hailed, like Bongrand, with the
name of master--was that not the height of bliss? He, with his arms
resting on the back of his chair, listened to them in silence, leisurely
puffing his pipe, and renouncing the idea of trying to make them
understand him.
Meanwhile, Dubuche, who had rather domesticated tastes, helped Sandoz
to hand the tea round, and the din continued. Fagerolles related a story
about Daddy Malgras and a female cousin by marriage, whom the dealer
offered as a model on conditions that he was given a presentment of her
in oils. Then they began to talk of models. Mahoudeau waxed furious,
because the really well-built female models were disappearing. It was
impossible to find one with a decent figure now. Then suddenly the
tumult increased again; Gagnière was being congratulated about a
connoisseur whose acquaintance he had made in the Palais Royal one
afternoon, while the band played, an eccentric gentleman living on a
small income, who never indulged in any other extravagance than that of
buying pictures. The other artists laughed and asked for the gentleman’s
address. Then they fell foul of the picture dealers, dirty black-guards,
who preyed on artists and starved them. It was really a pity that
connoisseurs mistrusted painters to such a degree as to insist upon
a middleman under the impression that they would thus make a better
bargain. This question of bread and butter excited them yet more, though
Claude showed magnificent contempt for it all. The artist was robbed,
no doubt, but what did that matter, if he had painted a masterpiece,
and had some water to drink? Jory, having again expressed some low ideas
about lucre, aroused general indignation. Out with the journalist!
He was asked stringent questions. Would he sell his pen? Would he not
sooner chop off his wrist than write anything against his convictions?
But they scarcely waited for his answer, for the excitement was on the
increase; it became the superb madness of early manhood, contempt for
the whole world, an absorbing passion for good work, freed from all
human weaknesses, soaring in the sky like a very sun. Ah! how strenuous
was their desire to lose themselves, consume themselves, in that brazier
of their own kindling!
Bongrand, who had not stirred the while, made a vague gesture of
suffering at the sight of that boundless confidence, that boisterous
joy at the prospect of attack. He forgot the hundred paintings which
had brought him his glory, he was thinking of the work which he had left
roughed out on his easel now. Taking his cutty from between his lips, he
murmured, his eyes glistening with kindliness, ‘Oh, youth, youth!’
Until two in the morning, Sandoz, who seemed ubiquitous, kept on pouring
fresh supplies of hot water into the teapot. From the neighbourhood,
now asleep, one now only heard the miawing of an amorous tabby. They all
talked at random, intoxicated by their own words, hoarse with shouting,
their eyes scorched, and when at last they made up their minds to go,
Sandoz took the lamp to show them a light over the banisters, saying
very softly:
‘Don’t make a noise, my mother is asleep.’
The hushed tread of their boots on the stairs died away at last, and
deep silence fell upon the house.
It struck four. Claude, who had accompanied Bongrand, still went on
talking to him in the deserted streets. He did not want to go to bed; he
was waiting for daylight, with impatient fury, so that he might set
to work at his picture again. This time he felt certain of painting a
masterpiece, exalted as he was by that happy day of good-fellowship,
his mind pregnant with a world of things. He had discovered at last what
painting meant, and he pictured himself re-entering his studio as one
returns into the presence of a woman one adores, his heart throbbing
violently, regretting even this one day’s absence, which seemed to him
endless desertion. And he would go straight to his canvas, and realise
his dream in one sitting. However, at every dozen steps or so, amidst
the flickering light of the gaslamps, Bongrand caught him by a button
of his coat, to repeat to him that, after all, painting was an accursed
trade. Sharp as he, Bongrand, was supposed to be, he did not understand
it yet. At each new work he undertook, he felt as if he were making a
debut; it was enough to make one smash one’s head against the wall. The
sky was now brightening, some market gardeners’ carts began rolling down
towards the central markets; and the pair continued chattering, each
talking for himself, in a loud voice, beneath the paling stars.