IV

SIX weeks later, Claude was painting one morning amidst a flood of

sunshine that streamed through the large window of his studio. Constant

rain had made the middle of August very dull, but his courage for

work returned with the blue sky. His great picture did not make much

progress, albeit he worked at it throughout long, silent mornings, like

the obstinate, pugnacious fellow he was.

All at once there came a knock at his door. He thought that Madame

Joseph, the doorkeeper, was bringing up his lunch, and as the key was

always in the door, he simply called: ‘Come in!’

The door had opened; there was a slight rustle, and then all became

still. He went on painting without even turning his head. But the

quivering silence, and the consciousness of some vague gentle breathing

near him, at last made him fidgety. He looked up, and felt amazed; a

woman stood there clad in a light gown, her features half-hidden by a

white veil, and he did not know her, and she was carrying a bunch of

roses, which completed his bewilderment.

All at once he recognised her.

‘You, mademoiselle? Well, I certainly didn’t expect you!’

It was Christine. He had been unable to restrain that somewhat unamiable

exclamation, which was a cry from the heart itself. At first he had

certainly thought of her; then, as the days went by for nearly a couple

of months without sign of life from her, she had become for him merely a

fleeting, regretted vision, a charming silhouette which had melted away

in space, and would never be seen again.

‘Yes, monsieur, it’s I. I wished to come. I thought it was wrong not to

come and thank you--’

She blushed and stammered, at a loss for words. She was out of breath,

no doubt through climbing the stairs, for her heart was beating fast.

What! was this long-debated visit out of place after all? It had ended

by seeming quite natural to her. The worst was that, in passing along

the quay, she had bought that bunch of roses with the delicate intention

of thereby showing her gratitude to the young fellow, and the flowers

now dreadfully embarrassed her. How was she to give them to him? What

would he think of her? The impropriety of the whole proceeding had only

struck her as she opened the door.

But Claude, more embarrassed still, resorted to exaggerated politeness.

He had thrown aside his palette and was turning the studio upside down

in order to clear a chair.

‘Pray be seated, mademoiselle. This is really a surprise. You are too

kind.’

Once seated, Christine recovered her equanimity. He looked so droll with

his wild sweeping gestures, and she felt so conscious of his shyness

that she began to smile, and bravely held out the bunch of roses.

‘Look here; I wished to show you that I am not ungrateful.’

At first he said nothing, but stood staring at her, thunderstruck. When

he saw, though, that she was not making fun of him, he shook both her

hands, with almost sufficient energy to dislocate them. Then he at once

put the flowers in his water-jug, repeating:

‘Ah! now you are a good fellow, you really are. This is the first time I

pay that compliment to a woman, honour bright.’

He came back to her, and, looking straight into her eyes, he asked:

‘Then you have not altogether forgotten me?’

‘You see that I have not,’ she replied, laughing.

‘Why, then, did you wait two months before coming to see me?’

Again she blushed. The falsehood she was about to tell revived her

embarrassment for a moment.

‘But you know that I am not my own mistress,’ she said. ‘Oh, Madame

Vanzade is very kind to me, only she is a great invalid, and never

leaves the house. But she grew anxious as to my health and compelled me

to go out to breathe a little fresh air.’

She did not allude to the shame which she had felt during the first

few days after her adventure on the Quai de Bourbon. Finding herself in

safety, beneath the old lady’s roof, the recollection of the night she

had spent in Claude’s room had filled her with remorse; but she fancied

at last that she had succeeded in dismissing the matter from her mind.

It was no longer anything but a bad dream, which grew more indistinct

each day. Then, how it was she could not tell, but amidst the profound

quietude of her existence, the image of that young man who had

befriended her had returned to her once more, becoming more and more

precise, till at last it occupied her daily thoughts. Why should she

forget him? She had nothing to reproach him with; on the contrary, she

felt she was his debtor. The thought of seeing him again, dismissed

at first, struggled against later on, at last became an all-absorbing

craving. Each evening the temptation to go and see him came strong upon

her in the solitude of her own room. She experienced an uncomfortable

irritating feeling, a vague desire which she could not define, and only

calmed down somewhat on ascribing this troubled state of mind to a wish

to evince her gratitude. She was so utterly alone, she felt so stifled

in that sleepy abode, the exuberance of youth seethed so strongly within

her, her heart craved so desperately for friendship!

‘So I took advantage of my first day out,’ she continued. ‘And besides,

the weather was so nice this morning after all the dull rain.’

Claude, feeling very happy and standing before her, also confessed

himself, but _he_ had nothing to hide.

‘For my part,’ said he, ‘I dared not think of you any more. You are like

one of the fairies of the story-books, who spring from the floor and

disappear into the walls at the very moment one least expects it; aren’t

you now? I said to myself, “It’s all over: it was perhaps only in my

fancy that I saw her come to this studio.” Yet here you are. Well, I am

pleased at it, very pleased indeed.’

Smiling, but embarrassed, Christine averted her head, pretending to

look around her. But her smile soon died away. The ferocious-looking

paintings which she again beheld, the glaring sketches of the South, the

terrible anatomical accuracy of the studies from the nude, all chilled

her as on the first occasion. She became really afraid again, and she

said gravely, in an altered voice:

‘I am disturbing you; I am going.’

‘Oh! not at all, not at all,’ exclaimed Claude, preventing her from

rising. ‘It does me good to have a talk with you, for I was working

myself to death. Oh! that confounded picture; it’s killing me as it is.’

Thereupon Christine, lifting her eyes, looked at the large picture, the

canvas that had been turned to the wall on the previous occasion, and

which she had vainly wished to see.

The background--the dark glade pierced by a flood of sunlight--was still

only broadly brushed in. But the two little wrestlers--the fair one and

the dark--almost finished by now, showed clearly in the light. In the

foreground, the gentleman in the velveteen jacket, three times begun

afresh, had now been left in distress. The painter was more particularly

working at the principal figure, the woman lying on the grass. He had

not touched the head again. He was battling with the body, changing his

model every week, so despondent at being unable to satisfy himself

that for a couple of days he had been trying to improve the figure from

imagination, without recourse to nature, although he boasted that he

never invented.

Christine at once recognised herself. Yes, that nude girl sprawling on

the grass, one arm behind her head, smiling with lowered eyelids, was

herself, for she had her features. The idea absolutely revolted her, and

she was wounded too by the wildness of the painting, so brutal indeed

that she considered herself abominably insulted. She did not understand

that kind of art; she thought it execrable, and felt a hatred against

it, the instinctive hatred of an enemy. She rose at last, and curtly

repeated, ‘I must be going.’

Claude watched her attentively, both grieved and surprised by her sudden

change of manner.

‘Going already?’

‘Yes, they are waiting for me. Good-bye.’

And she had already reached the door before he could take her hand, and

venture to ask her:

‘When shall I see you again?’

She allowed her hand to remain in his. For a moment she seemed to

hesitate.

‘I don’t know. I am so busy.’

Then she withdrew her hand and went off, hastily, saying: ‘One of these

days, when I can. Good-bye.’

Claude remained stock-still on the threshold. He wondered what had come

over her again to cause her sudden coolness, her covert irritation.

He closed the door, and walked about, with dangling arms, and without

understanding, seeking vainly for the phrase, the gesture that could

have offended her. And he in his turn became angry, and launched an oath

into space, with a terrific shrug of the shoulders, as if to rid himself

of this silly worry. Did a man ever understand women? However, the sight

of the roses, overlapping the water-jug, pacified him; they smelt so

sweet. Their scent pervaded the whole studio, and silently he resumed

his work amidst the perfume.

Two more months passed by. During the earlier days Claude, at the

slightest stir of a morning, when Madame Joseph brought him up his

breakfast or his letters, quickly turned his head, and could not control

a gesture of disappointment. He no longer went out until after four, and

the doorkeeper having told him one evening, on his return home, that a

young person had called to see him at about five, he had only grown calm

on ascertaining that the visitor was merely a model, Zoé Piedefer. Then,

as the days went by, he was seized with a furious fit of work, becoming

unapproachable to every one, indulging in such violent theories that

even his friends did not venture to contradict him. He swept the world

from his path with one gesture; there was no longer to be anything

but painting left. One might murder one’s parents, comrades, and women

especially, and it would all be a good riddance. After this terrible

fever he fell into abominable despondency, spending a week of impotence

and doubt, a whole week of torture, during which he fancied himself

struck silly. But he was getting over it, he had resumed his usual life,

his resigned solitary struggle with his great picture, when one foggy

morning, towards the end of October, he started and hastily set his

palette aside. There had been no knock, but he had just recognised the

footfall coming up the stairs. He opened the door and she walked in. She

had come at last.

Christine that day wore a large cloak of grey material which enveloped

her from head to foot. Her little velvet hat was dark, and the fog

outside had pearled her black lace veil. But he thought her looking very

cheerful, with the first slight shiver of winter upon her. She at once

began to make excuses for having so long delayed her return. She smiled

at him in her pretty candid manner, confessed that she had hesitated,

and that she had almost made up her mind to come no more. Yes, she had

her own opinions about things, which she felt sure he understood. As it

happened, he did not understand at all--he had no wish to understand,

seeing that she was there. It was quite sufficient that she was not

vexed with him, that she would consent to look in now and then like a

chum. There were no explanations; they kept their respective torments

and the struggles of recent times to themselves. For nearly an hour they

chatted together right pleasantly, with nothing hidden nor antagonistic

remaining between them; it was as if an understanding had been arrived

at, unknown to themselves, and while they were far apart. She did not

even appear to notice the sketches and studies on the walls. For a

moment she looked fixedly at the large picture, at the figure of the

woman lying on the grass under the blazing golden sun. No, it was not

like herself, that girl had neither her face nor her body. How silly

to have fancied that such a horrid mess of colour was herself! And her

friendship for the young fellow was heightened by a touch of pity; he

could not even convey a likeness. When she went off, it was she who on

the threshold cordially held out her hand.

‘You know, I shall come back again--’

‘Yes, in two months’ time.’

‘No, next week. You’ll see, next Thursday.’

On the Thursday she punctually returned, and after that she did not miss

a week. At first she had no particular day for calling, simply taking

advantage of her opportunities; but subsequently she selected Monday,

the day allowed her by Madame Vanzade in order that she might have a

walk in the fresh, open air of the Bois de Boulogne. She had to be back

home by eleven, and she walked the whole way very quickly, coming in all

aglow from the run, for it was a long stretch from Passy to the Quai de

Bourbon. During four winter months, from October to February, she came

in this fashion, now in drenching rain, now among the mists from the

Seine, now in the pale sunlight that threw a little warmth over the

quays. Indeed, after the first month, she at times arrived unexpectedly,

taking advantage of some errand in town to look in, and then she could

only stay for a couple of minutes; they had barely had time enough to

say ‘How do you do?’ when she was already scampering down the stairs

again, exclaiming ‘Good-bye.’

And now Claude learned to know Christine. With his everlasting mistrust

of woman a suspicion had remained to him, the suspicion of some love

adventure in the provinces; but the girl’s soft eyes and bright laughter

had carried all before them; he felt that she was as innocent as a big

child. As soon as she arrived, quite unembarrassed, feeling fully at

her ease, as with a friend, she began to indulge in a ceaseless flow

of chatter. She had told him a score of times about her childhood at

Clermont, and she constantly reverted to it. On the evening that her

father, Captain Hallegrain, had suddenly died, she and her mother had

been to church. She perfectly remembered their return home and the

horrible night that had followed; the captain, very stout and muscular,

lying stretched on a mattress, with his lower jaw protruding to such a

degree that in her girlish memory she could not picture him otherwise.

She also had that same jaw, and when her mother had not known how to

master her, she had often cried: ‘Ah, my girl, you’ll eat your heart’s

blood out like your father.’ Poor mother! how she, Christine, had

worried her with her love of horseplay, with her mad turbulent fits. As

far back as she could remember, she pictured her mother ever seated at

the same window, quietly painting fans, a slim little woman with very

soft eyes, the only thing she had inherited of her. When people wanted

to please her mother they told her, ‘she has got your eyes.’ And then

she smiled, happy in the thought of having contributed at least that

touch of sweetness to her daughter’s features. After the death of her

husband, she had worked so late as to endanger her eyesight. But how

else could she have lived? Her widow’s pension--five hundred francs

per annum--barely sufficed for the needs of her child. For five years

Christine had seen her mother grow thinner and paler, wasting away a

little bit each day until she became a mere shadow. And now she felt

remorseful at not having been more obedient, at having driven her

mother to despair by lack of application. She had begun each week with

magnificent intentions, promising that she would soon help her to earn

money; but her arms and legs got the fidgets, in spite of her efforts;

the moment she became quiet she fell ill. Then one morning her mother

had been unable to get up, and had died; her voice too weak to make

itself heard, her eyes full of big tears. Ever did Christine behold her

thus dead, with her weeping eyes wide open and fixed on her.

At other times, Christine, when questioned by Claude about Clermont,

forgot those sorrows to recall more cheerful memories. She laughed

gaily at the idea of their encampment, as she called it, in the Rue

de l’Éclache; she born in Strasburg, her father a Gascon, her mother a

Parisian, and all three thrown into that nook of Auvergne, which they

detested. The Rue de l’Éclache, sloping down to the Botanical Gardens,

was narrow and dank, gloomy, like a vault. Not a shop, never a

passer-by--nothing but melancholy frontages, with shutters always

closed. At the back, however, their windows, overlooking some

courtyards, were turned to the full sunlight. The dining-room opened

even on to a spacious balcony, a kind of wooden gallery, whose arcades

were hung with a giant wistaria which almost smothered them with

foliage. And the girl had grown up there, at first near her invalid

father, then cloistered, as it were, with her mother, whom the least

exertion exhausted. She had remained so complete a stranger to the town

and its neighbourhood, that Claude and herself burst into laughter when

she met his inquiries with the constant answer, ‘I don’t know.’ The

mountains? Yes, there were mountains on one side, they could be seen

at the end of the streets; while on the other side of the town, after

passing along other streets, there were flat fields stretching far away;

but she never went there, the distance was too great. The only height

she remembered was the Puy de Dôme, rounded off at the summit like a

hump. In the town itself she could have found her way to the cathedral

blindfold; one had to turn round by the Place de Jaude and take the Rue

des Gras; but more than that she could not tell him; the rest of the

town was an entanglement, a maze of sloping lanes and boulevards; a town

of black lava ever dipping downward, where the rain of the thunderstorms

swept by torrentially amidst formidable flashes of lightning. Oh! those

storms; she still shuddered to think of them. Just opposite her room,

above the roofs, the lightning conductor of the museum was always on

fire. In the sitting-room she had her own window--a deep recess as big

as a room itself--where her work-table and personal nick-nacks stood.

It was there that her mother had taught her to read; it was there that,

later on, she had fallen asleep while listening to her masters, so

greatly did the fatigue of learning daze her. And now she made fun of

her own ignorance; she was a well-educated young lady, and no mistake,

unable even to repeat the names of the Kings of France, with the dates

of their accessions; a famous musician too, who had never got further

than that elementary pianoforte exercise, ‘The little boats’; a prodigy

in water-colour painting, who scamped her trees because foliage was too

difficult to imitate. Then she skipped, without any transition, to the

fifteen months she had spent at the Convent of the Visitation after

her mother’s death--a large convent, outside the town, with magnificent

gardens. There was no end to her stories about the good sisters, their

jealousies, their foolish doings, their simplicity, that made one start.

She was to have taken the veil, but she felt stifled the moment she

entered a church. It had seemed to be all over with her, when the

Superior, by whom she was treated with great affection, diverted her

from the cloister by procuring her that situation at Madame Vanzade’s.

She had not yet got over the surprise. How had Mother des Saints Anges

been able to read her mind so clearly? For, in fact, since she had

been living in Paris she had dropped into complete indifference about

religion.

When all the reminiscences of Clermont were exhausted, Claude wanted

to hear about her life at Madame Vanzade’s, and each week she gave him

fresh particulars. The life led in the little house at Passy, silent

and shut off from the outer world, was a very regular one, with no more

noise about it than the faint tic-tac of an old-fashioned timepiece.

Two antiquated domestics, a cook and a manservant, who had been with

the family for forty years, alone glided in their slippers about the

deserted rooms, like a couple of ghosts. Now and then, at very

long intervals, there came a visitor: some octogenarian general, so

desiccated, so slight of build that he scarcely pressed on the carpet.

The house was also the home of shadows; the sun filtered with the mere

gleam of a night light through the Venetian blinds. Since madame had

become paralysed in the knees and stone blind, so that she no longer

left her room, she had had no other recreation than that of listening

to the reading of religious books. Ah! those endless readings, how

they weighed upon the girl at times! If she had only known a trade, how

gladly she would have cut out dresses, concocted bonnets, or goffered

the petals of artificial flowers. And to think that she was capable of

nothing, when she had been taught everything, and that there was only

enough stuff in her to make a salaried drudge, a semi-domestic! She

suffered horribly, too, in that stiff, lonely dwelling which smelt of

the tomb. She was seized once more with the vertigo of her childhood, as

when she had striven to compel herself to work, in order to please

her mother; her blood rebelled; she would have liked to shout and jump

about, in her desire for life. But madame treated her so gently, sending

her away from her room, and ordering her to take long walks, that she

felt full of remorse when, on her return to the Quai de Bourbon, she was

obliged to tell a falsehood; to talk of the Bois de Boulogne or invent

some ceremony at church where she now never set foot. Madame seemed to

take to her more and more every day; there were constant presents, now a

silk dress, now a tiny gold watch, even some underlinen. She herself was

very fond of Madame Vanzade; she had wept one day when the latter had

called her daughter; she had sworn never to leave her, such was her

heart-felt pity at seeing her so old and helpless.

‘Well,’ said Claude one morning, ‘you’ll be rewarded; she’ll leave you

her money.’

Christine looked astonished. ‘Do you think so? It is said that she is

worth three millions of francs. No, no, I have never dreamt of such a

thing, and I won’t. What would become of me?’

Claude had averted his head, and hastily replied, ‘Well, you’d become

rich, that’s all. But no doubt she’ll first of all marry you off--’

On hearing this, Christine could hold out no longer, but burst into

laughter. ‘To one of her old friends, eh? perhaps the general who has a

silver chin. What a good joke!’

So far they had gone no further than chumming like old friends. He was

almost as new to life as she, having had nothing but chance adventures,

and living in an ideal world of his own, fanciful amid romantic amours.

To see each other in secret like this, from pure friendship, without

anything more tender passing between them than a cordial shake of the

hand at her arrival, and another one when she left, seemed to them quite

natural. Still for her part she scented that he was shy, and at

times she looked at him fixedly, with the wondering perturbation of

unconscious passion. But as yet nothing ardent or agitating spoilt the

pleasure they felt in being together. Their hands remained cool; they

spoke cheerfully on all subjects; they sometimes argued like friends,

who feel sure they will not fall out. Only, this friendship grew so keen

that they could no longer live without seeing one another.

The moment Christine came, Claude took the key from outside the door.

She herself insisted upon this, lest somebody might disturb them. After

a few visits she had taken absolute possession of the studio. She seemed

to be at home there. She was tormented by a desire to make the place

a little more tidy, for such disorder worried her and made her

uncomfortable. But it was not an easy matter. The painter had strictly

forbidden Madame Joseph to sweep up things, lest the dust should get on

the fresh paint. So, on the first occasions when his companion attempted

to clean up a bit, he watched her with anxious entreating eyes. What was

the good of changing the place of things? Didn’t it suffice to have them

at hand? However, she exhibited such gay determination, she seemed so

happy at playing the housewife, that he let her have her own way at

last. And now, the moment she had arrived and taken off her gloves, she

pinned up her dress to avoid soiling it, and set the big studio in order

in the twinkling of an eye. There was no longer a pile of cinders before

the stove; the screen hid the bedstead and the washstand; the couch

was brushed, the wardrobe polished; the deal table was cleared of the

crockery, and had not a stain of paint; and above the chairs, which

were symmetrically arranged, and the spanned easels propped against the

walls, the big cuckoo clock, with full-blown pink flowers on its dial,

seemed to tick more sonorously. Altogether it was magnificent; one would

not have recognised the place. He, stupefied, watched her trotting

to and fro, twisting about and singing as she went. Was this then the

lazybones who had such dreadful headaches at the least bit of work? But

she laughed; at headwork, yes; but exertion with her hands and feet did

her good, seemed to straighten her like a young sapling. She confessed,

even as she would have confessed some depraved taste, her liking for

lowly household cares; a liking which had greatly worried her mother,

whose educational ideal consisted of accomplishments, and who would

have made her a governess with soft hands, touching nothing vulgar. How

Christine had been chided indeed whenever she was caught, as a little

girl, sweeping, dusting, and playing delightedly at being cook! Even

nowadays, if she had been able to indulge in a bout with the dust at

Madame Vanzade’s, she would have felt less bored. But what would they

have said to that? She would no longer have been considered a lady. And

so she came to satisfy her longings at the Quai de Bourbon, panting with

the exercise, all aglow, her eyes glistening with a woman’s delight at

biting into forbidden fruit.

Claude by this time grew conscious of having a woman’s care around him.

In order to make her sit down and chat quietly, he would ask her now and

then to sew a torn cuff or coat-tail. She herself had offered to look

over his linen; but it was no longer with the ardour of a housewife,

eager to be up and doing. First of all, she hardly knew how to work; she

held her needle like a girl brought up in contempt of sewing. Besides,

the enforced quiescence and the attention that had to be given to

such work, the small stitches which had to be looked to one by one,

exasperated her. Thus the studio was bright with cleanliness like a

drawing-room, but Claude himself remained in rags, and they both joked

about it, thinking it great fun.

How happy were those months that they spent together, those four months

of frost and rain whiled away in the studio, where the red-hot stove

roared like an organ-pipe! The winter seemed to isolate them from the

world still more. When the snow covered the adjacent roofs, when the

sparrows fluttered against the window, they smiled at feeling warm and

cosy, at being lost, as it were, amidst the great silent city. But

they did not always confine themselves to that one little nook, for she

allowed him at last to see her home. For a long while she had insisted

upon going away by herself, feeling ashamed of being seen in the streets

on a man’s arm. Then, one day when the rain fell all of a sudden, she

was obliged to let him come downstairs with an umbrella. The rain having

ceased almost immediately, she sent him back when they reached the other

side of the Pont Louis-Philippe. They only remained a few moments beside

the parapet, looking at the Mail, and happy at being together in the

open air. Down below, large barges, moored against the quay, and full

of apples, were ranged four rows deep, so close together that the planks

thrown across them made a continuous path for the women and children

running to and fro. They were amused by the sight of all that fruit,

those enormous piles littering the banks, the round baskets which were

carried hither and thither, while a strong odour, suggestive of cider in

fermentation, mingled with the moist gusts from the river.

A week later, when the sun again showed itself, and Claude extolled the

solitude of the quays round the Isle Saint Louis, Christine consented to

take a walk. They strolled up the Quai de Bourbon and the Quai d’Anjou,

pausing at every few steps and growing interested in the various scenes

of river life; the dredger whose buckets grated against their chains,

the floating wash-house, which resounded with the hubbub of a quarrel,

and the steam cranes busy unloading the lighters. She did not cease to

wonder at one thought which came to her. Was it possible that yonder

Quai des Ormes, so full of life across the stream, that this Quai Henri

IV., with its broad embankment and lower shore, where bands of children

and dogs rolled over in the sand, that this panorama of an active,

densely-populated capital was the same accursed scene that had appeared

to her for a moment in a gory flash on the night of her arrival? They

went round the point of the island, strolling more leisurely still to

enjoy the solitude and tranquillity which the old historic mansions seem

to have implanted there. They watched the water seething between the

wooden piles of the Estacade, and returned by way of the Quai de Béthune

and the Quai d’Orléans, instinctively drawn closer to each other by

the widening of the stream, keeping elbow to elbow at sight of the vast

flow, with their eyes fixed on the distant Halle aux Vins and the

Jardin des Plantes. In the pale sky, the cupolas of the public buildings

assumed a bluish hue. When they reached the Pont St. Louis, Claude had

to point out Notre-Dame by name, for Christine did not recognise

the edifice from the rear, where it looked like a colossal creature

crouching down between its flying buttresses, which suggested sprawling

paws, while above its long leviathan spine its towers rose like a double

head. Their real find that day, however, was at the western point of

the island, that point like the prow of a ship always riding at anchor,

afloat between two swift currents, in sight of Paris, but ever unable

to get into port. They went down some very steep steps there, and

discovered a solitary bank planted with lofty trees. It was a charming

refuge--a hermitage in the midst of a crowd. Paris was rumbling around

them, on the quays, on the bridges, while they at the water’s edge

tasted the delight of being alone, ignored by the whole world. From that

day forth that bank became a little rustic coign of theirs, a favourite

open-air resort, where they took advantage of the sunny hours, when

the great heat of the studio, where the red-hot stove kept roaring,

oppressed them too much, filling their hands with a fever of which they

were afraid.

Nevertheless, Christine had so far objected to be accompanied farther

than the Mail. At the Quai des Ormes she always bade Claude go back,

as if Paris, with her crowds and possible encounters, began at the long

stretch of quays which she had to traverse on her way home. But Passy

was so far off, and she felt so dull at having to go such a distance

alone, that gradually she gave way. She began by allowing Claude to see

her as far as the Hôtel de Ville; then as far as the Pont-Neuf; at last

as far as the Tuileries. She forgot the danger; they walked arm in arm

like a young married couple; and that constantly repeated promenade,

that leisurely journey over the self-same ground by the river side,

acquired an infinite charm, full of a happiness such as could scarcely

be surpassed in after-times. They truly belonged to each other, though

they had not erred. It seemed as if the very soul of the great city,

rising from the river, wrapped them around with all the love that had

throbbed behind the grey stone walls through the long lapse of ages.

Since the nipping colds of December, Christine only came in the

afternoon, and it was about four o’clock, when the sun was sinking, that

Claude escorted her back on his arm. On days when the sky was clear,

they could see the long line of quays stretching away into space

directly they had crossed the Pont Louis-Philippe. From one end to the

other the slanting sun powdered the houses on the right bank with golden

dust, while, on the left, the islets, the buildings, stood out in a

black line against the blazing glory of the sunset. Between the sombre

and the brilliant margin, the spangled river sparkled, cut in twain

every now and then by the long bars of its bridges; the five arches of

the Pont Notre-Dame showing under the single span of the Pont d’Arcole;

then the Pont-au-Change and the Pont-Neuf, beyond each of whose shadows

appeared a luminous patch, a sheet of bluish satiny water, growing

paler here and there with a mirror-like reflection. And while the dusky

outlines on the left terminated in the silhouettes of the pointed towers

of the Palais de Justice, sharply and darkly defined against the sky,

a gentle curve undulated on the right, stretching away so far that the

Pavillon de Flore, who stood forth like a citadel at the curve’s extreme

end, seemed a fairy castle, bluey, dreamlike and vague, amidst the

rosy mist on the horizon. But Claude and Christine, with the sunlight

streaming on them, athwart the leafless plane trees, turned away from

the dazzlement, preferring to gaze at certain spots, one above all--a

block of old houses just above the Mail. Below, there was a series of

one-storied tenements, little huckster and fishing-tackle shops, with

flat terrace roofs, ornamented with laurel and Virginia creeper. And in

the rear rose loftier, but decrepit, dwellings, with linen hung out to

dry at their windows, a collection of fantastic structures, a confused

mass of woodwork and masonry, overtoppling walls, and hanging gardens,

in which coloured glass balls shone out like stars. They walked on,

leaving behind them the big barracks and the Hôtel de Ville, and feeling

much more interest in the Cité which appeared across the river, pent

between lofty smooth embankments rising from the water. Above the

darkened houses rose the towers of Notre-Dame, as resplendent as if they

had been newly gilt. Then the second-hand bookstalls began to invade

the quays. Down below a lighter full of charcoal struggled against the

strong current beneath an arch of the Pont Notre-Dame. And then, on

the days when the flower market was held, they stopped, despite the

inclement weather, to inhale the scent of the first violets and the

early gillyflowers. On their left a long stretch of bank now became

visible; beyond the pepper-caster turrets of the Palais de Justice, the

small, murky tenements of the Quai de l’Horloge showed as far as the

clump of trees midway across the Pont-Neuf; then, as they went farther

on, other quays emerged from the mist, in the far distance: the Quai

Voltaire, the Quai Malaquais, the dome of the Institute of France, the

square pile of the Mint, a long grey line of frontages of which they

could not even distinguish the windows, a promontory of roofs, which,

with their stacks of chimney-pots, looked like some rugged cliff,

dipping down into a phosphorescent sea. In front, however, the Pavillon

de Flore lost its dreamy aspect, and became solidified in the final sun

blaze. Then right and left, on either bank of the river, came the long

vistas of the Boulevard de Sebastopol and the Boulevard du Palais;

the handsome new buildings of the Quai de la Megisserie, with the new

Prefecture of Police across the water; and the old Pont-Neuf, with

its statue of Henri IV. looking like a splash of ink. The Louvre, the

Tuileries followed, and beyond Grenelle there was a far-stretching

panorama of the slopes of Sevres, the country steeped in a stream of

sun rays. Claude never went farther. Christine always made him stop just

before they reached the Pont Royal, near the fine trees beside Vigier’s

swimming baths; and when they turned round to shake hands once more in

the golden sunset now flushing into crimson, they looked back and, on

the horizon, espied the Isle Saint Louis, whence they had come, the

indistinct distance of the city upon which night was already descending

from the slate-hued eastern sky.

Ah! what splendid sunsets they beheld during those weekly strolls.

The sun accompanied them, as it were, amid the throbbing gaiety of the

quays, the river life, the dancing ripples of the currents; amid the

attractions of the shops, as warm as conservatories, the flowers sold by

the seed merchants, and the noisy cages of the bird fanciers; amid all

the din of sound and wealth of colour which ever make a city’s waterside

its youthful part. As they proceeded, the ardent blaze of the western

sky turned to purple on their left, above the dark line of houses, and

the orb of day seemed to wait for them, falling gradually lower, slowly

rolling towards the distant roofs when once they had passed the Pont

Notre-Dame in front of the widening stream. In no ancient forest, on no

mountain road, beyond no grassy plain will there ever be such triumphal

sunsets as behind the cupola of the Institute. It is there one sees

Paris retiring to rest in all her glory. At each of their walks the

aspect of the conflagration changed; fresh furnaces added their glow to

the crown of flames. One evening, when a shower had surprised them, the

sun, showing behind the downpour, lit up the whole rain cloud, and upon

their heads there fell a spray of glowing water, irisated with pink

and azure. On the days when the sky was clear, however, the sun, like a

fiery ball, descended majestically in an unruffled sapphire lake; for a

moment the black cupola of the Institute seemed to cut away part of it

and make it look like the waning moon; then the globe assumed a violet

tinge and at last became submerged in the lake, which had turned

blood-red. Already, in February, the planet described a wider curve, and

fell straight into the Seine, which seemed to seethe on the horizon as

at the contact of red-hot iron. However, the grander scenes, the vast

fairy pictures of space only blazed on cloudy evenings. Then, according

to the whim of the wind, there were seas of sulphur splashing against

coral reefs; there were palaces and towers, marvels of architecture,

piled upon one another, burning and crumbling, and throwing torrents of

lava from their many gaps; or else the orb which had disappeared, hidden

by a veil of clouds, suddenly transpierced that veil with such a press

of light that shafts of sparks shot forth from one horizon to the other,

showing as plainly as a volley of golden arrows. And then the twilight

fell, and they said good-bye to each other, while their eyes were still

full of the final dazzlement. They felt that triumphal Paris was the

accomplice of the joy which they could not exhaust, the joy of ever

resuming together that walk beside the old stone parapets.

One day, however, there happened what Claude had always secretly feared.

Christine no longer seemed to believe in the possibility of meeting

anybody who knew her. In fact, was there such a person? She would always

pass along like this, remaining altogether unknown. He, however, thought

of his own friends, and at times felt a kind of tremor when he fancied

he recognised in the distance the back of some acquaintance. He was

troubled by a feeling of delicacy; the idea that somebody might stare at

the girl, approach them, and perhaps begin to joke, gave him intolerable

worry. And that very evening, as she was close beside him on his arm,

and they were approaching the Pont des Arts, he fell upon Sandoz and

Dubuche, who were coming down the steps of the bridge. It was impossible

to avoid them, they were almost face to face; besides, his friends must

have seen him, for they smiled. Claude, very pale, kept advancing, and

he thought it all up on seeing Dubuche take a step towards him; but

Sandoz was already holding the architect back, and leading him away.

They passed on with an indifferent air and disappeared into the

courtyard of the Louvre without as much as turning round. They had both

just recognised the original of the crayon sketch, which the painter hid

away with all the jealousy of a lover. Christine, who was chattering,

had noticed nothing. Claude, with his heart throbbing, answered her in

monosyllables, moved to tears, brimming over with gratitude to his old

chums for their discreet behaviour.

A few days later, however, he had another shock. He did not expect

Christine, and had therefore made an appointment with Sandoz. Then,

as she had run up to spend an hour--it was one of those surprises that

delighted them--they had just withdrawn the key, as usual, when

there came a familiar knock with the fist on the door. Claude at once

recognised the rap, and felt so upset at the mishap that he overturned a

chair. After that it was impossible to pretend to be out. But Christine

turned so pale, and implored him with such a wild gesture, that he

remained rooted to the spot, holding his breath. The knocks continued,

and a voice called, ‘Claude, Claude!’ He still remained quite still,

debating with himself, however, with ashen lips and downcast eyes. Deep

silence reigned, and then footsteps were heard, making the stairs creak

as they went down. Claude’s breast heaved with intense sadness; he felt

it bursting with remorse at the sound of each retreating step, as if he

had denied the friendship of his whole youth.

However, one afternoon there came another knock, and Claude had only

just time to whisper despairingly, ‘The key has been left in the door.’

In fact, Christine had forgotten to take it out. She became quite scared

and darted behind the screen, with her handkerchief over her mouth to

stifle the sound of her breathing.

The knocks became louder, there was a burst of laughter, and the painter

had to reply, ‘Come in.’

He felt more uncomfortable still when he saw Jory, who gallantly ushered

in Irma Bécot, whose acquaintance he had made through Fagerolles, and

who was flinging her youth about the Paris studios.

‘She insisted upon seeing your studio, so I brought her,’ explained the

journalist.

The girl, however, without waiting, was already walking about and making

remarks, with perfect freedom of manner. ‘Oh! how funny it is here. And

what funny painting. Come, there’s a good fellow, show me everything. I

want to see everything.’

Claude, apprehensively anxious, was afraid that she might push the

screen aside. He pictured Christine behind it, and felt distracted

already at what she might hear.

‘You know what she has come to ask of you?’ resumed Jory cheerfully.

‘What, don’t you remember? You promised that she might pose for

something. And she’ll do so if you like.’

‘Of course I will,’ said Irma.

‘The fact is,’ replied Claude, in an embarrassed tone, ‘my picture here

will take up all my time till the Salon. I have a figure in it that

gives me a deal of trouble. It’s impossible to perfect it with those

confounded models.’

Irma had stationed herself in front of the picture, and looked at it

with a knowing air. ‘Oh! I see,’ she said, ‘that woman in the grass, eh?

Do you think I could be of any use to you?’

Jory flared up in a moment, warmly approving the idea, but Claude with

the greatest energy replied, ‘No, no madame wouldn’t suit. She is not at

all what I want for this picture; not at all.’

Then he went on stammering excuses. He would be only too pleased later

on, but just now he was afraid that another model would quite complete

his confusion over that picture; and Irma responded by shrugging her

shoulders, and looking at him with an air of smiling contempt.

Jory, however, now began to chat about their friends. Why had not

Claude come to Sandoz’s on the previous Thursday? One never saw him now.

Dubuche asserted all sorts of things about him. There had been a row

between Fagerolles and Mahoudeau on the subject whether evening dress

was a thing to be reproduced in sculpture. Then on the previous Sunday

Gagnière had returned home from a Wagner concert with a black eye. He,

Jory, had nearly had a duel at the Café Baudequin on account of one of

his last articles in ‘The Drummer.’ The fact was he was giving it hot to

the twopenny-halfpenny painters, the men with the usurped reputations!

The campaign against the hanging committee of the Salon was making a

deuce of a row; not a shred would be left of those guardians of the

ideal, who wanted to prevent nature from entering their show.

Claude listened to him with impatient irritation. He had taken up his

palette and was shuffling about in front of his picture. The other one

understood at last.

‘You want to work, I see; all right, we’ll leave you.’

Irma, however, still stared at the painter, with her vague smile,

astonished at the stupidity of this simpleton, who did not seem to

appreciate her, and seized despite herself with a whim to please him.

His studio was ugly, and he himself wasn’t handsome; but why should he

put on such bugbear airs? She chaffed him for a moment, and on going off

again offered to sit for him, emphasising her offer by warmly pressing

his hand.

‘Whenever you like,’ were her parting words.

They had gone at last, and Claude was obliged to pull the screen aside,

for Christine, looking very white, remained seated behind it, as if she

lacked the strength to rise. She did not say a word about the girl, but

simply declared that she had felt very frightened; and--trembling lest

there should come another knock--she wanted to go at once, carrying away

with her, as her startled looks testified, the disturbing thought of

many things which she did not mention.

In fact, for a long time that sphere of brutal art, that studio full of

glaring pictures, had caused her a feeling of discomfort. Wounded in all

her feelings, full of repugnance, she could not get used to it all. She

had grown up full of affectionate admiration for a very different style

of art--her mother’s fine water-colours, those fans of dreamy delicacy,

in which lilac-tinted couples floated about in bluish gardens--and she

quite failed to understand Claude’s work. Even now she often amused

herself by painting tiny girlish landscapes, two or three subjects

repeated over and over again--a lake with a ruin, a water-mill beating

a stream, a chalet and some pine trees, white with snow. And she felt

surprised that an intelligent young fellow should paint in such an

unreasonable manner, so ugly and so untruthful besides. For she not

only thought Claude’s realism monstrously ugly, but considered it beyond

every permissible truth. In fact, she thought at times that he must be

mad.

One day Claude absolutely insisted upon seeing a small sketch-book which

she had brought away from Clermont, and which she had spoken about.

After objecting for a long while, she brought it with her, flattered at

heart and feeling very curious to know what he would say. He turned over

the leaves, smiling all the while, and as he did not speak, she was the

first to ask:

‘You think it very bad, don’t you?’

‘Not at all,’ he replied. ‘It’s innocent.’

The reply hurt her, despite Claude’s indulgent tone, which aimed at

making it amiable.

‘Well, you see I had so few lessons from mamma. I like painting to be

well done, and pleasing.’

Thereupon he burst into frank laughter.

‘Confess now that my painting makes you feel ill! I have noticed it. You

purse your lips and open your eyes wide with fright. Certainly it is

not the style of painting for ladies, least of all for young girls. But

you’ll get used to it; it’s only a question of educating your eyes and

you’ll end by seeing that what I am doing is very honest and healthy.’

Indeed, Christine slowly became used to it. But, at first, artistic

conviction had nothing to do with the change, especially as Claude,

with his contempt for female opinion, did not take the trouble to

indoctrinate her. On the contrary, in her company he avoided conversing

about art, as if he wished to retain for himself that passion of his

life, apart from the new passion which was gradually taking possession

of him. Still, Christine glided into the habit of the thing, and became

familiarised with it; she began to feel interested in those abominable

pictures, on noticing the important place they held in the artist’s

existence. This was the first stage on the road to conversion; she

felt greatly moved by his rageful eagerness to be up and doing, the

whole-heartedness with which he devoted himself to his work. Was it not

very touching? Was there not something very creditable in it? Then, on

noticing his joy or suffering, according to the success or the failure

of the day’s work, she began to associate herself with his efforts. She

felt saddened when she found him sad, she grew cheerful when he received

her cheerfully; and from that moment her worry was--had he done a lot

of work? was he satisfied with what he had done since they had last seen

each other? At the end of the second month she had been gained over;

she stationed herself before his pictures to judge whether they were

progressing or not. She no longer felt afraid of them. She still did not

approve particularly of that style of painting, but she began to repeat

the artistic expressions which she had heard him use; declared this

bit to be ‘vigorous in tone,’ ‘well built up,’ or ‘just in the light

it should be.’ He seemed to her so good-natured, and she was so fond of

him, that after finding excuses for him for daubing those horrors, she

ended by discovering qualities in them in order that she might like them

a little also.

Nevertheless, there was one picture, the large one, the one intended for

the Salon, to which for a long while she was quite unable to reconcile

herself. She already looked without dislike at the studies made at the

Boutin studio and the sketches of Plassans, but she was still irritated

by the sight of the woman lying in the grass. It was like a personal

grudge, the shame of having momentarily thought that she could detect

in it a likeness of herself, and silent embarrassment, too, for that big

figure continued to wound her feelings, although she now found less and

less of a resemblance in it. At first she had protested by averting her

eyes. Now she remained for several minutes looking at it fixedly,

in mute contemplation. How was it that the likeness to herself had

disappeared? The more vigorously that Claude struggled on, never

satisfied, touching up the same bit a hundred times over, the more did

that likeness to herself gradually fade away. And, without being able

to account for it, without daring to admit as much to herself, she, whom

the painting had so greatly offended when she had first seen it, now

felt a growing sorrow at noticing that nothing of herself remained.

Indeed it seemed to her as if their friendship suffered from this

obliteration; she felt herself further away from him as trait after

trait vanished. Didn’t he care for her that he thus allowed her to be

effaced from his work? And who was the new woman, whose was the unknown

indistinct face that appeared from beneath hers?

Claude, in despair at having spoilt the figure’s head, did not know

exactly how to ask her for a few hours’ sitting. She would merely have

had to sit down, and he would only have taken some hints. But he had

previously seen her so pained that he felt afraid of irritating her

again. Moreover, after resolving in his own mind to ask her this favour

in a gay, off-hand way, he had been at a loss for words, feeling all at

once ashamed at the notion.

One afternoon he quite upset her by one of those bursts of anger which

he found it impossible to control, even in her presence. Everything had

gone wrong that week; he talked of scraping his canvas again, and he

paced up and down, beside himself, and kicking the furniture about. Then

all of a sudden he caught her by the shoulders, and made her sit down on

the couch.

‘I beg of you, do me this favour, or it’ll kill me, I swear it will.’

She did not understand him.

‘What--what is it you want?’

Then as soon as she saw him take up his brushes, she added, without

heeding what she said, ‘Ah, yes! Why did not you ask me before?’

And of her own accord she threw herself back on a cushion and slipped

her arm under her neck. But surprise and confusion at having yielded so

quickly made her grave, for she did not know that she was prepared for

this kind of thing; indeed, she could have sworn that she would never

serve him as a model again. Her compliance already filled her with

remorse, as if she were lending herself to something wrong by letting

him impart her own countenance to that big creature, lying refulgent

under the sun.

However, in two sittings, Claude worked in the head all right. He

exulted with delight, and exclaimed that it was the best bit of painting

he had ever done; and he was right, never had he thrown such a play of

real light over such a life-like face. Happy at seeing him so pleased,

Christine also became gay, going as far as to express approval of her

head, which, though not extremely like her, had a wonderful expression.

They stood for a long while before the picture, blinking at it, and

drawing back as far as the wall.

‘And now,’ he said at last, ‘I’ll finish her off with a model. Ah! so

I’ve got her at last.’

In a burst of childish glee, he took the girl round the waist, and they

performed ‘a triumphant war dance,’ as he called it. She laughed very

heartily, fond of romping as she was, and no longer feeling aught of her

scruples and discomfort.

But the very next week Claude became gloomy again. He had chosen Zoé

Piedefer as a model, but she did not satisfy him. Christine’s delicate

head, as he expressed it, did not set well on the other’s shoulders. He,

nevertheless, persisted, scratched out, began anew, and worked so

hard that he lived in a constant state of fever. Towards the middle of

January, seized with despair, he abandoned his picture and turned it

against the wall, swearing that he would not finish it. But a fortnight

later, he began to work at it again with another model, and then found

himself obliged to change the whole tone of it. Thus matters got still

worse; so he sent for Zoé again; became altogether at sea, and quite ill

with uncertainty and anguish. And the pity of it was, that the central

figure alone worried him, for he was well satisfied with the rest of

the painting, the trees of the background, the two little women and the

gentleman in the velvet coat, all finished and vigorous. February was

drawing to a close; he had only a few days left to send his picture to

the Salon; it was quite a disaster.

One evening, in Christine’s presence, he began swearing, and all at once

a cry of fury escaped him: ‘After all, by the thunder of heaven, is it

possible to stick one woman’s head on another’s shoulders? I ought to

chop my hand off.’

From the depths of his heart a single idea now rose to his brain: to

obtain her consent to pose for the whole figure. It had slowly sprouted,

first as a simple wish, quickly discarded as absurd; then had come a

silent, constantly-renewed debate with himself; and at last, under the

spur of necessity, keen and definite desire. The recollection of the

morning after the storm, when she had accepted his hospitality, haunted

and tortured him. It was she whom he needed; she alone could enable

him to realise his dream, and he beheld her again in all her youthful

freshness, beaming and indispensable. If he could not get her to pose,

he might as well give up his picture, for no one else would ever satisfy

him. At times, while he remained seated for hours, distracted in front

of the unfinished canvas, so utterly powerless that he no longer knew

where to give a stroke of the brush, he formed heroic resolutions. The

moment she came in he would throw himself at her feet; he would tell her

of his distress in such touching words that she would perhaps consent.

But as soon as he beheld her, he lost all courage, he averted his eyes,

lest she might decipher his thoughts in his instinctive glances. Such

a request would be madness. One could not expect such a service from a

friend; he would never have the audacity to ask.

Nevertheless, one evening as he was getting ready to accompany her, and

as she was putting on her bonnet, with her arms uplifted, they remained

for a moment looking into each other’s eyes, he quivering, and she

suddenly becoming so grave, so pale, that he felt himself detected. All

along the quays they scarcely spoke; the matter remained unmentioned

between them while the sun set in the coppery sky. Twice afterwards he

again read in her looks that she was aware of his all-absorbing thought.

In fact, since he had dreamt about it, she had began to do the same,

in spite of herself, her attention roused by his involuntary allusions.

They scarcely affected her at first, though she was obliged at last to

notice them; still the question seemed to her to be beyond the range

of possibility, to be one of those unavowable ideas which people do not

even speak of. The fear that he would dare to ask her did not even occur

to her; she knew him well by now; she could have silenced him with a

gesture, before he had stammered the first words, and in spite of his

sudden bursts of anger. It was simple madness. Never, never!

Days went by, and between them that fixed idea grew in intensity. The

moment they were together they could not help thinking of it. Not a word

was spoken on the subject, but their very silence was eloquent; they no

longer made a movement, no longer exchanged a smile without stumbling

upon that thought, which they found impossible to put into words, though

it filled their minds. Soon nothing but that remained in their fraternal

intercourse. And the perturbation of heart and senses which they had

so far avoided in the course of their familiar intimacy, came at last,

under the influence of the all-besetting thought. And then the anguish

which they left unmentioned, but which they could not hide from one

another, racked and stifled them, left them heaving distressfully with

painful sighs.

Towards the middle of March, Christine, at one of her visits, found

Claude seated before his picture, overcome with sorrow. He had not

even heard her enter. He remained motionless, with vacant, haggard eyes

staring at his unfinished work. In another three days the delay for

sending in exhibits for the Salon would expire.

‘Well,’ she inquired gently, after standing for a long time behind him,

grief-stricken at seeing him in such despair.

He started and turned round.

‘Well, it’s all up. I sha’n’t exhibit anything this year. Ah! I who

relied so much upon this Salon!’

Both relapsed into despondency--a despondency and agitation full of

confused thoughts. Then she resumed, thinking aloud as it were:

‘There would still be time.’

‘Time? Oh! no indeed. A miracle would be needed. Where am I to find a

model so late in the day? Do you know, since this morning I have been

worrying, and for a moment I thought I had hit upon an idea: Yes, it

would be to go and fetch that girl, that Irma who came while you were

here. I know well enough that she is short and not at all such as I

thought of, and so I should perhaps have to change everything once more;

but all the same it might be possible to make her do. Decidedly, I’ll

try her--’

He stopped short. The glowing eyes with which he gazed at her clearly

said: ‘Ah! there’s you! ah! it would be the hoped-for miracle, and

triumph would be certain, if you were to make this supreme sacrifice

for me. I beseech you, I ask you devoutly, as a friend, the dearest, the

most beauteous, the most pure.’

She, erect, looking very pale, seemed to hear each of those words,

though all remained unspoken, and his ardently beseeching eyes overcame

her. She herself did not speak. She simply did as she was desired,

acting almost like one in a dream. Beneath it all there lurked the

thought that he must not ask elsewhere, for she was now conscious of

her earlier jealous disquietude and wished to share his affections with

none. Yet it was in silence and all chastity that she stretched herself

on the couch, and took up the pose, with one arm under her head, her

eyes closed.

And Claude? Startled, full of gratitude, he had at last found again the

sudden vision that he had so often evoked. But he himself did not speak;

he began to paint in the deep solemn silence that had fallen upon them

both. For two long hours he stood to his work with such manly energy

that he finished right off a superb roughing out of the whole figure.

Never before had he felt such enthusiasm in his art. It seemed to him

as if he were in the presence of some saint; and at times he wondered

at the transfiguration of Christine’s face, whose somewhat massive jaws

seemed to have receded beneath the gentle placidity which her brow and

cheeks displayed. During those two hours she did not stir, she did not

speak, but from time to time she opened her clear eyes, fixing them on

some vague, distant point, and remaining thus for a moment, then closing

them again, and relapsing into the lifelessness of fine marble, with the

mysterious fixed smile required by the pose.

It was by a gesture that Claude apprized her he had finished. He turned

away, and when they stood face to face again, she ready to depart, they

gazed at one another, overcome by emotion which still prevented them

from speaking. Was it sadness, then, unconscious, unnameable sadness?

For their eyes filled with tears, as if they had just spoilt their lives

and dived to the depths of human misery. Then, moved and grieved, unable

to find a word, even of thanks, he kissed her religiously upon the brow.

V

ON the 15th May, a Friday, Claude, who had returned at three o’clock in

the morning from Sandoz’s, was still asleep at nine, when Madame Joseph

brought him up a large bouquet of white lilac which a commissionaire had

just left downstairs. He understood at once. Christine had wished to be

beforehand in celebrating the success of his painting. For this was a

great day for him, the opening day of the ‘Salon of the Rejected,’ which

was first instituted that year,* and at which his picture--refused by

the hanging committee of the official Salon--was to be exhibited.

* This was in 1863.--ED.

That delicate attention on Christine’s part, that fresh and fragrant

lilac, affected him greatly, as if presaging a happy day. Still in his

nightshirt, with his feet bare, he placed the flowers in his water-jug

on the table. Then, with his eyes still swollen with sleep, almost

bewildered, he dressed, scolding himself the while for having slept so

long. On the previous night he had promised Dubuche and Sandoz to call

for them at the latter’s place at eight o’clock, in order that they

might all three go together to the Palais de l’Industrie, where they

would find the rest of the band. And he was already an hour behind time.

Then, as luck would have it, he could not lay his hands upon anything in

his studio, which had been turned topsy-turvy since the despatch of the

big picture. For more than five minutes he hunted on his knees for his

shoes, among a quantity of old chases. Some particles of gold leaf flew

about, for, not knowing where to get the money for a proper frame, he

had employed a joiner of the neighbourhood to fit four strips of board

together, and had gilded them himself, with the assistance of his friend

Christine, who, by the way, had proved a very unskilful gilder. At last,

dressed and shod, and having his soft felt hat bespangled with yellow

sparks of the gold, he was about to go, when a superstitious thought

brought him back to the nosegay, which had remained alone on the centre

of the table. If he did not kiss the lilac he was sure to suffer an

affront. So he kissed it and felt perfumed by its strong springtide

aroma.

Under the archway, he gave his key as usual to the doorkeeper. ‘Madame

Joseph,’ he said, ‘I shall not be home all day.’

In less than twenty minutes he was in the Rue d’Enfer, at Sandoz’s. But

the latter, whom he feared would have already gone, was equally late in

consequence of a sudden indisposition which had come upon his mother. It

was nothing serious. She had merely passed a bad night, but it had for a

while quite upset him with anxiety. Now, easy in mind again, Sandoz told

Claude that Dubuche had written saying that they were not to wait for

him, and giving an appointment at the Palais. They therefore started

off, and as it was nearly eleven, they decided to lunch in a deserted

little _crèmerie_ in the Rue St. Honoré, which they did very leisurely,

seized with laziness amidst all their ardent desire to see and know;

and enjoying, as it were, a kind of sweet, tender sadness from lingering

awhile and recalling memories of their youth.

One o’clock was striking when they crossed the Champs Elysées. It was

a lovely day, with a limpid sky, to which the breeze, still somewhat

chilly, seemed to impart a brighter azure. Beneath the sun, of the

hue of ripe corn, the rows of chestnut trees showed new foliage of a

delicate and seemingly freshly varnished green; and the fountains with

their leaping sheafs of water, the well-kept lawns, the deep vistas of

the pathways, and the broad open spaces, all lent an air of luxurious

grandeur to the panorama. A few carriages, very few at that early

hour, were ascending the avenue, while a stream of bewildered, bustling

people, suggesting a swarm of ants, plunged into the huge archway of the

Palais de l’Industrie.

When they were inside, Claude shivered slightly while crossing the

gigantic vestibule, which was as cold as a cellar, with a damp pavement

which resounded beneath one’s feet, like the flagstones of a church.

He glanced right and left at the two monumental stairways, and asked

contemptuously: ‘I say, are we going through their dirty Salon?’

‘Oh! no, dash it!’ answered Sandoz. ‘Let’s cut through the garden. The

western staircase over there leads to “the Rejected.”’

Then they passed disdainfully between the two little tables of the

catalogue vendors. Between the huge red velvet curtains and beyond a

shady porch appeared the garden, roofed in with glass. At that time of

day it was almost deserted; there were only some people at the buffet

under the clock, a throng of people lunching. The crowd was in the

galleries on the first floor, and the white statues alone edged the

yellow-sanded pathways which with stretches of crude colour intersected

the green lawns. There was a whole nation of motionless marble there

steeped in the diffuse light falling from the glazed roof on high.

Looking southwards, some holland screens barred half of the nave, which

showed ambery in the sunlight and was speckled at both ends by the

dazzling blue and crimson of stained-glass windows. Just a few visitors,

tired already, occupied the brand-new chairs and seats, shiny with fresh

paint; while the flights of sparrows, who dwelt above, among the iron

girders, swooped down, quite at home, raking up the sand and twittering

as they pursued each other.

Claude and Sandoz made a show of walking very quickly without giving

a glance around them. A stiff classical bronze statue, a Minerva by a

member of the Institute, had exasperated them at the very door. But as

they hastened past a seemingly endless line of busts, they recognised

Bongrand, who, all alone, was going slowly round a colossal,

overflowing, recumbent figure, which had been placed in the middle of

the path. With his hands behind his back, quite absorbed, he bent his

wrinkled face every now and then over the plaster.

‘Hallo, it’s you?’ he said, as they held out their hands to him. ‘I was

just looking at our friend Mahoudeau’s figure, which they have at least

had the intelligence to admit, and to put in a good position.’ Then,

breaking off: ‘Have you been upstairs?’ he asked.

‘No, we have just come in,’ said Claude.

Thereupon Bongrand began to talk warmly about the Salon of the Rejected.

He, who belonged to the Institute, but who lived apart from his

colleagues, made very merry over the affair; the everlasting discontent

of painters; the campaign conducted by petty newspapers like ‘The

Drummer’; the protestations, the constant complaints that had at last

disturbed the Emperor, and the artistic _coup d’etat_ carried out by

that silent dreamer, for this Salon of the Rejected was entirely his

work. Then the great painter alluded to all the hubbub caused by the

flinging of such a paving-stone into that frog’s pond, the official art

world.

‘No,’ he continued, ‘you can have no idea of the rage and indignation

among the members of the hanging committee. And remember I’m distrusted,

they generally keep quiet when I’m there. But they are all furious with

the realists. It was to them that they systematically closed the doors

of the temple; it is on account of them that the Emperor has allowed the

public to revise their verdict; and finally it is they, the realists,

who triumph. Ah! I hear some nice things said; I wouldn’t give a high

price for your skins, youngsters.’

He laughed his big, joyous laugh, stretching out his arms the while as

if to embrace all the youthfulness that he divined rising around him.

‘Your disciples are growing,’ said Claude, simply.

But Bongrand, becoming embarrassed, silenced him with a wave of

his hand. He himself had not sent anything for exhibition, and the

prodigious mass of work amidst which he found himself--those pictures,

those statues, all those proofs of creative effort--filled him with

regret. It was not jealousy, for there lived not a more upright and

better soul; but as a result of self-examination, a gnawing fear of

impotence, an unavowed dread haunted him.

‘And at “the Rejected,”’ asked Sandoz; ‘how goes it there?’

‘Superb; you’ll see.’

Then turning towards Claude, and keeping both the young man’s hands in

his own, ‘You, my good fellow, you are a trump. Listen! they say I am

clever: well, I’d give ten years of my life to have painted that big

hussy of yours.’

Praise like that, coming from such lips, moved the young painter to

tears. Victory had come at last, then? He failed to find a word of

thanks, and abruptly changed the conversation, wishing to hide his

emotion.

‘That good fellow Mahoudeau!’ he said, ‘why his figure’s capital! He has

a deuced fine temperament, hasn’t he?’

Sandoz and Claude had begun to walk round the plaster figure. Bongrand

replied with a smile.

‘Yes, yes; there’s too much fulness and massiveness in parts. But just

look at the articulations, they are delicate and really pretty. Come,

good-bye, I must leave you. I’m going to sit down a while. My legs are

bending under me.’

Claude had raised his head to listen. A tremendous uproar, an incessant

crashing that had not struck him at first, careered through the air; it

was like the din of a tempest beating against a cliff, the rumbling of

an untiring assault, dashing forward from endless space.

‘Hallow, what’s that?’ he muttered.

‘That,’ said Bongrand, as he walked away, ‘that’s the crowd upstairs in

the galleries.’

And the two young fellows, having crossed the garden, then went up to

the Salon of the Rejected.

It had been installed in first-rate style. The officially received

pictures were not lodged more sumptuously: lofty hangings of old

tapestry at the doors; ‘the line’ set off with green baize; seats of

crimson velvet; white linen screens under the large skylights of the

roof. And all along the suite of galleries the first impression was the

same--there were the same gilt frames, the same bright colours on the

canvases. But there was a special kind of cheerfulness, a sparkle of

youth which one did not altogether realise at first. The crowd, already

compact, increased every minute, for the official Salon was being

deserted. People came stung by curiosity, impelled by a desire to judge

the judges, and, above all, full of the conviction that they were going

to see some very diverting things. It was very hot; a fine dust arose

from the flooring; and certainly, towards four o’clock people would

stifle there.

‘Hang it!’ said Sandoz, trying to elbow his way, ‘it will be no easy job

to move about and find your picture.’

A burst of fraternal feverishness made him eager to get to it. That day

he only lived for the work and glory of his old chum.

‘Don’t worry!’ exclaimed Claude; ‘we shall get to it all right. My

picture won’t fly off.’

And he affected to be in no hurry, in spite of the almost irresistible

desire that he felt to run. He raised his head and looked around him;

and soon, amidst the loud voices of the crowd that had bewildered him,

he distinguished some restrained laughter, which was almost drowned

by the tramp of feet and the hubbub of conversation. Before certain

pictures the public stood joking. This made him feel uneasy, for despite

all his revolutionary brutality he was as sensitive and as credulous

as a woman, and always looked forward to martyrdom, though he was ever

grieved and stupefied at being repulsed and railed at.

‘They seem gay here,’ he muttered.

‘Well, there’s good reason,’ remarked Sandoz. ‘Just look at those

extravagant jades!’

At the same moment, while still lingering in the first gallery,

Fagerolles ran up against them without seeing them. He started, being

no doubt annoyed by the meeting. However, he recovered his composure

immediately, and behaved very amiably.

‘Hallo! I was just thinking of you. I have been here for the last hour.’

‘Where have they put Claude’s picture?’ asked Sandoz. Fagerolles, who

had just remained for twenty minutes in front of that picture studying

it and studying the impression which it produced on the public, answered

without wincing, ‘I don’t know; I haven’t been able to find it. We’ll

look for it together if you like.’

And he joined them. Terrible wag as he was, he no longer affected

low-bred manners to the same degree as formerly; he already began to

dress well, and although with his mocking nature he was still disposed

to snap at everybody as of old, he pursed his lips into the serious

expression of a fellow who wants to make his way in the world. With an

air of conviction he added: ‘I must say that I now regret not having

sent anything this year! I should be here with all the rest of you, and

have my share of success. And there are really some astonishing things,

my boys! those horses, for instance.’

He pointed to a huge canvas in front of them, before which the crowd was

gathering and laughing. It was, so people said, the work of an erstwhile

veterinary surgeon, and showed a number of life-size horses in a meadow,

fantastic horses, blue, violet, and pink, whose astonishing anatomy

transpierced their sides.

‘I say, don’t you humbug us,’ exclaimed Claude, suspiciously.

But Fagerolles pretended to be enthusiastic. ‘What do you mean? The

picture’s full of talent. The fellow who painted it understands horses

devilish well. No doubt he paints like a brute. But what’s the odds if

he’s original, and contributes a document?’

As he spoke Fagerolles’ delicate girlish face remained perfectly grave,

and it was impossible to tell whether he was joking. There was but the

slightest yellow twinkle of spitefulness in the depths of his grey eyes.

And he finished with a sarcastic allusion, the drift of which was as yet

patent to him alone. ‘Ah, well! if you let yourself be influenced by the

fools who laugh, you’ll have enough to do by and by.’

The three friends had gone on again, only advancing, however, with

infinite difficulty amid that sea of surging shoulders. On entering the

second gallery they gave a glance round the walls, but the picture they

sought was not there. In lieu thereof they perceived Irma Bécot on

the arm of Gagnière, both of them pressed against a hand-rail, he busy

examining a small canvas, while she, delighted at being hustled about,

raised her pink little mug and laughed at the crowd.

‘Hallo!’ said Sandoz, surprised, ‘here she is with Gagnière now!’

‘Oh, just a fancy of hers!’ exclaimed Fagerolles quietly. ‘She has a

very swell place now. Yes, it was given her by that young idiot of a

marquis, whom the papers are always talking about. She’s a girl who’ll

make her way; I’ve always said so! But she seems to retain a weakness

for painters, and every now and then drops into the Café Baudequin to

look up old friends!’

Irma had now seen them, and was making gestures from afar. They could

but go to her. When Gagnière, with his light hair and little beardless

face, turned round, looking more grotesque than over, he did not show

the least surprise at finding them there.

‘It’s wonderful,’ he muttered.

‘What’s wonderful?’ asked Fagerolles.

‘This little masterpiece--and withal honest and naif, and full of

conviction.’

He pointed to a tiny canvas before which he had stood absorbed, an

absolutely childish picture, such as an urchin of four might have

painted; a little cottage at the edge of a little road, with a little

tree beside it, the whole out of drawing, and girt round with black

lines. Not even a corkscrew imitation of smoke issuing from the roof was

forgotten.

Claude made a nervous gesture, while Fagerolles repeated phlegmatically:

‘Very delicate, very delicate. But your picture, Gagnière, where is it?’

‘My picture, it is there.’

In fact, the picture he had sent happened to be very near the little

masterpiece. It was a landscape of a pearly grey, a bit of the Seine

banks, painted carefully, pretty in tone, though somewhat heavy, and

perfectly ponderated without a sign of any revolutionary splash.

‘To think that they were idiotic enough to refuse that!’ said Claude,

who had approached with an air of interest. But why, I ask you, why?’

‘Because it’s realistic,’ said Fagerolles, in so sharp a voice that one

could not tell whether he was gibing at the jury or at the picture.

Meanwhile, Irma, of whom no one took any notice, was looking fixedly at

Claude with the unconscious smile which the savage loutishness of that

big fellow always brought to her lips. To think that he had not even

cared to see her again. She found him so much altered since the last

time she had seen him, so funny, and not at all prepossessing, with his

hair standing on end, and his face wan and sallow, as if he had had a

severe fever. Pained that he did not seem to notice her, she wanted to

attract his attention, and touched his arm with a familiar gesture.

‘I say, isn’t that one of your friends over there, looking for you?’

It was Dubuche, whom she knew from having seen him on one occasion at

the Café Baudequin. He was, with difficulty, elbowing his way through

the crowd, and staring vaguely at the sea of heads around him. But

all at once, when Claude was trying to attract his notice by dint of

gesticulations, the other turned his back to bow very low to a party of

three--the father short and fat, with a sanguine face; the mother very

thin, of the colour of wax, and devoured by anemia; and the daughter

so physically backward at eighteen, that she retained all the lank

scragginess of childhood.

‘All right!’ muttered the painter. ‘There he’s caught now. What ugly

acquaintances the brute has! Where can he have fished up such horrors?’

Gagnière quietly replied that he knew the strangers by sight. M.

Margaillan was a great masonry contractor, already a millionaire five or

six times over, and was making his fortune out of the great public

works of Paris, running up whole boulevards on his own account. No doubt

Dubuche had become acquainted with him through one of the architects he

worked for.

However, Sandoz, compassionating the scragginess of the girl, whom he

kept watching, judged her in one sentence.

‘Ah! the poor little flayed kitten. One feels sorry for her.’

‘Let them alone!’ exclaimed Claude, ferociously. ‘They have all the

crimes of the middle classes stamped on their faces; they reek of

scrofula and idiocy. It serves them right. But hallo! our runaway friend

is making off with them. What grovellers architects are! Good riddance.

He’ll have to look for us when he wants us!’

Dubuche, who had not seen his friends, had just offered his arm to the

mother, and was going off, explaining the pictures with gestures typical

of exaggerated politeness.

‘Well, let’s proceed then,’ said Fagerolles; and, addressing Gagnière,

he asked, ‘Do you know where they have put Claude’s picture?’

‘I? no, I was looking for it--I am going with you.’

He accompanied them, forgetting Irma Bécot against the ‘line.’ It was

she who had wanted to visit the Salon on his arm, and he was so little

used to promenading a woman about, that he had constantly lost her on

the way, and was each time stupefied to find her again beside him, no

longer knowing how or why they were thus together. She ran after them,

and took his arm once more in order to follow Claude, who was already

passing into another gallery with Fagerolles and Sandoz.

Then the five roamed about in Indian file, with their noses in the

air, now separated by a sudden crush, now reunited by another, and

ever carried along by the stream. An abomination of Chaîne’s, a ‘Christ

pardoning the Woman taken in Adultery,’ made them pause; it was a group

of dry figures that looked as if cut out of wood, very bony of build,

and seemingly painted with mud. But close by they admired a very fine

study of a woman, seen from behind, with her head turned sideways. The

whole show was a mixture of the best and the worst, all styles were

mingled together, the drivellers of the historical school elbowed the

young lunatics of realism, the pure simpletons were lumped together with

those who bragged about their originality. A dead Jezabel, that seemed

to have rotted in the cellars of the School of Arts, was exhibited near

a lady in white, the very curious conception of a future great artist*;

then a huge shepherd looking at the sea, a weak production, faced a

little painting of some Spaniards playing at rackets, a dash of light

of splendid intensity. Nothing execrable was wanting, neither military

scenes full of little leaden soldiers, nor wan antiquity, nor the middle

ages, smeared, as it were, with bitumen. But from amidst the incoherent

ensemble, and especially from the landscapes, all of which were painted

in a sincere, correct key, and also from the portraits, most of which

were very interesting in respect to workmanship, there came a good fresh

scent of youth, bravery and passion. If there were fewer bad pictures in

the official Salon, the average there was assuredly more commonplace and

mediocre. Here one found the smell of battle, of cheerful battle, given

jauntily at daybreak, when the bugle sounds, and when one marches to

meet the enemy with the certainty of beating him before sunset.

* Edouard Manet.--ED.

Claude, whose spirits had revived amidst that martial odour, grew

animated and pugnacious as he listened to the laughter of the public. He

looked as defiant, indeed, as if he had heard bullets whizzing past him.

Sufficiently discreet at the entrance of the galleries, the laughter

became more boisterous, more unrestrained, as they advanced. In the

third room the women ceased concealing their smiles behind their

handkerchiefs, while the men openly held their sides the better to ease

themselves. It was the contagious hilarity of people who had come to

amuse themselves, and who were growing gradually excited, bursting out

at a mere trifle, diverted as much by the good things as by the bad.

Folks laughed less before Chaîne’s Christ than before the back view of

the nude woman, who seemed to them very comical indeed. The ‘Lady in

White’ also stupefied people and drew them together; folks nudged each

other and went into hysterics almost; there was always a grinning group

in front of it. Each canvas thus had its particular kind of success;

people hailed each other from a distance to point out something funny,

and witticisms flew from mouth to mouth; to such a degree indeed that,

as Claude entered the fourth gallery, lashed into fury by the tempest of

laughter that was raging there as well, he all but slapped the face of

an old lady whose chuckles exasperated him.

‘What idiots!’ he said, turning towards his friends. ‘One feels inclined

to throw a lot of masterpieces at their heads.’

Sandoz had become fiery also, and Fagerolles continued praising the

most dreadful daubs, which only tended to increase the laughter, while

Gagnière, at sea amid the hubbub, dragged on the delighted Irma, whose

skirts somehow wound round the legs of all the men.

But of a sudden Jory stood before them. His fair handsome face

absolutely beamed. He cut his way through the crowd, gesticulated, and

exulted, as if over a personal victory. And the moment he perceived

Claude, he shouted:

‘Here you are at last! I have been looking for you this hour. A success,

old fellow, oh! a success--’

‘What success?’

‘Why, the success of your picture. Come, I must show it you. You’ll see,

it’s stunning.’

Claude grew pale. A great joy choked him, while he pretended to receive

the news with composure. Bongrand’s words came back to him. He began to

believe that he possessed genius.

‘Hallo, how are you?’ continued Jory, shaking hands with the others.

And, without more ado, he, Fagerolles and Gagnière surrounded Irma, who

smiled on them in a good-natured way.

‘Perhaps you’ll tell us where the picture is,’ said Sandoz, impatiently.

‘Take us to it.’

Jory assumed the lead, followed by the band. They had to fight their way

into the last gallery. But Claude, who brought up the rear, still heard

the laughter that rose on the air, a swelling clamour, the roll of a

tide near its full. And as he finally entered the room, he beheld a

vast, swarming, closely packed crowd pressing eagerly in front of his

picture. All the laughter arose, spread, and ended there. And it was his

picture that was being laughed at.

‘Eh!’ repeated Jory, triumphantly, ‘there’s a success for you.’

Gagnière, intimidated, as ashamed as if he himself had been slapped,

muttered: ‘Too much of a success--I should prefer something different.’

‘What a fool you are,’ replied Jory, in a burst of exalted conviction.

‘That’s what I call success. Does it matter a curse if they laugh? We

have made our mark; to-morrow every paper will talk about us.’

‘The idiots,’ was all that Sandoz could gasp, choking with grief.

Fagerolles, disinterested and dignified like a family friend following

a funeral procession, said nothing. Irma alone remained gay, thinking

it all very funny. And, with a caressing gesture, she leant against the

shoulder of the derided painter, and whispered softly in his ear: ‘Don’t

fret, my boy. It’s all humbug, be merry all the same.’

But Claude did not stir. An icy chill had come over him. For a

moment his heart had almost ceased to beat, so cruel had been the

disappointment And with his eyes enlarged, attracted and fixed by

a resistless force, he looked at his picture. He was surprised, and

scarcely recognised it; it certainly was not such as it had seemed to be

in his studio. It had grown yellow beneath the livid light of the linen

screens; it seemed, moreover, to have become smaller; coarser and more

laboured also; and whether it was the effect of the light in which it

now hung, or the contrast of the works beside it, at all events he now

at the first glance saw all its defects, after having remained blind

to them, as it were, for months. With a few strokes of the brush he, in

thought, altered the whole of it, deepened the distances, set a badly

drawn limb right, and modified a tone. Decidedly, the gentleman in the

velveteen jacket was worth nothing at all, he was altogether pasty and

badly seated; the only really good bit of work about him was his hand.

In the background the two little wrestlers--the fair and the dark

one--had remained too sketchy, and lacked substance; they were amusing

only to an artist’s eye. But he was pleased with the trees, with the

sunny glade; and the nude woman--the woman lying on the grass appeared

to him superior to his own powers, as if some one else had painted her,

and as if he had never yet beheld her in such resplendency of life.

He turned to Sandoz, and said simply:

‘They do right to laugh; it’s incomplete. Never mind, the woman is all

right! Bongrand was not hoaxing me.’

His friend wished to take him away, but he became obstinate, and drew

nearer instead. Now that he had judged his work, he listened and looked

at the crowd. The explosion continued--culminated in an ascending scale

of mad laughter. No sooner had visitors crossed the threshold than he

saw their jaws part, their eyes grow small, their entire faces expand;

and he heard the tempestuous puffing of the fat men, the rusty grating

jeers of the lean ones, amidst all the shrill, flute-like laughter of

the women. Opposite him, against the hand-rails, some young fellows went

into contortions, as if somebody had been tickling them. One lady had

flung herself on a seat, stifling and trying to regain breath with her

handkerchief over her mouth. Rumours of this picture, which was so very,

very funny, must have been spreading, for there was a rush from the four

corners of the Salon, bands of people arrived, jostling each other, and

all eagerness to share the fun. ‘Where is it?’ ‘Over there.’ ‘Oh, what a

joke!’ And the witticisms fell thicker than elsewhere. It was especially

the subject that caused merriment; people failed to understand it,

thought it insane, comical enough to make one ill with laughter. ‘You

see the lady feels too hot, while the gentleman has put on his velveteen

jacket for fear of catching cold.’ ‘Not at all; she is already blue; the

gentleman has pulled her out of a pond, and he is resting at a distance,

holding his nose.’ ‘I tell you it’s a young ladies’ school out for a

ramble. Look at the two playing at leap-frog.’ ‘Hallo! washing day;

the flesh is blue; the trees are blue; he’s dipped his picture in the

blueing tub!’

Those who did not laugh flew into a rage: that bluish tinge, that novel

rendering of light seemed an insult to them. Some old gentlemen shook

their sticks. Was art to be outraged like this? One grave individual

went away very wroth, saying to his wife that he did not like practical

jokes. But another, a punctilious little man, having looked in the

catalogue for the title of the work, in order to tell his daughter, read

out the words, ‘_In the Open Air_,’ whereupon there came a formidable

renewal of the clamour, hisses and shouts, and what not else besides.

The title sped about; it was repeated, commented on. ‘_In the Open Air_!

ah, yes, the open air, the nude woman in the air, everything in the air,

tra la la laire.’ The affair was becoming a scandal. The crowd still

increased. People’s faces grew red with congestion in the growing heat.

Each had the stupidly gaping mouth of the ignoramus who judges painting,

and between them they indulged in all the asinine ideas, all the

preposterous reflections, all the stupid spiteful jeers that the sight

of an original work can possibly elicit from bourgeois imbecility.

At that moment, as a last blow, Claude beheld Dubuche reappear, dragging

the Margaillans along. As soon as he came in front of the picture, the

architect, ill at ease, overtaken by cowardly shame, wished to quicken

his pace and lead his party further on, pretending that he saw neither

the canvas nor his friends. But the contractor had already drawn himself

up on his short, squat legs, and was staring at the picture, and asking

aloud in his thick hoarse voice:

‘I say, who’s the blockhead that painted this?’

That good-natured bluster, that cry of a millionaire parvenu resuming

the average opinion of the assembly, increased the general merriment;

and he, flattered by his success, and tickled by the strange style of

the painting, started laughing in his turn, so sonorously that he could

be heard above all the others. This was the hallelujah, a final outburst

of the great organ of opinion.

‘Take my daughter away,’ whispered pale-faced Madame Margaillan in

Dubuche’s ear.

He sprang forward and freed Régine, who had lowered her eyelids, from

the crowd; displaying in doing so as much muscular energy as if it had

been a question of saving the poor creature from imminent death. Then

having taken leave of the Margaillans at the door, with a deal of

handshaking and bows, he came towards his friends, and said straightway

to Sandoz, Fagerolles, and Gagnière:

‘What would you have? It isn’t my fault--I warned him that the public

would not understand him. It’s improper; yes, you may say what you like,

it’s improper.’

‘They hissed Delacroix,’ broke in Sandoz, white with rage, and clenching

his fists. ‘They hissed Courbet. Oh, the race of enemies! Oh, the born

idiots!’

Gagnière, who now shared this artistic vindictiveness, grew angry at the

recollection of his Sunday battles at the Pasdeloup Concerts in favour

of real music.

‘And they hiss Wagner too; they are the same crew. I recognise them. You

see that fat fellow over there--’

Jory had to hold him back. The journalist for his part would rather have

urged on the crowd. He kept on repeating that it was famous, that there

was a hundred thousand francs’ worth of advertisements in it. And Irma,

left to her own devices once more, went up to two of her friends, young

Bourse men who were among the most persistent scoffers, but whom she

began to indoctrinate, forcing them, as it were, into admiration, by

rapping them on the knuckles.

Fagerolles, however, had not opened his lips. He kept on examining the

picture, and glancing at the crowd. With his Parisian instinct and

the elastic conscience of a skilful fellow, he at once fathomed the

misunderstanding. He was already vaguely conscious of what was wanted

for that style of painting to make the conquest of everybody--a little

trickery perhaps, some attenuations, a different choice of subject, a

milder method of execution. In the main, the influence that Claude had

always had over him persisted in making itself felt; he remained imbued

with it; it had set its stamp upon him for ever. Only he considered

Claude to be an arch-idiot to have exhibited such a thing as that.

Wasn’t it stupid to believe in the intelligence of the public? What

was the meaning of that nude woman beside that gentleman who was fully

dressed? And what did those two little wrestlers in the background mean?

Yet the picture showed many of the qualities of a master. There wasn’t

another bit of painting like it in the Salon! And he felt a great

contempt for that artist, so admirably endowed, who through lack of tact

made all Paris roar as if he had been the worst of daubers.

This contempt became so strong that he was unable to hide it. In a

moment of irresistible frankness he exclaimed:

‘Look here, my dear fellow, it’s your own fault, you are too stupid.’

Claude, turning his eyes from the crowd, looked at him in silence. He

had not winced, he had only turned pale amidst the laughter, and if his

lips quivered it was merely with a slight nervous twitching; nobody knew

him, it was his work alone that was being buffeted. Then for a moment he

glanced again at his picture, and slowly inspected the other canvases in

the gallery. And amidst the collapse of his illusions, the bitter agony

of his pride, a breath of courage, a whiff of health and youth came to

him from all that gaily-brave painting which rushed with such headlong

passion to beat down classical conventionality. He was consoled and

inspirited by it all; he felt no remorse nor contrition, but, on the

contrary, was impelled to fight the popular taste still more. No doubt

there was some clumsiness and some puerility of effort in his work, but

on the other hand what a pretty general tone, what a play of light he

had thrown into it, a silvery grey light, fine and diffuse, brightened

by all the dancing sunbeams of the open air. It was as if a window

had been suddenly opened amidst all the old bituminous cookery of art,

amidst all the stewing sauces of tradition, and the sun came in and the

walls smiled under that invasion of springtide. The light note of his

picture, the bluish tinge that people had been railing at, flashed out

among the other paintings also. Was this not the expected dawn, a

new aurora rising on art? He perceived a critic who stopped without

laughing, some celebrated painters who looked surprised and grave, while

Papa Malgras, very dirty, went from picture to picture with the pout of

a wary connoisseur, and finally stopped short in front of his canvas,

motionless, absorbed. Then Claude turned round to Fagerolles, and

surprised him by this tardy reply:

‘A fellow can only be an idiot according to his own lights, my dear

chap, and it looks as if I am going to remain one. So much the better

for you if you are clever!’

Fagerolles at once patted him on the shoulder, like a chum who had only

been in fun, and Claude allowed Sandoz to take his arm. They led him off

at last. The whole band left the Salon of the Rejected, deciding that

they would pass on their way through the gallery of architecture; for

a design for a museum by Dubuche had been accepted, and for some few

minutes he had been fidgeting and begging them with so humble a look,

that it seemed difficult indeed to deny him this satisfaction.

‘Ah!’ said Jory, jocularly, on entering the gallery, ‘what an ice-well!

One can breathe here.’

They all took off their hats and wiped their foreheads, with a feeling

of relief, as if they had reached some big shady trees after a long

march in full sunlight. The gallery was empty. From the roof, shaded by

a white linen screen, there fell a soft, even, rather sad light, which

was reflected like quiescent water by the well-waxed, mirror-like floor.

On the four walls, of a faded red, hung the plans and designs in large

and small chases, edged with pale blue borders. Alone--absolutely

alone--amidst this desert stood a very hirsute gentleman, who was lost

in the contemplation of the plan of a charity home. Three ladies who

appeared became frightened and fled across the gallery with hasty steps.

Dubuche was already showing and explaining his work to his comrades. It

was only a drawing of a modest little museum gallery, which he had sent

in with ambitious haste, contrary to custom and against the wishes

of his master, who, nevertheless, had used his influence to have it

accepted, thinking himself pledged to do so.

‘Is your museum intended for the accommodation of the paintings of the

“open air” school?’ asked Fagerolles, very gravely.

Gagnière pretended to admire the plan, nodding his head, but thinking

of something else; while Claude and Sandoz examined it with sincere

interest.

‘Not bad, old boy,’ said the former. ‘The ornamentation is still

bastardly traditional; but never mind; it will do.’

Jory, becoming impatient at last, cut him short.

‘Come along, let’s go, eh? I’m catching my death of cold here.’

The band resumed its march. The worst was that to make a short cut they

had to go right through the official Salon, and they resigned themselves

to doing so, notwithstanding the oath they had taken not to set foot in

it, as a matter of protest. Cutting their way through the crowd, keeping

rigidly erect, they followed the suite of galleries, casting indignant

glances to right and left. There was none of the gay scandal of their

Salon, full of fresh tones and an exaggeration of sunlight, here. One

after the other came gilt frames full of shadows; black pretentious

things, nude figures showing yellowish in a cellar-like light, the

frippery of so-called classical art, historical, genre and landscape

painting, all showing the same conventional black grease. The works

reeked of uniform mediocrity, they were characterised by a muddy

dinginess of tone, despite their primness--the primness of impoverished,

degenerate blood. And the friends quickened their steps: they ran to

escape from that reign of bitumen, condemning everything in one lump

with their superb sectarian injustice, repeating that there was nothing

in the place worth looking at--nothing, nothing at all!

At last they emerged from the galleries, and were going down into the

garden when they met Mahoudeau and Chaîne. The former threw himself into

Claude’s arms.

‘Ah, my dear fellow, your picture; what artistic temperament it shows!’

The painter at once began to praise the ‘Vintaging Girl.’

‘And you, I say, you have thrown a nice big lump at their heads!’

But the sight of Chaîne, to whom no one spoke about the ‘Woman taken

in Adultery,’ and who went silently wandering around, awakened Claude’s

compassion. He thought there was something very sad about that execrable

painting, and the wasted life of that peasant who was a victim of

middle-class admiration. He always gave him the delight of a little

praise; so now he shook his hand cordially, exclaiming:

‘Your machine’s very good too. Ah, my fine fellow, draughtsmanship has

no terrors for you!’

‘No, indeed,’ declared Chaîne, who had grown purple with vanity under

his black bushy beard.

He and Mahoudeau joined the band, and the latter asked the others

whether they had seen Chambouvard’s ‘Sower.’ It was marvellous; the

only piece of statuary worth looking at in the Salon. Thereupon they all

followed him into the garden, which the crowd was now invading.

‘There,’ said Mahoudeau, stopping in the middle of the central path:

‘Chambouvard is standing just in front of his “Sower.”’

In fact, a portly man stood there, solidly planted on his fat legs, and

admiring his handiwork. With his head sunk between his shoulders, he had

the heavy, handsome features of a Hindu idol. He was said to be the son

of a veterinary surgeon of the neighbourhood of Amiens. At forty-five

he had already produced twenty masterpieces: statues all simplicity

and life, flesh modern and palpitating, kneaded by a workman of

genius, without any pretension to refinement; and all this was chance

production, for he furnished work as a field bears harvest, good one

day, bad the next, in absolute ignorance of what he created. He carried

the lack of critical acumen to such a degree that he made no distinction

between the most glorious offspring of his hands and the detestably

grotesque figures which now and then he chanced to put together. Never

troubled by nervous feverishness, never doubting, always solid and

convinced, he had the pride of a god.

‘Wonderful, the “Sower”!’ whispered Claude. ‘What a figure! and what an

attitude!’

Fagerolles, who had not looked at the statue, was highly amused by the

great man, and the string of young, open-mouthed disciples whom as usual

he dragged at his tail.

‘Just look at them, one would think they are taking the sacrament, ‘pon

my word--and he himself, eh? What a fine brutish face he has!’

Isolated, and quite at his ease, amidst the general curiosity,

Chambouvard stood there wondering, with the stupefied air of a man who

is surprised at having produced such a masterpiece. He seemed to behold

it for the first time, and was unable to get over his astonishment. Then

an expression of delight gradually stole over his broad face, he nodded

his head, and burst into soft, irresistible laughter, repeating a dozen

times, ‘It’s comical, it’s really comical!’

His train of followers went into raptures, while he himself could find

nothing more forcible to express how much he worshipped himself. All at

once there was a slight stir. Bongrand, who had been walking about

with his hands behind his back, glancing vaguely around him, had just

stumbled on Chambouvard, and the public, drawing back, whispered, and

watched the two celebrated artists shaking hands; the one short and of

a sanguine temperament, the other tall and restless. Some expressions of

good-fellowship were overheard. ‘Always fresh marvels.’ ‘Of course! And

you, nothing this year?’ ‘No, nothing; I am resting, seeking--’

‘Come, you joker! There’s no need to seek, the thing comes by itself.’

‘Good-bye.’ ‘Good-bye.’ And Chambouvard, followed by his court, was

already moving slowly away among the crowd, with the glances of a king,

who enjoys life, while Bongrand, who had recognised Claude and his

friends, approached them with outstretched feverish hands, and called

attention to the sculptor with a nervous jerk of the chin, saying,

‘There’s a fellow I envy! Ah! to be confident of always producing

masterpieces!’

He complimented Mahoudeau on his ‘Vintaging Girl’; showed himself

paternal to all of them, with that broad-minded good-nature of his, the

free and easy manner of an old Bohemian of the romantic school, who had

settled down and was decorated. Then, turning to Claude:

‘Well, what did I tell you? Did you see upstairs? You have become the

chief of a school.’

‘Ah! yes,’ replied Claude. ‘They are giving it me nicely. You are the

master of us all.’

But Bongrand made his usual gesture of vague suffering and went off,

saying, ‘Hold your tongue! I am not even my own master.’

For a few moments longer the band wandered through the garden. They

had gone back to look at the ‘Vintaging Girl,’ when Jory noticed that

Gagnière no longer had Irma Bécot on his arm. Gagnière was stupefied;

where the deuce could he have lost her? But when Fagerolles had told him

that she had gone off in the crowd with two gentlemen, he recovered his

composure, and followed the others, lighter of heart now that he was

relieved of that girl who had bewildered him.

People now only moved about with difficulty. All the seats were taken by

storm; groups blocked up the paths, where the promenaders paused every

now and then, flowing back around the successful bits of bronze and

marble. From the crowded buffet there arose a loud buzzing, a clatter

of saucers and spoons which mingled with the throb of life pervading

the vast nave. The sparrows had flown up to the forest of iron girders

again, and one could hear their sharp little chirps, the twittering with

which they serenaded the setting sun, under the warm panes of the glass

roof. The atmosphere, moreover, had become heavy, there was a damp

greenhouse-like warmth; the air, stationary as it was, had an odour as

of humus, freshly turned over. And rising above the garden throng,

the din of the first-floor galleries, the tramping of feet on their

iron-girdered flooring still rolled on with the clamour of a tempest

beating against a cliff.

Claude, who had a keen perception of that rumbling storm, ended by

hearing nothing else; it had been let loose and was howling in his

ears. It was the merriment of the crowd whose jeers and laughter swept

hurricane-like past his picture. With a weary gesture he exclaimed:

‘Come, what are we messing about here for? I sha’n’t take anything at

the refreshment bar, it reeks of the Institute. Let’s go and have a

glass of beer outside, eh?’

They all went out, with sinking legs and tired faces, expressive of

contempt. Once outside, on finding themselves again face to face with

healthy mother Nature in her springtide season, they breathed noisily

with an air of delight. It had barely struck four o’clock, the slanting

sun swept along the Champs Elysées and everything flared: the serried

rows of carriages, like the fresh foliage of the trees, and the

sheaf-like fountains which spouted up and whirled away in golden dust.

With a sauntering step they went hesitatingly down the central avenue,

and finally stranded in a little café, the Pavillon de la Concorde, on

the left, just before reaching the Place. The place was so small that

they sat down outside it at the edge of the footway, despite the chill

which fell from a vault of leaves, already fully grown and gloomy.

But beyond the four rows of chestnut-trees, beyond the belt of verdant

shade, they could see the sunlit roadway of the main avenue where Paris

passed before them as in a nimbus, the carriages with their wheels

radiating like stars, the big yellow omnibuses, looking even more

profusely gilded than triumphal chariots, the horsemen whose steeds

seemed to raise clouds of sparks, and the foot passengers whom the light

enveloped in splendour.

And during nearly three hours, with his beer untasted before him, Claude

went on talking and arguing amid a growing fever, broken down as he was

in body, and with his mind full of all the painting he had just seen. It

was the usual winding up of their visit to the Salon, though this year

they were more impassioned on account of the liberal measure of the

Emperor.

‘Well, and what of it, if the public does laugh?’ cried Claude. ‘We must

educate the public, that’s all. In reality it’s a victory. Take away two

hundred grotesque canvases, and our Salon beats theirs. We have courage

and audacity--we are the future. Yes, yes, you’ll see it later on; we

shall kill their Salon. We shall enter it as conquerors, by dint of

producing masterpieces. Laugh, laugh, you big stupid Paris--laugh until

you fall on your knees before us!’

And stopping short, he pointed prophetically to the triumphal avenue,

where the luxury and happiness of the city went rolling by in the

sunlight. His arms stretched out till they embraced even the Place de

la Concorde, which could be seen slantwise from where they sat under the

trees--the Place de la Concorde, with the plashing water of one of its

fountains, a strip of balustrade, and two of its statues--Rouen, with

the gigantic bosom, and Lille, thrusting forward her huge bare foot.

‘“In the open air”--it amuses them, eh?’ he resumed. ‘All right, since

they are bent on it, the “open air” then, the school of the “open air!”

Eh! it was a thing strictly between us, it didn’t exist yesterday beyond

the circle of a few painters. But now they throw the word upon the

winds, and they found the school. Oh! I’m agreeable. Let it be the

school of the “open air!”’

Jory slapped his thighs.

‘Didn’t I tell you? I felt sure of making them bite with those articles

of mine, the idiots that they are. Ah! how we’ll plague them now.’

Mahoudeau also was singing victory, constantly dragging in his

‘Vintaging Girl,’ the daring points of which he explained to the silent

Chaîne, the only one who listened to him; while Gagnière, with the

sternness of a timid man waxing wroth over questions of pure theory,

spoke of guillotining the Institute; and Sandoz, with the glowing

sympathy of a hard worker, and Dubuche, giving way to the contagion

of revolutionary friendship, became exasperated, and struck the table,

swallowing up Paris with each draught of beer. Fagerolles, very calm,

retained his usual smile. He had accompanied them for the sake of

amusement, for the singular pleasure which he found in urging his

comrades into farcical affairs that were bound to turn out badly. At

the very moment when he was lashing their spirit of revolt, he himself

formed the firm resolution to work in future for the Prix de Rome. That

day had decided him; he thought it idiotic to compromise his prospects

any further.

The sun was declining on the horizon, there was now only a returning

stream of carriages, coming back from the Bois in the pale golden

shimmer of the sunset. And the exodus from the Salon must have been

nearly over; a long string of pedestrians passed by, gentlemen who

looked like critics, each with a catalogue under his arm.

But all at once Gagnière became enthusiastic: ‘Ah! Courajod, there was

one who had his share in inventing landscape painting! Have you seen his

“Pond of Gagny” at the Luxembourg?’

‘A marvel!’ exclaimed Claude. ‘It was painted thirty years ago, and

nothing more substantial has been turned out since. Why is it left at

the Luxembourg? It ought to be in the Louvre.’

‘But Courajod isn’t dead,’ said Fagerolles.

‘What! Courajod isn’t dead! No one ever sees him or speaks of him now.’

There was general stupefaction when Fagerolles assured them that the

great landscape painter, now seventy years of age, lived somewhere in

the neighbourhood of Montmartre, in a little house among his fowls,

ducks, and dogs. So one might outlive one’s own glory! To think that

there were such melancholy instances of old artists disappearing before

their death! Silence fell upon them all; they began to shiver when they

perceived Bongrand pass by on a friend’s arm, with a congestive face

and a nervous air as he waved his hand to them; while almost immediately

behind him, surrounded by his disciples, came Chambouvard, laughing very

loudly, and tapping his heels on the pavement with the air of absolute

mastery that comes from confidence in immortality.

‘What! are you going?’ said Mahoudeau to Chaîne, who was rising from his

chair.

The other mumbled some indistinct words in his beard, and went off after

distributing handshakes among the party.

‘I know,’ said Jory to Mahoudeau. ‘I believe he has a weakness for your

neighbour, the herbalist woman. I saw his eyes flash all at once; it

comes upon him like toothache. Look how he’s running over there.’

The sculptor shrugged his shoulders amidst the general laughter.

But Claude did not hear. He was now discussing architecture with

Dubuche. No doubt, that plan of a museum gallery which he exhibited

wasn’t bad; only there was nothing new in it. It was all so much patient

marquetry of the school formulas. Ought not all the arts to advance

in one line of battle? Ought not the evolution that was transforming

literature, painting, even music itself, to renovate architecture as

well? If ever the architecture of a period was to have a style of its

own, it was assuredly the architecture of the period they would soon be

entering, a new period when they would find the ground freshly swept,

ready for the rebuilding of everything. Down with the Greek temples!

there was no reason why they should continue to exist under our sky,

amid our society! down with the Gothic cathedrals, since faith in legend

was dead! down with the delicate colonnades, the lace-like work of

the Renaissance--that revival of the antique grafted on

mediaevalism--precious art-jewellery, no doubt, but in which democracy

could not dwell. And he demanded, he called with violent gestures for an

architectural formula suited to democracy; such work in stone as would

express its tenets; edifices where it would really be at home; something

vast and strong, great and simple at the same time; the something that

was already being indicated in the new railway stations and markets,

whose ironwork displayed such solid elegance, but purified and raised

to a standard of beauty, proclaiming the grandeur of the intellectual

conquests of the age.

‘Ah! yes, ah! yes,’ repeated Dubuche, catching Claude’s enthusiasm;

‘that’s what I want to accomplish, you’ll see some day. Give me time to

succeed, and when I’m my own master--ah! when I’m my own master.’

Night was coming on apace, and Claude was growing more and more animated

and passionate, displaying a fluency, an eloquence which his comrades

had not known him to possess. They all grew excited in listening to him,

and ended by becoming noisily gay over the extraordinary witticisms

he launched forth. He himself, having returned to the subject of his

picture, again discussed it with a deal of gaiety, caricaturing the

crowd he had seen looking at it, and imitating the imbecile laughter.

Along the avenue, now of an ashy hue, one only saw the shadows of

infrequent vehicles dart by. The side-walk was quite black; an icy chill

fell from the trees. Nothing broke the stillness but the sound of song

coming from a clump of verdure behind the café; there was some rehearsal

at the Concert de l’Horloge, for one heard the sentimental voice of a

girl trying a love-song.

‘Ah! how they amused me, the idiots!’ exclaimed Claude, in a last burst.

‘Do you know, I wouldn’t take a hundred thousand francs for my day’s

pleasure!’

Then he relapsed into silence, thoroughly exhausted. Nobody had any

saliva left; silence reigned; they all shivered in the icy gust that

swept by. And they separated in a sort of bewilderment, shaking hands

in a tired fashion. Dubuche was going to dine out; Fagerolles had an

appointment; in vain did Jory, Mahoudeau, and Gagnière try to drag

Claude to Foucart’s, a twenty-five sous’ restaurant; Sandoz was already

taking him away on his arm, feeling anxious at seeing him so excited.

‘Come along, I promised my mother to be back for dinner. You’ll take a

bit with us. It will be nice; we’ll finish the day together.’

They both went down the quay, past the Tuileries, walking side by side

in fraternal fashion. But at the Pont des Saints-Pères the painter

stopped short.

‘What, are you going to leave me?’ exclaimed Sandoz.

‘Why, I thought you were going to dine with me?’

‘No, thanks; I’ve too bad a headache--I’m going home to bed.’

And he obstinately clung to this excuse.

‘All right, old man,’ said Sandoz at last, with a smile. ‘One doesn’t

see much of you nowadays. You live in mystery. Go on, old boy, I don’t

want to be in your way.’

Claude restrained a gesture of impatience; and, letting his friend cross

the bridge, he went his way along the quays by himself. He walked on

with his arms hanging beside him, with his face turned towards the

ground, seeing nothing, but taking long strides like a somnambulist who

is guided by instinct. On the Quai de Bourbon, in front of his door, he

looked up, full of surprise on seeing a cab waiting at the edge of the

foot pavement, and barring his way. And it was with the same automatical

step that he entered the doorkeeper’s room to take his key.

‘I have given it to that lady,’ called Madame Joseph from the back of

the room. ‘She is upstairs.’

‘What lady?’ he asked in bewilderment.

‘That young person. Come, you know very well, the one who always comes.’

He had not the remotest idea whom she meant. Still, in his utter

confusion of mind, he decided to go upstairs. The key was in the door,

which he slowly opened and closed again.

For a moment Claude stood stock still. Darkness had invaded the studio;

a violet dimness, a melancholy gloom fell from the large window,

enveloping everything. He could no longer plainly distinguish either

the floor, or the furniture, or the sketches; everything that was lying

about seemed to be melting in the stagnant waters of a pool. But on

the edge of the couch there loomed a dark figure, stiff with waiting,

anxious and despairing amid the last gasp of daylight. It was Christine;

he recognised her.

She held out her hands, and murmured in a low, halting voice:

‘I have been here for three hours; yes, for three hours, all alone, and

listening. I took a cab on leaving there, and I only wanted to stay a

minute, and get back as soon as possible. But I should have stayed all

night; I could not go away without shaking hands with you.’

She continued, and told him of her mad desire to see the picture; her

prank of going to the Salon, and how she had tumbled into it amidst the

storm of laughter, amidst the jeers of all those people. It was she whom

they had hissed like that; it was on herself that they had spat. And

seized with wild terror, distracted with grief and shame, she had fled,

as if she could feel that laughter lashing her like a whip, until the

blood flowed. But she now forgot about herself in her concern for

him, upset by the thought of the grief he must feel, for her womanly

sensibility magnified the bitterness of the repulse, and she was eager

to console.

‘Oh, friend, don’t grieve! I wished to see and tell you that they are

jealous of it all, that I found the picture very nice, and that I feel

very proud and happy at having helped you--at being, if ever so little,

a part of it.’

Still, motionless, he listened to her as she stammered those tender

words in an ardent voice, and suddenly he sank down at her feet,

letting his head fall upon her knees, and bursting into tears. All his

excitement of the afternoon, all the bravery he had shown amidst the

jeering, all his gaiety and violence now collapsed, in a fit of sobs

which well nigh choked him. From the gallery where the laughter had

buffeted him, he heard it pursuing him through the Champs Elysées, then

along the banks of the Seine, and now in his very studio. His strength

was utterly spent; he felt weaker than a child; and rolling his head

from one side to another he repeated in a stifled voice:

‘My God! how I do suffer!’

Then she, with both hands, raised his face to her lips in a transport of

passion. She kissed him, and with her warm breath she blew to his very

heart the words: ‘Be quiet, be quiet, I love you!’

They adored each other; it was inevitable. Near them, on the centre of

the table, the lilac she had sent him that morning embalmed the night

air, and, alone shiny with lingering light, the scattered particles of

gold leaf, wafted from the frame of the big picture, twinkled like a

swarming of stars.