IX

AS Claude could not paint his huge picture in the small studio of

the Rue de Douai, he made up his mind to rent some shed that would be

spacious enough, elsewhere; and strolling one day on the heights of

Montmartre, he found what he wanted half way down the slope of the Rue

Tourlaque, a street that descends abruptly behind the cemetery, and

whence one overlooks Clichy as far as the marshes of Gennevilliers. It

had been a dyer’s drying shed, and was nearly fifty feet long and more

than thirty broad, with walls of board and plaster admitting the wind

from every point of the compass. The place was let to him for three

hundred francs. Summer was at hand; he would soon work off his picture

and then quit.

This settled, feverish with hope, Claude decided to go to all the

necessary expenses; as fortune was certain to come in the end, why

trammel its advent by unnecessary scruples? Taking advantage of his

right, he broke in upon the principal of his income, and soon grew

accustomed to spend money without counting. At first he kept the matter

from Christine, for she had already twice stopped him from doing so;

and when he was at last obliged to tell her, she also, after a week of

reproaches and apprehension, fell in with it, happy at the comfort in

which she lived, and yielding to the pleasure of always having a little

money in her purse. Thus there came a few years of easy unconcern.

Claude soon became altogether absorbed in his picture. He had furnished

the huge studio in a very summary style: a few chairs, the old couch

from the Quai de Bourbon, and a deal table bought second-hand for five

francs sufficed him. In the practice of his art he was entirely devoid

of that vanity which delights in luxurious surroundings. The only real

expense to which he went was that of buying some steps on castors, with

a platform and a movable footboard. Next he busied himself about his

canvas, which he wished to be six and twenty feet in length and sixteen

in height. He insisted upon preparing it himself; ordered a framework

and bought the necessary seamless canvas, which he and a couple of

friends had all the work in the world to stretch properly by the aid

of pincers. Then he just coated the canvas with ceruse, laid on with a

palette-knife, refusing to size it previously, in order that it might

remain absorbent, by which method he declared that the painting would be

bright and solid. An easel was not to be thought of. It would not have

been possible to move a canvas of such dimensions on it. So he invented

a system of ropes and beams, which held it slightly slanting against the

wall in a cheerful light. And backwards and forwards in front of the

big white surface rolled the steps, looking like an edifice, like the

scaffolding by means of which a cathedral is to be reared.

But when everything was ready, Claude once more experienced misgivings.

An idea that he had perhaps not chosen the proper light in which to

paint his picture fidgeted him. Perhaps an early morning effect would

have been better? Perhaps, too, he ought to have chosen a dull day, and

so he went back to the Pont des Saint-Pères, and lived there for another

three months.

The Cité rose up before him, between the two arms of the river, at all

hours and in all weather. After a late fall of snow he beheld it wrapped

in ermine, standing above mud-coloured water, against a light slatey

sky. On the first sunshiny days he saw it cleanse itself of everything

that was wintry and put on an aspect of youth, when verdure sprouted

from the lofty trees which rose from the ground below the bridge. He

saw it, too, on a somewhat misty day recede to a distance and almost

evaporate, delicate and quivering, like a fairy palace. Then, again,

there were pelting rains, which submerged it, hid it as with a huge

curtain drawn from the sky to the earth; storms, with lightning flashes

which lent it a tawny hue, the opaque light of some cut-throat place

half destroyed by the fall of the huge copper-coloured clouds; and there

were winds that swept over it tempestuously, sharpening its angles and

making it look hard, bare, and beaten against the pale blue sky. Then,

again, when the sunbeams broke into dust amidst the vapours of the

Seine, it appeared steeped in diffused brightness, without a shadow

about it, lighted up equally on every side, and looking as charmingly

delicate as a cut gem set in fine gold. He insisted on beholding it when

the sun was rising and transpiercing the morning mists, when the Quai

de l’Horloge flushes and the Quai des Orfèvres remains wrapt in gloom;

when, up in the pink sky, it is already full of life, with the bright

awakening of its towers and spires, while night, similar to a falling

cloak, slides slowly from its lower buildings. He beheld it also at

noon, when the sunrays fall on it vertically, when a crude glare bites

into it, and it becomes discoloured and mute like a dead city, retaining

nought but the life of heat, the quiver that darts over its distant

housetops. He beheld it, moreover, beneath the setting sun, surrendering

itself to the night which was slowly rising from the river, with the

salient edges of its buildings still fringed with a glow as of embers,

and with final conflagrations rekindling in its windows, from whose

panes leapt tongue-like flashes. But in presence of those twenty

different aspects of the Cité, no matter what the hour or the weather

might be, he ever came back to the Cité that he had seen the first time,

at about four o’clock one fine September afternoon, a Cité all serenity

under a gentle breeze, a Cité which typified the heart of Paris beating

in the limpid atmosphere, and seemingly enlarged by the vast stretch of

sky which a flight of cloudlets crossed.

Claude spent his time under the Pont des Saints-Pères, which he had

made his shelter, his home, his roof. The constant din of the vehicles

overhead, similar to the distant rumbling of thunder, no longer

disturbed him. Settling himself against the first abutment, beneath the

huge iron arches, he took sketches and painted studies. The _employes_

of the river navigation service, whose offices were hard by, got to

know him, and, indeed, the wife of an inspector, who lived in a sort

of tarred cabin with her husband, two children, and a cat, kept his

canvases for him, to save him the trouble of carrying them to and fro

each day. It became his joy to remain in that secluded nook beneath

Paris, which rumbled in the air above him, whose ardent life he ever

felt rolling overhead. He at first became passionately interested in

Port St. Nicolas, with its ceaseless bustle suggesting that of a distant

genuine seaport. The steam crane, _The Sophia_, worked regularly,

hauling up blocks of stone; tumbrels arrived to fetch loads of sand; men

and horses pulled, panting for breath on the big paving-stones, which

sloped down as far as the water, to a granite margin, alongside which

two rows of lighters and barges were moored. For weeks Claude worked

hard at a study of some lightermen unloading a cargo of plaster,

carrying white sacks on their shoulders, leaving a white pathway behind

them, and bepowdered with white themselves, whilst hard by the coal

removed from another barge had stained the waterside with a huge inky

smear. Then he sketched the silhouette of a swimming-bath on the left

bank, together with a floating wash-house somewhat in the rear, showing

the windows open and the washerwomen kneeling in a row, on a level with

the stream, and beating their dirty linen. In the middle of the river,

he studied a boat which a waterman sculled over the stern; then,

farther behind, a steamer of the towing service straining its chain, and

dragging a series of rafts loaded with barrels and boards up stream. The

principal backgrounds had been sketched a long while ago, still he did

several bits over again--the two arms of the Seine, and a sky all by

itself, into which rose only towers and spires gilded by the sun. And

under the hospitable bridge, in that nook as secluded as some far-off

cleft in a rock, he was rarely disturbed by anybody. Anglers passed

by with contemptuous unconcern. His only companion was virtually the

overseer’s cat, who cleaned herself in the sunlight, ever placid beneath

the tumult of the world overhead.

At last Claude had all his materials ready. In a few days he threw off

an outline sketch of the whole, and the great work was begun. However,

the first battle between himself and his huge canvas raged in the

Rue Tourlaque throughout the summer; for he obstinately insisted

upon personally attending to all the technical calculations of his

composition, and he failed to manage them, getting into constant muddles

about the slightest deviation from mathematical accuracy, of which he

had no experience. It made him indignant with himself. So he let it

go, deciding to make what corrections might be necessary afterwards. He

covered his canvas with a rush--in such a fever as to live all day on

his steps, brandishing huge brushes, and expending as much muscular

force as if he were anxious to move mountains. And when evening came

he reeled about like a drunken man, and fell asleep as soon as he had

swallowed his last mouthful of food. His wife even had to put him to

bed like a child. From those heroic efforts, however, sprang a masterly

first draught in which genius blazed forth amidst the somewhat chaotic

masses of colour. Bongrand, who came to look at it, caught the painter

in his big arms, and stifled him with embraces, his eyes full of tears.

Sandoz, in his enthusiasm, gave a dinner; the others, Jory, Mahoudeau

and Gagnière, again went about announcing a masterpiece. As for

Fagerolles, he remained motionless before the painting for a moment,

then burst into congratulations, pronouncing it too beautiful.

And, in fact, subsequently, as if the irony of that successful trickster

had brought him bad luck, Claude only spoilt his original draught.

It was the old story over again. He spent himself in one effort, one

magnificent dash; he failed to bring out all the rest; he did not know

how to finish. He fell into his former impotence; for two years he lived

before that picture only, having no feeling for anything else. At times

he was in a seventh heaven of exuberant joy; at others flung to earth,

so wretched, so distracted by doubt, that dying men gasping in their

beds in a hospital were happier than himself. Twice already had he

failed to be ready for the Salon, for invariably, at the last moment,

when he hoped to have finished in a few sittings, he found some void,

felt his composition crack and crumble beneath his fingers. When the

third Salon drew nigh, there came a terrible crisis; he remained for a

fortnight without going to his studio in the Rue Tourlaque, and when

he did so, it was as to a house desolated by death. He turned the huge

canvas to the wall and rolled his steps into a corner; he would have

smashed and burned everything if his faltering hands had found strength

enough. Nothing more existed; amid a blast of anger he swept the floor

clean, and spoke of setting to work at little things, since he was

incapable of perfecting paintings of any size.

In spite of himself, his first idea of a picture on a smaller scale

took him back to the Cité. Why should not he paint a simple view, on

a moderate sized canvas? But a kind of shame, mingled with strange

jealousy, prevented him from settling himself in his old spot under the

Pont des Saints-Pères. It seemed to him as if that spot were sacred now;

that he ought not to offer any outrage to his great work, dead as it

was. So he stationed himself at the end of the bank, above the bridge.

This time, at any rate, he would work directly from nature; and he felt

happy at not having to resort to any trickery, as was unavoidable with

works of a large size. The small picture, very carefully painted, more

highly finished than usual, met, however, with the same fate as the

others before the hanging committee, who were indignant with this style

of painting, executed with a tipsy brush, as was said at the time in

the studios. The slap in the face which Claude thus received was all the

more severe, as a report had spread of concessions, of advances made by

him to the School of Arts, in order that his work might be received.

And when the picture came back to him, he, deeply wounded, weeping with

rage, tore it into narrow shreds, which he burned in his stove. It was

not sufficient that he should kill that one with a knife-thrust, it must

be annihilated.

Another year went by for Claude in desultory toil. He worked from force

of habit, but finished nothing; he himself saying, with a dolorous

laugh, that he had lost himself, and was trying to find himself again.

In reality, tenacious consciousness of his genius left him a hope which

nothing could destroy, even during his longest crises of despondency. He

suffered like some one damned, for ever rolling the rock which slipped

back and crushed him; but the future remained, with the certainty of one

day seizing that rock in his powerful arms and flinging it upward to the

stars. His friends at last beheld his eyes light up with passion once

more. It was known that he again secluded himself in the Rue Tourlaque.

He who formerly had always been carried beyond the work on which he was

engaged, by some dream of a picture to come, now stood at bay before

that subject of the Cité. It had become his fixed idea--the bar that

closed up his life. And soon he began to speak freely of it again in a

new blaze of enthusiasm, exclaiming, with childish delight, that he had

found his way and that he felt certain of victory.

One day Claude, who, so far, had not opened his door to his friends,

condescended to admit Sandoz. The latter tumbled upon a study with a

deal of dash in it, thrown off without a model, and again admirable in

colour. The subject had remained the same--the Port St. Nicolas on

the left, the swimming-baths on the right, the Seine and Cité in the

background. But Sandoz was amazed at perceiving, instead of the boat

sculled by a waterman, another large skiff taking up the whole centre

of the composition--a skiff occupied by three women. One, in a bathing

costume, was rowing; another sat over the edge with her legs dangling in

the water, her costume partially unfastened, showing her bare shoulder;

while the third stood erect and nude at the prow, so bright in tone that

she seemed effulgent, like the sun.

‘Why, what an idea!’ muttered Sandoz. ‘What are those women doing

there?’

‘Why, they are bathing,’ Claude quietly answered. ‘Don’t you see that

they have come out of the swimming-baths? It supplies me with a motive

for the nude; it’s a real find, eh? Does it shock you?’

His old friend, who knew him well by now, dreaded lest he should give

him cause for discouragement.

‘I? Oh, no! Only I am afraid that the public will again fail

to understand. That nude woman in the very midst of Paris--it’s

improbable.’

Claude looked naively surprised.

‘Ah! you think so? Well, so much the worse. What’s the odds, as long as

the woman is well painted? Besides, I need something like that to get my

courage up.’

On the following occasions, Sandoz gently reverted to the strangeness

of the composition, pleading, as was his nature, the cause of outraged

logic. How could a modern painter who prided himself on painting merely

what was real--how could he so bastardise his work as to introduce

fanciful things into it? It would have been so easy to choose another

subject, in which the nude would have been necessary. But Claude became

obstinate, and resorted to lame and violent explanations, for he would

not avow his real motive: an idea which had come to him and which he

would have been at a loss to express clearly. It was, however, a longing

for some secret symbolism. A recrudescence of romanticism made him see

an incarnation of Paris in that nude figure; he pictured the city bare

and impassioned, resplendent with the beauty of woman.

Before the pressing objections of his friend he pretended to be shaken

in his resolutions.

‘Well, I’ll see; I’ll dress my old woman later on, since she worries

you,’ he said. ‘But meanwhile I shall do her like that. You understand,

she amuses me.’

He never reverted to the subject again, remaining silently obstinate,

merely shrugging his shoulders and smiling with embarrassment whenever

any allusion betrayed the general astonishment which was felt at the

sight of that Venus emerging triumphantly from the froth of the Seine

amidst all the omnibuses on the quays and the lightermen working at the

Port of St. Nicolas.

Spring had come round again, and Claude had once more resolved to work

at his large picture, when in a spirit of prudence he and Christine

modified their daily life. She, at times, could not help feeling uneasy

at seeing all their money so quickly spent. Since the supply had seemed

inexhaustible, they had ceased counting. But, at the end of four years,

they had woke up one morning quite frightened, when, on asking for

accounts, they found that barely three thousand francs were left out

of the twenty thousand. They immediately reverted to severe economy,

stinting themselves as to bread, planning the cutting down of the most

elementary expenses; and it was thus that, in the first impulse of

self-sacrifice, they left the Rue de Douai. What was the use of paying

two rents? There was room enough in the old drying-shed in the Rue

Tourlaque--still stained with the dyes of former days--to afford

accommodation for three people. Settling there was, nevertheless, a

difficult affair; for however big the place was, it provided them, after

all, with but one room. It was like a gipsy’s shed, where everything had

to be done in common. As the landlord was unwilling, the painter himself

had to divide it at one end by a partition of boards, behind which

he devised a kitchen and a bedroom. They were then delighted with the

place, despite the chinks through which the wind blew, and although

on rainy days they had to set basins beneath the broader cracks in the

roof. The whole looked mournfully bare; their few poor sticks seemed to

dance alongside the naked walls. They themselves pretended to be proud

at being lodged so spaciously; they told their friends that Jacques

would at least have a little room to run about. Poor Jacques, in spite

of his nine years, did not seem to be growing; his head alone became

larger and larger. They could not send him to school for more than a

week at a stretch, for he came back absolutely dazed, ill from having

tried to learn, in such wise that they nearly always allowed him to live

on all fours around them, crawling from one corner to another.

Christine, who for quite a long while had not shared Claude’s daily

work, now once more found herself beside him throughout his long hours

of toil. She helped him to scrape and pumice the old canvas of the big

picture, and gave him advice about attaching it more securely to the

wall. But they found that another disaster had befallen them--the steps

had become warped by the water constantly trickling through the roof,

and, for fear of an accident, Claude had to strengthen them with an oak

cross-piece, she handing him the necessary nails one by one. Then once

more, and for the second time, everything was ready. She watched him

again outlining the work, standing behind him the while, till she

felt faint with fatigue, and finally dropping to the floor, where she

remained squatting, and still looking at him.

Ah! how she would have liked to snatch him from that painting which had

seized hold of him! It was for that purpose that she made herself his

servant, only too happy to lower herself to a labourer’s toil. Since she

shared his work again, since the three of them, he, she, and the canvas,

were side by side, her hope revived. If he had escaped her when she, all

alone, cried her eyes out in the Rue de Douai, if he lingered till late

in the Rue Tourlaque, fascinated as by a mistress, perhaps now that she

was present she might regain her hold over him. Ah, painting, painting!

in what jealous hatred she held it! Hers was no longer the revolt of a

girl of the bourgeoisie, who painted neatly in water-colours, against

independent, brutal, magnificent art. No, little by little she had come

to understand it, drawn towards it at first by her love for the painter,

and gained over afterwards by the feast of light, by the original charm

of the bright tints which Claude’s works displayed. And now she had

accepted everything, even lilac-tinted soil and blue trees. Indeed, a

kind of respect made her quiver before those works which had at first

seemed so horrid to her. She recognised their power well enough, and

treated them like rivals about whom one could no longer joke. But her

vindictiveness grew in proportion to her admiration; she revolted at

having to stand by and witness, as it were, a diminution of herself, the

blow of another love beneath her own roof.

At first there was a silent struggle of every minute. She thrust herself

forward, interposed whatever she could, a hand, a shoulder, between the

painter and his picture. She was always there, encompassing him with her

breath, reminding him that he was hers. Then her old idea revived--she

also would paint; she would seek and join him in the depths of his art

fever. Every day for a whole month she put on a blouse, and worked like

a pupil by the side of a master, diligently copying one of his sketches,

and she only gave in when she found the effort turn against her

object; for, deceived, as it were, by their joint work, he finished by

forgetting that she was a woman, and lived with her on a footing of mere

comradeship as between man and man. Accordingly she resorted to what was

her only strength.

To perfect some of the small figures of his latter pictures, Claude had

many a time already taken the hint of a head, the pose of an arm, the

attitude of a body from Christine. He threw a cloak over her shoulders,

and caught her in the posture he wanted, shouting to her not to stir.

These were little services which she showed herself only too pleased to

render him, but she had not hitherto cared to go further, for she was

hurt by the idea of being a model now that she was his wife. However,

since Claude had broadly outlined the large upright female figure which

was to occupy the centre of his picture, Christine had looked at the

vague silhouette in a dreamy way, worried by an ever-pursuing thought

before which all scruples vanished. And so, when he spoke of taking a

model, she offered herself, reminding him that she had posed for the

figure in the ‘Open Air’ subject, long ago. ‘A model,’ she added, ‘would

cost you seven francs a sitting. We are not so rich, we may as well save

the money.’

The question of economy decided him at once.

‘I’m agreeable, and it’s even very good of you to show such courage, for

you know that it is not a bit of pastime to sit for me. Never mind, you

had better confess to it, you big silly, you are afraid of another woman

coming here; you are jealous.’

Jealous! Yes, indeed she was jealous, so she suffered agony. But she

snapped her fingers at other women; all the models in Paris might have

sat to him for what she cared. She had but one rival, that painting,

that art which robbed her of him.

Claude, who was delighted, at first made a study, a simple academic

study, in the attitude required for his picture. They waited until

Jacques had gone to school, and the sitting lasted for hours. During

the earlier days Christine suffered a great deal from being obliged to

remain in the same position; then she grew used to it, not daring to

complain, lest she might vex him, and even restraining her tears when

he roughly pushed her about. And he soon acquired the habit of doing so,

treating her like a mere model; more exacting with her, however, than if

he had paid her, never afraid of unduly taxing her strength, since she

was his wife. He employed her for every purpose, at every minute, for an

arm, a foot, the most trifling detail that he stood in need of. And thus

in a way he lowered her to the level of a ‘living lay figure,’ which he

stuck in front of him and copied as he might have copied a pitcher or a

stew-pan for a bit of still life.

This time Claude proceeded leisurely, and before roughing in the large

figure he tired Christine for months by making her pose in twenty

different ways. At last, one day, he began the roughing in. It was an

autumnal morning, the north wind was already sharp, and it was by no

means warm even in the big studio, although the stove was roaring. As

little Jacques was poorly again and unable to go to school, they had

decided to lock him up in the room at the back, telling him to be very

good. And then the mother settled herself near the stove, motionless, in

the attitude required.

During the first hour, the painter, perched upon his steps, kept

glancing at her, but did not speak a word. Unutterable sadness stole

over her, and she felt afraid of fainting, no longer knowing whether she

was suffering from the cold or from a despair that had come from afar,

and the bitterness of which she felt to be rising within her. Her

fatigue became so great that she staggered and hobbled about on her

numbed legs.

‘What, already?’ cried Claude. ‘Why, you haven’t been at it more than a

quarter of an hour. You don’t want to earn your seven francs, then?’

He was joking in a gruff voice, delighted with his work. And she had

scarcely recovered the use of her limbs, beneath the dressing-gown she

had wrapped round her, when he went on shouting: ‘Come on, come on, no

idling! It’s a grand day to-day is! I must either show some genius or

else kick the bucket.’

Then, in a weary way, she at last resumed the pose.

The misfortune was that before long, both by his glances and the

language he used, she fully realised that she herself was as nothing to

him. If ever he praised a limb, a tint, a contour, it was solely from

the artistic point of view. Great enthusiasm and passion he often

showed, but it was not passion for herself as in the old days. She felt

confused and deeply mortified. Ah! this was the end; in her he no longer

loved aught but his art, the example of nature and life! And then,

with her eyes gazing into space, she would remain rigid, like a statue,

keeping back the tears which made her heart swell, lacking even the

wretched consolation of being able to cry. And day by day the same sorry

life began afresh for her. To stand there as his model had become her

profession. She could not refuse, however bitter her grief. Their once

happy life was all over, there now seemed to be three people in the

place; it was as if Claude had introduced a mistress into it--that woman

he was painting. The huge picture rose up between them, parted them as

with a wall, beyond which he lived with the other. That duplication of

herself well nigh drove Christine mad with jealousy, and yet she was

conscious of the pettiness of her sufferings, and did not dare to

confess them lest he should laugh at her. However, she did not deceive

herself; she fully realised that he preferred her counterfeit to

herself, that her image was the worshipped one, the sole thought, the

affection of his every hour. He almost killed her with long sittings in

that cold draughty studio, in order to enhance the beauty of the other;

upon whom depended all his joys and sorrows according as to whether he

beheld her live or languish beneath his brush. Was not this love?

And what suffering to have to lend herself so that the other might be

created, so that she might be haunted by a nightmare of that rival, so

that the latter might for ever rise between them, more powerful than

reality! To think of it! So much dust, the veriest trifle, a patch

of colour on a canvas, a mere semblance destroying all their

happiness!--he, silent, indifferent, brutal at times, and she, tortured

by his desertion, in despair at being unable to drive away that creature

who ever encroached more and more upon their daily life!

And it was then that Christine, finding herself altogether beaten in her

efforts to regain Claude’s love, felt all the sovereignty of art weigh

down upon her. That painting, which she had already accepted without

restriction, she raised still higher in her estimation, placed inside an

awesome tabernacle before which she remained overcome, as before those

powerful divinities of wrath which one honours from the very hatred

and fear that they inspire. Hers was a holy awe, a conviction that

struggling was henceforth useless, that she would be crushed like a

bit of straw if she persisted in her obstinacy. Each of her husband’s

canvases became magnified in her eyes, the smallest assumed triumphal

dimensions, even the worst painted of them overwhelmed her with victory,

and she no longer judged them, but grovelled, trembling, thinking them

all formidable, and invariably replying to Claude’s questions:

‘Oh, yes; very good! Oh, superb! Oh, very, very extraordinary that one!’

Nevertheless, she harboured no anger against him; she still worshipped

him with tearful tenderness, as she saw him thus consume himself with

efforts. After a few weeks of successful work, everything got spoilt

again; he could not finish his large female figure. At times he almost

killed his model with fatigue, keeping hard at work for days and days

together, then leaving the picture untouched for a whole month. The

figure was begun anew, relinquished, painted all over again at least a

dozen times. One year, two years went by without the picture reaching

completion. Though sometimes it was almost finished, it was scratched

out the next morning and painted entirely over again.

Ah! what an effort of creation it was, an effort of blood and tears,

filling Claude with agony in his attempt to beget flesh and instil life!

Ever battling with reality, and ever beaten, it was a struggle with the

Angel. He was wearing himself out with this impossible task of making a

canvas hold all nature; he became exhausted at last with the pains

which racked his muscles without ever being able to bring his genius

to fruition. What others were satisfied with, a more or less faithful

rendering, the various necessary bits of trickery, filled him with

remorse, made him as indignant as if in resorting to such practices one

were guilty of ignoble cowardice; and thus he began his work over and

over again, spoiling what was good through his craving to do better.

He would always be dissatisfied with his women--so his friends jokingly

declared--until they flung their arms round his neck. What was lacking

in his power that he could not endow them with life? Very little, no

doubt. Sometimes he went beyond the right point, sometimes he stopped

short of it. One day the words, ‘an incomplete genius,’ which he

overheard, both flattered and frightened him. Yes, it must be that; he

jumped too far or not far enough; he suffered from a want of nervous

balance; he was afflicted with some hereditary derangement which,

because there were a few grains the more or the less of some substance

in his brain, was making him a lunatic instead of a great man. Whenever

a fit of despair drove him from his studio, whenever he fled from his

work, he now carried about with him that idea of fatal impotence, and

he heard it beating against his skull like the obstinate tolling of a

funeral bell.

His life became wretched. Never had doubt of himself pursued him in that

way before. He disappeared for whole days together; he even stopped out

a whole night, coming back the next morning stupefied, without being

able to say where he had gone. It was thought that he had been tramping

through the outskirts of Paris rather than find himself face to face

with his spoilt work. His sole relief was to flee the moment that work

filled him with shame and hatred, and to remain away until he felt

sufficient courage to face it once more. And not even his wife dared to

question him on his return--indeed, she was only too happy to see him

back again after her anxious waiting. At such times he madly scoured

Paris, especially the outlying quarters, from a longing to debase

himself and hob-nob with labourers. He expressed at each recurring

crisis his old regret at not being some mason’s hodman. Did not

happiness consist in having solid limbs, and in performing the work one

was built for well and quickly? He had wrecked his life; he ought to

have got himself engaged in the building line in the old times when he

had lunched at the ‘Dog of Montargis,’ Gomard’s tavern, where he had

known a Limousin, a big, strapping, merry fellow, whose brawny arms he

envied. Then, on coming back to the Rue Tourlaque, with his legs faint

and his head empty, he gave his picture much the same distressful,

frightened glance as one casts at a corpse in a mortuary, until fresh

hope of resuscitating it, of endowing it with life, brought a flush to

his face once more.

One day Christine was posing, and the figure of the woman was again

well nigh finished. For the last hour, however, Claude had been growing

gloomy, losing the childish delight that he had displayed at the

beginning of the sitting. So his wife scarcely dared to breathe, feeling

by her own discomfort that everything must be going wrong once more, and

afraid that she might accelerate the catastrophe if she moved as much

as a finger. And, surely enough, he suddenly gave a cry of anguish, and

launched forth an oath in a thunderous voice.

‘Oh, curse it! curse it!’

He had flung his handful of brushes from the top of the steps. Then,

blinded with rage, with one blow of his fist he transpierced the canvas.

Christine held out her trembling hands.

‘My dear, my dear!’

But when she had flung a dressing-gown over her shoulders, and

approached the picture, she experienced keen delight, a burst of

satisfied hatred. Claude’s fist had struck ‘the other one’ full in the

bosom, and there was a gaping hole! At last, then, that other one was

killed!

Motionless, horror-struck by that murder, Claude stared at the

perforated bosom. Poignant grief came upon him at the sight of the wound

whence the blood of his work seemed to flow. Was it possible? Was it

he who had thus murdered what he loved best of all on earth? His anger

changed into stupor; his fingers wandered over the canvas, drawing the

ragged edges of the rent together, as if he had wished to close the

bleeding gash. He was choking; he stammered, distracted with boundless

grief:

‘She is killed, she is killed!’

Then Christine, in her maternal love for that big child of an artist,

felt moved to her very entrails. She forgave him as usual. She saw well

enough that he now had but one thought--to mend the rent, to repair

the evil at once; and she helped him; it was she who held the shreds

together, whilst he from behind glued a strip of canvas against them.

When she dressed herself, ‘the other one’ was there again, immortal,

simply retaining near her heart a slight scar, which seemed to make her

doubly dear to the painter.

As this unhinging of Claude’s faculties increased, he drifted into a

sort of superstition, into a devout belief in certain processes and

methods. He banished oil from his colours, and spoke of it as of a

personal enemy. On the other hand, he held that turpentine produced a

solid unpolished surface, and he had some secrets of his own which

he hid from everybody; solutions of amber, liquefied copal, and other

resinous compounds that made colours dry quickly, and prevented

them from cracking. But he experienced some terrible worries, as

the absorbent nature of the canvas at once sucked in the little oil

contained in the paint. Then the question of brushes had always worried

him greatly; he insisted on having them with special handles; and

objecting to sable, he used nothing but oven-dried badger hair.

More important, however, than everything else was the question of

palette-knives, which, like Courbet, he used for his backgrounds. He

had quite a collection of them, some long and flexible, others broad and

squat, and one which was triangular like a glazier’s, and which had been

expressly made for him. It was the real Delacroix knife. Besides, he

never made use of the scraper or razor, which he considered beneath an

artist’s dignity. But, on the other hand, he indulged in all sorts of

mysterious practices in applying his colours, concocted recipes and

changed them every month, and suddenly fancied that he had bit on the

right system of painting, when, after repudiating oil and its flow, he

began to lay on successive touches until he arrived at the exact tone

he required. One of his fads for a long while was to paint from right to

left; for, without confessing as much, he felt sure that it brought

him luck. But the terrible affair which unhinged him once more was an

all-invading theory respecting the complementary colours. Gagnière had

been the first to speak to him on the subject, being himself equally

inclined to technical speculation. After which Claude, impelled by

the exuberance of his passion, took to exaggerating the scientific

principles whereby, from the three primitive colours, yellow, red, and

blue, one derives the three secondary ones, orange, green, and violet,

and, further, a whole series of complementary and similar hues, whose

composites are obtained mathematically from one another. Thus science

entered into painting, there was a method for logical observation

already. One only had to take the predominating hue of a picture, and

note the complementary or similar colours, to establish experimentally

what variations would occur; for instance, red would turn yellowish if

it were near blue, and a whole landscape would change in tint by the

refractions and the very decomposition of light, according to the clouds

passing over it. Claude then accurately came to this conclusion:

That objects have no real fixed colour; that they assume various hues

according to ambient circumstances; but the misfortune was that when

he took to direct observation, with his brain throbbing with scientific

formulas, his prejudiced vision lent too much force to delicate shades,

and made him render what was theoretically correct in too vivid a

manner: thus his style, once so bright, so full of the palpitation

of sunlight, ended in a reversal of everything to which the eye

was accustomed, giving, for instance, flesh of a violet tinge under

tricoloured skies. Insanity seemed to be at the end of it all.

Poverty finished off Claude. It had gradually increased, while the

family spent money without counting; and, when the last copper of the

twenty thousand francs had gone, it swooped down upon them--horrible and

irreparable. Christine, who wanted to look for work, was incapable of

doing anything, even ordinary needlework. She bewailed her lot, twirling

her fingers and inveighing against the idiotic young lady’s education

that she had received, since it had given her no profession, and her

only resource would be to enter into domestic service, should life still

go against them. Claude, on his side, had become a subject of chaff with

the Parisians, and no longer sold a picture. An independent exhibition

at which he and some friends had shown some pictures, had finished him

off as regards amateurs--so merry had the public become at the sight of

his canvases, streaked with all the colours of the rainbow. The dealers

fled from him. M. Hue alone now and then made a pilgrimage to the Rue

Tourlaque, and remained in ecstasy before the exaggerated bits, those

which blazed in unexpected pyrotechnical fashion, in despair at being

unable to cover them with gold. And though the painter wanted to make

him a present of them, implored him to accept them, the old fellow

displayed extraordinary delicacy of feeling. He pinched himself to amass

a small sum of money from time to time, and then religiously took away

the seemingly delirious picture, to hang it beside his masterpieces.

Such windfalls came too seldom, and Claude was obliged to descend to

‘trade art,’ repugnant as it was to him. Such, indeed, was his despair

at having fallen into that poison house, where he had sworn never to set

foot, that he would have preferred starving to death, but for the two

poor beings who were dependent on him and who suffered like himself. He

became familiar with ‘viae dolorosae’ painted at reduced prices, with

male and female saints at so much per gross, even with ‘pounced’ shop

blinds--in short, all the ignoble jobs that degrade painting and make it

so much idiotic delineation, lacking even the charm of naivete. He even

suffered the humiliation of having portraits at five-and-twenty francs

a-piece refused, because he failed to produce a likeness; and he reached

the lowest degree of distress--he worked according to size for the petty

dealers who sell daubs on the bridges, and export them to semi-civilised

countries. They bought his pictures at two and three francs a-piece,

according to the regulation dimensions. This was like physical decay, it

made him waste away; he rose from such tasks feeling ill, incapable of

serious work, looking at his large picture in distress, and leaving it

sometimes untouched for a week, as if he had felt his hands befouled and

unworthy of working at it.

They scarcely had bread to eat, and the huge shanty, which Christine had

shown herself so proud of, on settling in it, became uninhabitable in

the winter. She, once such an active housewife, now dragged herself

about the place, without courage even to sweep the floor, and thus

everything lapsed into abandonment. In the disaster little Jacques was

sadly weakened by unwholesome and insufficient food, for their meals

often consisted of a mere crust, eaten standing. With their lives thus

ill-regulated, uncared for, they were drifting to the filth of the poor

who lose even all self-pride.

At the close of another year, Claude, on one of those days of defeat,

when he fled from his miscarried picture, met an old acquaintance. This

time he had sworn he would never go home again, and he had been tramping

across Paris since noon, as if at his heels he had heard the wan spectre

of the big, nude figure of his picture--ravaged by constant retouching,

and always left incomplete--pursuing him with a passionate craving for

birth. The mist was melting into a yellowish drizzle, befouling the

muddy streets. It was about five o’clock, and he was crossing the Rue

Royale like one walking in his sleep, at the risk of being run over,

his clothes in rags and mud-bespattered up to his neck, when a brougham

suddenly drew up.

‘Claude, eh? Claude!--is that how you pass your friends?’

It was Irma Bécot who spoke, Irma in a charming grey silk dress, covered

with Chantilly lace. She had hastily let down the window, and she sat

smiling, beaming in the frame-work of the carriage door.

‘Where are you going?’

He, staring at her open-mouthed, replied that he was going nowhere. At

which she merrily expressed surprise in a loud voice, looking at him

with her saucy eyes.

‘Get in, then; it’s such a long while since we met,’ said she. ‘Get in,

or you’ll be knocked down.’

And, in fact, the other drivers were getting impatient, and urging their

horses on, amidst a terrible din, so he did as he was bidden, feeling

quite dazed; and she drove him away, dripping, with the unmistakable

signs of his poverty upon him, in the brougham lined with blue satin,

where he sat partly on the lace of her skirt, while the cabdrivers

jeered at the elopement before falling into line again.

When Claude came back to the Rue Tourlaque he was in a dazed condition,

and for a couple of days remained musing whether after all he might not

have taken the wrong course in life. He seemed so strange that Christine

questioned him, whereupon he at first stuttered and stammered, and

finally confessed everything. There was a scene; she wept for a long

while, then pardoned him once more, full of infinite indulgence for him.

And, indeed, amidst all her bitter grief there sprang up a hope that he

might yet return to her, for if he could deceive her thus he could not

care as much as she had imagined for that hateful painted creature who

stared down from the big canvas.

The days went by, and towards the middle of the winter Claude’s courage

revived once more. One day, while putting some old frames in order, he

came upon a roll of canvas which had fallen behind the other pictures.

On opening the roll he found on it the nude figure, the reclining woman

of his old painting, ‘In the Open Air,’ which he had cut out when the

picture had come back to him from the Salon of the Rejected. And, as he

gazed at it, he uttered a cry of admiration:

‘By the gods, how beautiful it is!’

He at once secured it to the wall with four nails, and remained for

hours in contemplation before it. His hands shook, the blood rushed to

his face. Was it possible that he had painted such a masterly thing?

He had possessed genius in those days then. So his skull, his eyes, his

fingers had been changed. He became so feverishly excited and felt such

a need of unburthening himself to somebody, that at last he called his

wife.

‘Just come and have a look. Isn’t her attitude good, eh? How delicately

her muscles are articulated! Just look at that bit there, full of

sunlight. And at the shoulder here. Ah, heavens! it’s full of life; I

can feel it throb as I touch it.’

Christine, standing by, kept looking and answering in monosyllables.

This resurrection of herself, after so many years, had at first

flattered and surprised her. But on seeing him become so excited, she

gradually felt uncomfortable and irritated, without knowing why.

‘Tell me,’ he continued, ‘don’t you think her beautiful enough for one

to go on one’s knees to her?’

‘Yes, yes. But she has become rather blackish--’

Claude protested vehemently. Become blackish, what an idea! That woman

would never grow black; she possessed immortal youth! Veritable passion

had seized hold of him; he spoke of the figure as of a living being; he

had sudden longings to look at her that made him leave everything else,

as if he were hurrying to an appointment.

Then, one morning, he was taken with a fit of work.

‘But, confound it all, as I did that, I can surely do it again,’ he

said. ‘Ah, this time, unless I’m a downright brute, we’ll see about it.’

And Christine had to give him a sitting there and then. For eight hours

a day, indeed, during a whole month he kept her before him, without

compassion for her increasing exhaustion or for the fatigue he felt

himself. He obstinately insisted upon producing a masterpiece; he was

determined that the upright figure of his big picture should equal that

reclining one which he saw on the wall, beaming with life. He constantly

referred to it, compared it with the one he was painting, distracted by

the fear of being unable to equal it. He cast one glance at it, another

at Christine, and a third at his canvas, and burst into oaths whenever

he felt dissatisfied. He ended by abusing his wife.

She was no longer young. Age had spoilt her figure, and that it was

which spoilt his work. She listened, and staggered in her very grief.

Those sittings, from which she had already suffered so much, were

becoming unbearable torture now. What was this new freak of crushing

her with her own girlhood, of fanning her jealousy by filling her with

regret for vanished beauty? She was becoming her own rival, she could

no longer look at that old picture of herself without being stung at the

heart by hateful envy. Ah, how heavily had that picture, that study

she had sat for long ago, weighed upon her existence! The whole of her

misfortunes sprang from it. It had changed the current of her existence.

And it had come to life again, it rose from the dead, endowed with

greater vitality than herself, to finish killing her, for there was no

longer aught but one woman for Claude--she who was shown reclining on

the old canvas, and who now arose and became the upright figure of his

new picture.

Then Christine felt herself growing older and older at each successive

sitting. And she experienced the infinite despair which comes upon

passionate women when love, like beauty, abandons them. Was it because

of this that Claude no longer cared for her, that he sought refuge in

an unnatural passion for his work? She soon lost all clear perception

of things; she fell into a state of utter neglect, going about in a

dressing jacket and dirty petticoats, devoid of all coquettish feeling,

discouraged by the idea that it was useless for her to continue

struggling, since she had become old.

There were occasionally abominable scenes between her and Claude, who

this time, however, obstinately stuck to his work and finished his

picture, swearing that, come what might, he would send it to the Salon.

He lived on his steps, cleaning up his backgrounds until dark. At last,

thoroughly exhausted, he declared that he would touch the canvas no

more; and Sandoz, on coming to see him one day, at four o’clock, did not

find him at home. Christine declared that he had just gone out to take a

breath of air on the height of Montmartre.

The breach between Claude and his old friends had gradually widened.

With time the latters’ visits had become brief and far between, for they

felt uncomfortable when they found themselves face to face with that

disturbing style of painting; and they were more and more upset by the

unhinging of a mind which had been the admiration of their youth. Now

all had fled; none excepting Sandoz ever came. Gagnière had even left

Paris, to settle down in one of the two houses he owned at Melun, where

he lived frugally upon the proceeds of the other one, after suddenly

marrying, to every one’s surprise, an old maid, his music mistress, who

played Wagner to him of an evening. As for Mahoudeau, he alleged work

as an excuse for not coming, and indeed he was beginning to earn some

money, thanks to a bronze manufacturer, who employed him to touch up

his models. Matters were different with Jory, whom no one saw, since

Mathilde despotically kept him sequestrated. She had conquered him,

and he had fallen into a kind of domesticity comparable to that of a

faithful dog, yielding up the keys of his cashbox, and only carrying

enough money about him to buy a cigar at a time. It was even said that

Mathilde, like the devotee she had once been, had thrown him into the

arms of the Church, in order to consolidate her conquest, and that she

was constantly talking to him about death, of which he was horribly

afraid. Fagerolles alone affected a lively, cordial feeling towards

his old friend Claude whenever he happened to meet him. He then always

promised to go and see him, but never did so. He was so busy since his

great success, in such request, advertised, celebrated, on the road to

every imaginable honour and form of fortune! And Claude regretted

nobody save Dubuche, to whom he still felt attached, from a feeling

of affection for the old reminiscences of boyhood, notwithstanding the

disagreements which difference of disposition had provoked later on. But

Dubuche, it appeared, was not very happy either. No doubt he was gorged

with millions, but he led a wretched life, constantly at logger-heads

with his father-in-law (who complained of having been deceived with

regard to his capabilities as an architect), and obliged to pass

his life amidst the medicine bottles of his ailing wife and his two

children, who, having been prematurely born, had to be reared virtually

in cotton wool.

Of all the old friends, therefore, there only remained Sandoz, who still

found his way to the Rue Tourlaque. He came thither for little Jacques,

his godson, and for the sorrowing woman also, that Christine whose

passionate features amidst all this distress moved him deeply, like a

vision of one of the ardently amorous creatures whom he would have

liked to embody in his books. But, above all, his feeling of artistic

brotherliness had increased since he had seen Claude losing ground,

foundering amidst the heroic folly of art. At first he had remained

utterly astonished at it, for he had believed in his friend more than in

himself. Since their college days, he had always placed himself second,

while setting Claude very high on fame’s ladder--on the same rung,

indeed, as the masters who revolutionise a period. Then he had been

grievously affected by that bankruptcy of genius; he had become full

of bitter, heartfelt pity at the sight of the horrible torture of

impotency. Did one ever know who was the madman in art? Every failure

touched him to the quick, and the more a picture or a book verged upon

aberration, sank to the grotesque and lamentable, the more did Sandoz

quiver with compassion, the more did he long to lull to sleep, in the

soothing extravagance of their dreams, those who were thus blasted by

their own work.

On the day when Sandoz called, and failed to find Claude at home, he did

not go away; but, seeing Christine’s eyelids red with crying, he said:

‘If you think that he’ll be in soon, I’ll wait for him.’

‘Oh! he surely won’t be long.’

‘In that case I’ll wait, unless I am in your way.’

Never had her demeanour, the crushed look of a neglected woman, her

listless movements, her slow speech, her indifference for everything but

the passion that was consuming her, moved him so deeply. For the last

week, perhaps, she had not put a chair in its place, or dusted a piece

of furniture; she left the place to go to wreck and ruin, scarcely

having the strength to drag herself about. And it was enough to break

one’s heart to behold that misery ending in filth beneath the glaring

light from the big window; to gaze on that ill-pargetted shanty, so bare

and disorderly, where one shivered with melancholy although it was a

bright February afternoon.

Christine had slowly sat down beside an iron bedstead, which Sandoz had

not noticed when he came in.

‘Hallo,’ he said, ‘is Jacques ill?’

She was covering up the child, who constantly flung off the bedclothes.

‘Yes, he hasn’t been up these three days. We brought his bed in here so

that he might be with us. He was never very strong. But he is getting

worse and worse, it’s distracting.’

She had a fixed stare in her eyes and spoke in a monotonous tone, and

Sandoz felt frightened when he drew up to the bedside. The child’s pale

head seemed to have grown bigger still, so heavy that he could no longer

support it. He lay perfectly still, and one might have thought he was

dead, but for the heavy breathing coming from between his discoloured

lips.

‘My poor little Jacques, it’s I, your godfather. Won’t you say how d’ye

do?’

The child made a fruitless, painful effort to lift his head; his eyelids

parted, showing his white eyeballs, then closed again.

‘Have you sent for a doctor?’

Christine shrugged her shoulders.

‘Oh! doctors, what do they know?’ she answered. ‘We sent for one; he

said that there was nothing to be done. Let us hope that it will pass

over again. He is close upon twelve years old now, and maybe he is

growing too fast.’

Sandoz, quite chilled, said nothing for fear of increasing her anxiety,

since she did not seem to realise the gravity of the disease. He walked

about in silence and stopped in front of the picture.

‘Ho, ho! it’s getting on; it’s on the right road this time.’

‘It’s finished.’

‘What! finished?’

And when she told him that the canvas was to be sent to the Salon that

next week, he looked embarrassed, and sat down on the couch, like a man

who wishes to judge the work leisurely. The background, the quays, the

Seine, whence arose the triumphal point of the Cité, still remained in a

sketchy state--masterly, however, but as if the painter had been afraid

of spoiling the Paris of his dream by giving it greater finish. There

was also an excellent group on the left, the lightermen unloading the

sacks of plaster being carefully and powerfully treated. But the boat

full of women in the centre transpierced the picture, as it were, with

a blaze of flesh-tints which were quite out of place; and the brilliancy

and hallucinatory proportions of the large nude figure which Claude had

painted in a fever seemed strangely, disconcertingly false amidst the

reality of all the rest.

Sandoz, silent, fell despair steal over him as he sat in front of that

magnificent failure. But he saw Christine’s eyes fixed upon him, and had

sufficient strength of mind to say:

‘Astounding!--the woman, astounding!’

At that moment Claude came in, and on seeing his old chum he uttered

a joyous exclamation and shook his hand vigorously. Then he approached

Christine, and kissed little Jacques, who had once more thrown off the

bedclothes.

‘How is he?’

‘Just the same.’

‘To be sure, to be sure; he is growing too fast. A few days’ rest will

set him all right. I told you not to be uneasy.’

And Claude thereupon sat down beside Sandoz on the couch. They both took

their ease, leaning back, with their eyes surveying the picture; while

Christine, seated by the bed, looked at nothing, and seemingly thought

of nothing, in the everlasting desolation of her heart. Night was slowly

coming on, the vivid light from the window paled already, losing its

sheen amidst the slowly-falling crepuscular dimness.

‘So it’s settled; your wife told me that you were going to send it in.’

‘Yes.’

‘You are right; you had better have done with it once for all. Oh, there

are some magnificent bits in it. The quay in perspective to the left,

the man who shoulders that sack below. But--’

He hesitated, then finally took the bull by the horns.

‘But, it’s odd that you have persisted in leaving those women nude. It

isn’t logical, I assure you; and, besides, you promised me you would

dress them--don’t you remember? You have set your heart upon them very

much then?’

‘Yes.’

Claude answered curtly, with the obstinacy of one mastered by a fixed

idea and unwilling to give any explanations. Then he crossed his arms

behind his head, and began talking of other things, without, however,

taking his eyes off his picture, over which the twilight began to cast a

slight shadow.

‘Do you know where I have just come from?’ he asked. ‘I have been to

Courajod’s. You know, the great landscape painter, whose “Pond of Gagny”

is at the Luxembourg. You remember, I thought he was dead, and we were

told that he lived hereabouts, on the other side of the hill, in the Rue

de l’Abreuvoir. Well, old boy, he worried me, did Courajod. While taking

a breath of air now and then up there, I discovered his shanty, and I

could no longer pass in front of it without wanting to go inside. Just

think, a master, a man who invented our modern landscape school, and who

lives there, unknown, done for, like a mole in its hole! You can have no

idea of the street or the caboose: a village street, full of fowls, and

bordered by grassy banks; and a caboose like a child’s toy, with tiny

windows, a tiny door, a tiny garden. Oh! the garden--a mere patch of

soil, sloping down abruptly, with a bed where four pear trees stand,

and the rest taken up by a fowl-house, made out of green boards, old

plaster, and wire network, held together with bits of string.’

His words came slowly; he blinked while he spoke as if the thought of

his picture had returned to him and was gradually taking possession

of him, to such a degree as to hamper him in his speech about other

matters.

‘Well, as luck would have it, I found Courajod on his doorstep to-day.

An old man of more than eighty, wrinkled and shrunk to the size of a

boy. I should like you to see him, with his clogs, his peasant’s jersey

and his coloured handkerchief wound over his head as if he were an old

market-woman. I pluckily went up to him, saying, “Monsieur Courajod, I

know you very well; you have a picture in the Luxembourg Gallery which

is a masterpiece. Allow a painter to shake hands with you as he would

with his master.” And then you should have seen him take fright, draw

back and stutter, as if I were going to strike him. A regular flight!

However, I followed him, and gradually he recovered his composure, and

showed me his hens, his ducks, his rabbits and dogs--an extraordinary

collection of birds and beasts; there was even a raven among them. He

lives in the midst of them all; he speaks to no one but his animals.

As for the view, it’s simply magnificent; you see the whole of the

St. Denis plain for miles upon miles; rivers and towns, smoking

factory-chimneys, and puffing railway-engines; in short, the place is

a real hermitage on a hill, with its back turned to Paris and its eyes

fixed on the boundless country. As a matter of course, I came back to

his picture. “Oh, Monsieur Courajod,” said I, “what talent you showed!

If you only knew how much we all admire you. You are one of our

illustrious men; you’ll remain the ancestor of us all.” But his lips

began to tremble again; he looked at me with an air of terror-stricken

stupidity; I am sure he would not have waved me back with a more

imploring gesture if I had unearthed under his very eyes the corpse of

some forgotten comrade of his youth. He kept chewing disconnected words

between his toothless gums; it was the mumbling of an old man who had

sunk into second childhood, and whom it’s impossible to understand.

“Don’t know--so long ago--too old--don’t care a rap.” To make a long

story short, he showed me the door; I heard him hurriedly turn the

key in lock, barricading himself and his birds and animals against the

admiration of the outside world. Ah, my good fellow, the idea of it!

That great man ending his life like a retired grocer; that voluntary

relapse into “nothingness” even before death. Ah, the glory, the glory

for which we others are ready to die!’

Claude’s voice, which had sunk lower and lower, died away at last in

a melancholy sigh. Darkness was still coming on; after gradually

collecting in the corners, it rose like a slow, inexorable tide, first

submerging the legs of the chairs and the table, all the confusion of

things that littered the tiled floor. The lower part of the picture was

already growing dim, and Claude, with his eyes still desperately fixed

on it, seemed to be watching the ascent of the darkness as if he had at

last judged his work in the expiring light. And no sound was heard save

the stertorous breathing of the sick child, near whom there still loomed

the dark silhouette of the motionless mother.

Then Sandoz spoke in his turn, his hands also crossed behind his head,

and his back resting against one of the cushions of the couch.

‘Does one ever know? Would it not be better, perhaps, to live and die

unknown? What a sell it would be if artistic glory existed no more than

the Paradise which is talked about in catechisms and which even children

nowadays make fun of! We, who no longer believe in the Divinity, still

believe in our own immortality. What a farce it all is!’

Then, affected to melancholy himself by the mournfulness of the

twilight, and stirred by all the human suffering he beheld around him,

he began to speak of his own torments.

‘Look here, old man, I, whom you envy, perhaps--yes, I, who am beginning

to get on in the world, as middle-class people say--I, who publish books

and earn a little money--well, I am being killed by it all. I have often

already told you this, but you don’t believe me, because, as you only

turn out work with a deal of trouble and cannot bring yourself to public

notice, happiness in your eyes could naturally consist in producing a

great deal, in being seen, and praised or slated. Well, get admitted to

the next Salon, get into the thick of the battle, paint other pictures,

and then tell me whether that suffices, and whether you are happy at

last. Listen; work has taken up the whole of my existence. Little by

little, it has robbed me of my mother, of my wife, of everything I love.

It is like a germ thrown into the cranium, which feeds on the brain,

finds its way into the trunk and limbs, and gnaws up the whole of the

body. The moment I jump out of bed of a morning, work clutches hold

of me, rivets me to my desk without leaving me time to get a breath of

fresh air; then it pursues me at luncheon--I audibly chew my sentences

with my bread. Next it accompanies me when I go out, comes back with me

and dines off the same plate as myself; lies down with me on my pillow,

so utterly pitiless that I am never able to set the book in hand on one

side; indeed, its growth continues even in the depth of my sleep. And

nothing outside of it exists for me. True, I go upstairs to embrace my

mother, but in so absent-minded a way, that ten minutes after leaving

her I ask myself whether I have really been to wish her good-morning. My

poor wife has no husband; I am not with her even when our hands touch.

Sometimes I have an acute feeling that I am making their lives very

sad, and I feel very remorseful, for happiness is solely composed of

kindness, frankness and gaiety in one’s home; but how can I escape from

the claws of the monster? I at once relapse into the somnambulism of my

working hours, into the indifference and moroseness of my fixed idea.

If the pages I have written during the morning have been worked off all

right, so much the better; if one of them has remained in distress, so

much the worse. The household will laugh or cry according to the whim of

that all-devouring monster--Work. No, no! I have nothing that I can call

my own. In my days of poverty I dreamt of rest in the country, of travel

in distant lands; and now that I might make those dreams reality, the

work that has been begun keeps me shut up. There is no chance of a walk

in the morning’s sun, no chance of running round to a friend’s house, or

of a mad bout of idleness! My strength of will has gone with the rest;

all this has become a habit; I have locked the door of the world behind

me, and thrown the key out of the window. There is no longer anything in

my den but work and myself--and work will devour me, and then there will

be nothing left, nothing at all!’

He paused, and silence reigned once more in the deepening gloom. Then he

began again with an effort:

‘And if one were only satisfied, if one only got some enjoyment out of

such a nigger’s life! Ah! I should like to know how those fellows manage

who smoke cigarettes and complacently stroke their beards while they are

at work. Yes, it appears to me that there are some who find production

an easy pleasure, to be set aside or taken up without the least

excitement. They are delighted, they admire themselves, they

cannot write a couple of lines but they find those lines of a rare,

distinguished, matchless quality. Well, as for myself, I bring forth

in anguish, and my offspring seems a horror to me. How can a man

be sufficiently wanting in self-doubt as to believe in himself? It

absolutely amazes me to see men, who furiously deny talent to everybody

else, lose all critical acumen, all common-sense, when it becomes a

question of their own bastard creations. Why, a book is always very

ugly. To like it one mustn’t have had a hand in the cooking of it. I say

nothing of the jugsful of insults that are showered upon one. Instead of

annoying, they rather encourage me. I see men who are upset by attacks,

who feel a humiliating craving to win sympathy. It is a simple question

of temperament; some women would die if they failed to please. But, to

my thinking, insult is a very good medicine to take; unpopularity is a

very manly school to be brought up in. Nothing keeps one in such good

health and strength as the hooting of a crowd of imbeciles. It suffices

that a man can say that he has given his life’s blood to his work; that

he expects neither immediate justice nor serious attention; that he

works without hope of any kind, and simply because the love of work

beats beneath his skin like his heart, irrespective of any will of his

own. If he can do all this, he may die in the effort with the consoling

illusion that he will be appreciated one day or other. Ah! if the others

only knew how jauntily I bear the weight of their anger. Only there

is my own choler, which overwhelms me; I fret that I cannot live for a

moment happy. What hours of misery I spend, great heavens! from the

very day I begin a novel. During the first chapters there isn’t so much

trouble. I have plenty of room before me in which to display genius. But

afterwards I become distracted, and am never satisfied with the daily

task; I condemn the book before it is finished, judging it inferior

to its elders; and I torture myself about certain pages, about certain

sentences, certain words, so that at last the very commas assume an

ugly look, from which I suffer. And when it is finished--ah! when it is

finished, what a relief! Not the enjoyment of the gentleman who exalts

himself in the worship of his offspring, but the curse of the labourer

who throws down the burden that has been breaking his back. Then,

later on, with another book, it all begins afresh; it will always begin

afresh, and I shall die under it, furious with myself, exasperated

at not having had more talent, enraged at not leaving a “work” more

complete, of greater dimensions--books upon books, a pile of mountain

height! And at my death I shall feel horrible doubts about the task I

may have accomplished, asking myself whether I ought not to have gone to

the left when I went to the right, and my last word, my last gasp, will

be to recommence the whole over again--’

He was thoroughly moved; the words stuck in his throat; he was obliged

to draw breath for a moment before delivering himself of this passionate

cry in which all his impenitent lyricism took wing:

Ah, life! a second span of life, who shall give it to me, that work may

rob me of it again--that I may die of it once more?’

It had now become quite dark; the mother’s rigid silhouette was no

longer visible; the hoarse breathing of the child sounded amidst the

obscurity like a terrible and distant signal of distress, uprising from

the streets. In the whole studio, which had become lugubriously black,

the big canvas only showed a glimpse of pallidity, a last vestige of the

waning daylight. The nude figure, similar to an agonising vision, seemed

to be floating about, without definite shape, the legs having already

vanished, one arm being already submerged, and the only part at all

distinct being the trunk, which shone like a silvery moon.

After a protracted pause, Sandoz inquired:

‘Shall I go with you when you take your picture?’

Getting no answer from Claude, he fancied he could hear him crying. Was

it with the same infinite sadness, the despair by which he himself

had been stirred just now? He waited for a moment, then repeated his

question, and at last the painter, after choking down a sob, stammered:

‘Thanks, the picture will remain here; I sha’n’t send it.’

‘What? Why, you had made up your mind?’

‘Yes, yes, I had made up my mind; but I had not seen it as I saw it

just now in the waning daylight. I have failed with it, failed with it

again--it struck my eyes like a blow, it went to my very heart.’

His tears now flowed slow and scalding in the gloom that hid him from

sight. He had been restraining himself, and now the silent anguish which

had consumed him burst forth despite all his efforts.

‘My poor friend,’ said Sandoz, quite upset; ‘it is hard to tell you so,

but all the same you are right, perhaps, in delaying matters to finish

certain parts rather more. Still I am angry with myself, for I shall

imagine that it was I who discouraged you by my everlasting stupid

discontent with things.’

Claude simply answered:

‘You! what an idea! I was not even listening to you. No; I was looking,

and I saw everything go helter-skelter in that confounded canvas. The

light was dying away, and all at once, in the greyish dusk, the scales

suddenly dropped from my eyes. The background alone is pretty; the

nude woman is altogether too loud; what’s more, she’s out of the

perpendicular, and her legs are badly drawn. When I noticed that, ah!

it was enough to kill me there and then; I felt life departing from me.

Then the gloom kept rising and rising, bringing a whirling sensation, a

foundering of everything, the earth rolling into chaos, the end of the

world. And soon I only saw the trunk waning like a sickly moon. And

look, look! there now remains nothing of her, not a glimpse; she is

dead, quite black!’

In fact, the picture had at last entirely disappeared. But the painter

had risen and could be heard swearing in the dense obscurity.

‘D--n it all, it doesn’t matter, I’ll set to work at it again--’

Then Christine, who had also risen from her chair, against which he

stumbled, interrupted him, saying: ‘Take care, I’ll light the lamp.’

She lighted it and came back looking very pale, casting a glance of

hatred and fear at the picture. It was not to go then? The abomination

was to begin once more!

‘I’ll set to work at it again,’ repeated Claude, ‘and it shall kill me,

it shall kill my wife, my child, the whole lot; but, by heaven, it shall

be a masterpiece!’

Christine sat down again; they approached Jacques, who had thrown the

clothes off once more with his feverish little hands. He was still

breathing heavily, lying quite inert, his head buried in the pillow like

a weight, with which the bed seemed to creak. When Sandoz was on

the point of going, he expressed his uneasiness. The mother appeared

stupefied; while the father was already returning to his picture, the

masterpiece which awaited creation, and the thought of which filled him

with such passionate illusions that he gave less heed to the painful

reality of the sufferings of his child, the true living flesh of his

flesh.

On the following morning, Claude had just finished dressing, when he

heard Christine calling in a frightened voice. She also had just woke

with a start from the heavy sleep which had benumbed her while she sat

watching the sick child.

‘Claude! Claude! Oh, look! He is dead.’

The painter rushed forward, with heavy eyes, stumbling, and apparently

failing to understand, for he repeated with an air of profound

amazement, ‘What do you mean by saying he is dead?’

For a moment they remained staring wildly at the bed. The poor little

fellow, with his disproportionate head--the head of the progeny of

genius, exaggerated as to verge upon cretinism--did not appear to have

stirred since the previous night; but no breath came from his mouth,

which had widened and become discoloured, and his glassy eyes were open.

His father laid his hands upon him and found him icy cold.

‘It is true, he is dead.’

And their stupor was such that for yet another moment they remained with

their eyes dry, simply thunderstruck, as it were, by the abruptness of

that death which they considered incredible.

Then, her knees bending under her, Christine dropped down in front of

the bed, bursting into violent sobs which shook her from head to foot,

and wringing her hands, whilst her forehead remained pressed against

the mattress. In that first moment of horror her despair was aggravated

above all by poignant remorse--the remorse of not having sufficiently

cared for the poor child. Former days started up before her in a rapid

vision, each bringing with it regretfulness for unkind words, deferred

caresses, rough treatment even. And now it was all over; she would never

be able to compensate the lad for the affection she had withheld from

him. He whom she thought so disobedient had obeyed but too well at last.

She had so often told him when at play to be still, and not to disturb

his father at his work, that he was quiet at last, and for ever. The

idea suffocated her; each sob drew from her a dull moan.

Claude had begun walking up and down the studio, unable to remain still.

With his features convulsed, he shed a few big tears, which he brushed

away with the back of his hand. And whenever he passed in front of the

little corpse he could not help glancing at it. The glassy eyes, wide

open, seemed to exercise a spell over him. At first he resisted, but a

confused idea assumed shape within him, and would not be shaken off. He

yielded to it at last, took a small canvas, and began to paint a study

of the dead child. For the first few minutes his tears dimmed his

sight, wrapping everything in a mist; but he kept wiping them away, and

persevered with his work, even though his brush shook. Then the passion

for art dried his tears and steadied his hand, and in a little while it

was no longer his icy son that lay there, but merely a model, a subject,

the strange interest of which stirred him. That huge head, that waxy

flesh, those eyes which looked like holes staring into space--all

excited and thrilled him. He stepped back, seemed to take pleasure in

his work, and vaguely smiled at it.

When Christine rose from her knees, she found him thus occupied. Then,

bursting into tears again, she merely said:

‘Ah! you can paint him now, he’ll never stir again.’

For five hours Claude kept at it, and on the second day, when Sandoz

came back with him from the cemetery, after the funeral, he shuddered

with pity and admiration at the sight of the small canvas. It was one of

the fine bits of former days, a masterpiece of limpidity and power,

to which was added a note of boundless melancholy, the end of

everything--all life ebbing away with the death of that child.

But Sandoz, who had burst out into exclamations fall of praise, was

quite taken aback on hearing Claude say to him:

‘You are sure you like it? In that case, as the other machine isn’t

ready, I’ll send this to the Salon.’

X

ONE morning, as Claude, who had taken ‘The Dead Child’ to the Palais de

l’Industrie the previous day, was roaming round about the Parc Monceau,

he suddenly came upon Fagerolles.

‘What!’ said the latter, cordially, ‘is it you, old fellow? What’s

becoming of you? What are you doing? We see so little of each other

now.’

Then, Claude having mentioned what he had sent to the Salon--that little

canvas which his mind was full of--Fagerolles added:

‘Ah! you’ve sent something; then I’ll get it “hung” for you. You know

that I’m a candidate for the hanging committee this year.’

Indeed, amid the tumult and everlasting discontent of the artists, after

attempts at reform, repeated a score of times and then abandoned, the

authorities had just invested the exhibitors with the privilege of

electing the members of the hanging committee; and this had quite upset

the world of painters and sculptors, a perfect electoral fever had

set in, with all sorts of ambitious cabals and intrigues--all the low

jobbery, indeed, by which politics are dishonoured.

‘I’m going to take you with me,’ continued Fagerolles; you must come

and see how I’m settled in my little house, in which you haven’t yet set

foot, in spite of all your promises. It’s there, hard by, at the corner

of the Avenue de Villiers.’

Claude, whose arm he had gaily taken, was obliged to follow him. He was

seized with a fit of cowardice; the idea that his old chum might get

his picture ‘hung’ for him filled him with mingled shame and desire.

On reaching the avenue, he stopped in front of the house to look at its

frontage, a bit of coquettish, _precioso_ architectural tracery--the

exact copy of a Renaissance house at Bourges, with lattice windows, a

staircase tower, and a roof decked with leaden ornaments. It looked

like the abode of a harlot; and Claude was struck with surprise when,

on turning round, he recognised Irma Bécot’s regal mansion just over

the way. Huge, substantial, almost severe of aspect, it had all the

importance of a palace compared to its neighbour, the dwelling of the

artist, who was obliged to limit himself to a fanciful nick-nack.

‘Ah! that Irma, eh?’ said Fagerolles with just a shade of respect in his

tone. ‘She has got a cathedral and no mistake! But come in.’

The interior of Fagerolles’ house was strangely and magnificently

luxurious. Old tapestry, old weapons, a heap of old furniture, Chinese

and Japanese curios were displayed even in the very hall. On the left

there was a dining-room, panelled with lacquer work and having its

ceiling draped with a design of a red dragon. Then there was a staircase

of carved wood above which banners drooped, whilst tropical plants rose

up like plumes. Overhead, the studio was a marvel, though rather small

and without a picture visible. The walls, indeed, were entirely covered

with Oriental hangings, while at one end rose up a huge chimney-piece

with chimerical monsters supporting the tablet, and at the other

extremity appeared a vast couch under a tent--the latter quite

a monument, with lances upholding the sumptuous drapery, above a

collection of carpets, furs and cushions heaped together almost on a

level with the flooring.

Claude looked at it all, and there came to his lips a question which

he held back--Was all this paid for? Fagerolles, who had been decorated

with the Legion of Honour the previous year, now asked, it was said,

ten thousand francs for painting a mere portrait. Naudet, who, after

launching him, duly turned his success to profit in a methodical

fashion, never let one of his pictures go for less than twenty, thirty,

forty thousand francs. Orders would have fallen on the painter’s

shoulders as thick as hail, if he had not affected the disdain, the

weariness of the man whose slightest sketches are fought for. And yet

all this display of luxury smacked of indebtedness, there was only so

much paid on account to the upholsterers; all the money--the money won

by lucky strokes as on ‘Change--slipped through the artist’s fingers,

and was spent without trace of it remaining. Moreover, Fagerolles,

still in the full flush of his sudden good fortune, did not calculate or

worry, being confident that he would always sell his works at higher

and higher prices, and feeling glorious at the high position he was

acquiring in contemporary art.

Eventually, Claude espied a little canvas on an ebony easel, draped with

red plush. Excepting a rosewood tube case and box of crayons, forgotten

on an article of furniture, nothing reminding one of the artistic

profession could be seen lying about.

‘Very finely treated,’ said Claude, wishing to be amiable, as he stood

in front of the little canvas. ‘And is your picture for the Salon sent?’

‘Ah! yes, thank heavens! What a number of people I had here! A perfect

procession which kept me on my legs from morning till evening during a

week. I didn’t want to exhibit it, as it lowers one to do so, and Naudet

also opposed it. But what would you have done? I was so begged and

prayed; all the young fellows want to set me on the committee, so that I

may defend them. Oh! my picture is simple enough--I call it “A

Picnic.” There are a couple of gentlemen and three ladies under some

trees--guests at some château, who have brought a collation with them

and are eating it in a glade. You’ll see, it’s rather original.’

He spoke in a hesitating manner, and when his eyes met those of Claude,

who was looking at him fixedly, he lost countenance altogether, and

joked about the little canvas on the easel.

‘That’s a daub Naudet asked me for. Oh! I’m not ignorant of what I

lack--a little of what you have too much of, old man. You know that

I’m still your friend; why, I defended you only yesterday with some

painters.’

He tapped Claude on the shoulders, for he had divined his old

master’s secret contempt, and wished to win him back by his old-time

caresses--all the wheedling practices of a hussy. Very sincerely and

with a sort of anxious deference he again promised Claude that he would

do everything in his power to further the hanging of his picture, ‘The

Dead Child.’

However, some people arrived; more than fifteen persons came in and

went off in less than an hour--fathers bringing young pupils, exhibitors

anxious to say a good word on their own behalf, friends who wanted

to barter influence, even women who placed their talents under the

protection of their charms. And one should have seen the painter play

his part as a candidate, shaking hands most lavishly, saying to one

visitor: ‘Your picture this year is so pretty, it pleases me so much!’

then feigning astonishment with another: ‘What! you haven’t had a medal

yet?’ and repeating to all of them: ‘Ah! If I belonged to the committee,

I’d make them walk straight.’ He sent every one away delighted, closed

the door behind each visitor with an air of extreme amiability, through

which, however, there pierced the secret sneer of an ex-lounger on the

pavement.

‘You see, eh?’ he said to Claude, at a moment when they happened to be

left alone. ‘What a lot of time I lose with those idiots!’

Then he approached the large window, and abruptly opened one of the

casements; and on one of the balconies of the house over the way a

woman clad in a lace dressing-gown could be distinguished waving her

handkerchief. Fagerolles on his side waved his hand three times in

succession. Then both windows were closed again.

Claude had recognised Irma; and amid the silence which fell Fagerolles

quietly explained matters:

‘It’s convenient, you see, one can correspond. We have a complete system

of telegraphy. She wants to speak to me, so I must go--’

Since he and Irma had resided in the avenue, they met, it was said,

on their old footing. It was even asserted that he, so ‘cute,’ so

well-acquainted with Parisian humbug, let himself be fleeced by her,

bled at every moment of some good round sum, which she sent her maid

to ask for--now to pay a tradesman, now to satisfy a whim, often for

nothing at all, or rather for the sole pleasure of emptying his

pockets; and this partly explained his embarrassed circumstances, his

indebtedness, which ever increased despite the continuous rise in the

quotations of his canvases.

Claude had put on his hat again. Fagerolles was shuffling about

impatiently, looking nervously at the house over the way.

‘I don’t send you off, but you see she’s waiting for me,’ he said,

‘Well, it’s understood, your affair’s settled--that is, unless I’m

not elected. Come to the Palais de l’Industrie on the evening the

voting-papers are counted. Oh! there will be a regular crush, quite a

rumpus! Still, you will always learn if you can rely on me.’

At first, Claude inwardly swore that he would not trouble about it.

Fagerolles’ protection weighed heavily upon him; and yet, in his heart

of hearts, he really had but one fear, that the shifty fellow would not

keep his promise, but would ultimately be taken with a fit of cowardice

at the idea of protecting a defeated man. However, on the day of the

vote Claude could not keep still, but went and roamed about the Champs

Elysées under the pretence of taking a long walk. He might as well go

there as elsewhere, for while waiting for the Salon he had altogether

ceased work. He himself could not vote, as to do so it was necessary to

have been ‘hung’ on at least one occasion. However, he repeatedly passed

before the Palais de l’Industrie,* the foot pavement in front of which

interested him with its bustling aspect, its procession of artist

electors, whom men in dirty blouses caught hold of, shouting to them

the titles of their lists of candidates--lists some thirty in number

emanating from every possible coterie, and representing every possible

opinion. There was the list of the studios of the School of Arts, the

liberal list, the list of the uncompromising radical painters, the

conciliatory list, the young painters’ list, even the ladies’ list,

and so forth. The scene suggested all the turmoil at the door of an

electoral polling booth on the morrow of a riot.

* This palace, for many years the home of the ‘Salon,’ was built

for the first Paris International Exhibition, that of 1855,

and demolished in connection with that of 1900.--ED.

At four o’clock in the afternoon, when the voting was over, Claude could

not resist a fit of curiosity to go and have a look. The staircase was

now free, and whoever chose could enter. Upstairs, he came upon the huge

gallery, overlooking the Champs Elysées, which was set aside for the

hanging committee. A table, forty feet long, filled the centre of this

gallery, and entire trees were burning in the monumental fireplace at

one end of it. Some four or five hundred electors, who had remained to

see the votes counted, stood there, mingled with friends and inquisitive

strangers, talking, laughing, and setting quite a storm loose under the

lofty ceiling. Around the table, parties of people who had volunteered

to count the votes were already settled and at work; there were some

fifteen of these parties in all, each comprising a chairman and two

scrutineers. Three or four more remained to be organised, and nobody

else offered assistance; in fact, every one turned away in fear of the

crushing labour which would rivet the more zealous people to the spot

far into the night.

It precisely happened that Fagerolles, who had been in the thick of

it since the morning, was gesticulating and shouting, trying to make

himself heard above the hubbub.

‘Come, gentlemen, we need one more man here! Come, some willing person,

over here!’

And at that moment, perceiving Claude, he darted forward and forcibly

dragged him off.

‘Ah! as for you, you will just oblige me by sitting down there and

helping us! It’s for the good cause, dash it all!’