His Masterpiece Part 18

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 cafe; 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. n.o.body 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; f.a.gerolles had an appointment; in vain did Jory, Mahoudeau, and Gagniere 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-Peres 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 Elysees, 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 G.o.d! how I do suffer!'

Then she, with both hands, raised his face to her lips in a transport of pa.s.sion. 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.

VI

THE very next morning, at seven o'clock, Christine was at the studio, her face still flushed by the falsehood which she had told Madame Vanzade about a young friend from Clermont whom she was to meet at the station, and with whom she should spend the day.

Claude, overjoyed by the idea of spending a whole day with her, wanted to take her into the country, far away under the glorious sunlight, so as to have her entirely to himself. She was delighted; they scampered off like lunatics, and reached the St. Lazare Station just in time to catch the Havre train. He knew, beyond Mantes, a little village called Bennecourt, where there was an artists' inn which he had at times invaded with some comrades; and careless as to the two hours' rail, he took her to lunch there, just as he would have taken her to Asnieres.

She made very merry over this journey, to which there seemed no end.

So much the better if it were to take them to the end of the world! It seemed to them as if evening would never come.

At ten o'clock they alighted at Bonnieres; and there they took the ferry--an old ferry-boat that creaked and grated against its chain--for Bennecourt is situated on the opposite bank of the Seine. It was a splendid May morning, the rippling waters were spangled with gold in the sunlight, the young foliage showed delicately green against the cloudless azure. And, beyond the islets situated at this point of the river, how delightful it was to find the country inn, with its little grocery business attached, its large common room smelling of soapsuds, and its s.p.a.cious yard full of manure, on which the ducks disported themselves.

'Hallo, Faucheur! we have come to lunch. An omelette, some sausages, and some cheese, eh?'

'Are you going to stay the night, Monsieur Claude?'

'No, no; another time. And some white wine; eh? you know that pinky wine, that grates a bit in the throat.'

Christine had already followed mother Faucheur to the barn-yard, and when the latter came back with her eggs, she asked Claude with her artful peasant's laugh:

'And so now you're married?'

'Well,' replied the painter without hesitation, 'it looks like it since I'm with my wife.'

The lunch was exquisite: the omelette overdone, the sausages too greasy, and the bread so hard that he had to cut it into fingers for Christine lest she should hurt her wrist. They emptied two bottles of wine, and began a third, becoming so gay and noisy that they ended by feeling bewildered in the long room, where they partook of the meal all alone.

She, with her cheeks aflame, declared that she was tipsy; it had never happened to her before, and she thought it very funny. Oh! so funny, and she burst into uncontrollable laughter.

'Let us get a breath of air,' she said at last.

'Yes, let's take a stroll. We must start back at four o'clock; so we have three hours before us.'

They went up the village of Bennecourt, whose yellow houses straggle along the river bank for about a couple of thousand yards. All the villagers were in the fields; they only met three cows, led by a little girl. He, with an outstretched arm, told her all about the locality; seemed to know whither he was going, and when they had reached the last house--an old building, standing on the bank of the Seine, just opposite the slopes of Jeufosse--turned round it, and entered a wood of oak trees. It was like the end of the world, roofed in with foliage, through which the sun alone penetrated in narrow tongues of flame. And there they could stroll and talk and kiss in freedom.

When at last it became necessary for them to retrace their steps, they found a peasant standing at the open doorway of the house by the wood-side. Claude recognised the man and called to him:

'Hallo, Porrette! Does that shanty belong to you?'

At this the old fellow, with tears in his eyes, related that it did, and that his tenants had gone away without paying him, leaving their furniture behind. And he invited them inside.

'There's no harm in looking; you may know somebody who would like to take the place. There are many Parisians who'd be glad of it. Three hundred francs a year, with the furniture; it's for nothing, eh?'

They inquisitively followed him inside. It was a rambling old place that seemed to have been cut out of a barn. Downstairs they found an immense kitchen and a dining-room, in which one might have given a dance; upstairs were two rooms also, so vast that one seemed lost in them.

As for the furniture, it consisted of a walnut bedstead in one of the rooms, and of a table and some household utensils in the kitchen. But in front of the house the neglected garden was planted with magnificent apricot trees, and overgrown with large rose-bushes in full bloom; while at the back there was a potato field reaching as far as the oak wood, and surrounded by a quick-set hedge.

'I'd leave the potatoes as they are,' said old Porrette.

Claude and Christine looked at each other with one of those sudden cravings for solitude and forgetfulness common to lovers. Ah! how sweet it would be to love one another there in the depths of that nook, so far away from everybody else! But they smiled. Was such a thing to be thought of? They had barely time to catch the train that was to take them back to Paris. And the old peasant, who was Madame Faucheur's father, accompanied them along the river bank, and as they were stepping into the ferry-boat, shouted to them, after quite an inward struggle:

'You know, I'll make it two hundred and fifty francs--send me some people.'