His Masterpiece Part 8

'For how many am I to lay the cloth?'

'Oh! as for that, one never knows. Lay for five, at any rate; we'll see afterwards. Dinner at seven, eh? we'll try to be home by then.'

When they were on the landing, Sandoz, leaving Claude to wait for him, stole into his mother's room. When he came out again, in the same discreet affectionate manner, they both went downstairs in silence.

Outside, having sniffed to right and left, as if to see which way the wind blew, they ended by going up the street, reached the Place de l'Observatoire, and turned down the Boulevard du Montparna.s.se. This was their ordinary promenade; they reached the spot instinctively, being fond of the wide expanse of the outer boulevards, where they could roam and lounge at ease. They continued silent, for their heads were heavy still, but the comfort of being together gradually made them more serene. Still it was only when they were opposite the Western Railway Station that Sandoz spoke.

'I say, suppose we go to Mahoudeau's, to see how he's getting on with his big machine. I know that he has given "his G.o.ds and saints" the slip to-day.'

'All right,' answered Claude. 'Let's go to Mahoudeau's.'

They at once turned into the Rue du Cherche-Midi. There, at a few steps from the boulevard, Mahoudeau, a sculptor, had rented the shop of a fruiterer who had failed in business, and he had installed his studio therein, contenting himself with covering the windows with a layer of whitening. At this point, the street, wide and deserted, has a quiet, provincial aspect, with a somewhat ecclesiastical touch. Large gateways stand wide open showing a succession of deep roomy yards; from a cowkeeper's establishment comes a tepid, pungent smell of litter; and the dead wall of a convent stretches away for a goodly length. It was between this convent and a herbalist's that the shop transformed into a studio was situated. It still bore on its sign-board the inscription, 'Fruit and Vegetables,' in large yellow letters.

Claude and Sandoz narrowly missed being blinded by some little girls who were skipping in the street. On the foot pavement sat several families whose barricades of chairs compelled the friends to step down on to the roadway. However, they were drawing nigh, when the sight of the herbalist's shop delayed them for a moment. Between its windows, decked with enemas, bandages, and similar things, beneath the dried herbs hanging above the doorway, whence came a constant aromatic smell, a thin, dark woman stood taking stock of them, while, behind her, in the gloom of the shop, one saw the vague silhouette of a little sickly-looking man, who was coughing and expectorating. The friends nudged each other, their eyes lighted up with bantering mirth; and then they turned the handle of Mahoudeau's door.

The shop, though tolerably roomy, was almost filled by a ma.s.s of clay: a colossal Bacchante, falling back upon a rock. The wooden stays bent beneath the weight of that almost shapeless pile, of which nothing but some huge limbs could as yet be distinguished. Some water had been spilt on the floor, several muddy buckets straggled here and there, while a heap of moistened plaster was lying in a corner. On the shelves, formerly occupied by fruit and vegetables, were scattered some casts from the antique, covered with a tracery of cinder-like dust which had gradually collected there. A wash-house kind of dampness, a stale smell of moist clay, rose from the floor. And the wretchedness of this sculptor's studio and the dirt attendant upon the profession were made still more conspicuous by the wan light that filtered through the shop windows besmeared with whitening.

'What! is it you?' shouted Mahoudeau, who sat before his female figure, smoking a pipe.

He was small and thin, with a bony face, already wrinkled at twenty-seven. His black mane-like hair lay entangled over his very low forehead, and his sallow mask, ugly almost to ferociousness, was lighted up by a pair of childish eyes, bright and empty, which smiled with winning simplicity. The son of a stonemason of Pla.s.sans, he had achieved great success at the local art compet.i.tions, and had afterwards come to Paris as the town laureate, with an allowance of eight hundred francs per annum, for a period of four years. In the capital, however, he had found himself at sea, defenceless, failing in his compet.i.tions at the School of Arts, and spending his allowance to no purpose; so that, at the end of his term, he had been obliged for a livelihood to enter the employment of a dealer in church statues, at whose establishment, for ten hours a day, he sc.r.a.ped away at St. Josephs, St. Rochs, Mary Magdalens, and, in fact, all the saints of the calendar. For the last six months, however, he had experienced a revival of ambition, on finding himself once more among his comrades of Provence, the eldest of whom he was--fellows whom he had known at Geraud's boarding-school for little boys, and who had since grown into savage revolutionaries. At present, through his constant intercourse with impa.s.sioned artists, who troubled his brain with all sorts of wild theories, his ambition aimed at the gigantic.

'The devil!' said Claude, 'there's a lump.'

The sculptor, delighted, gave a long pull at his pipe, and blew a cloud of smoke.

'Eh, isn't it? I am going to give them some flesh, and living flesh, too; not the bladders of lard that they turn out.'

'It's a woman bathing, isn't it?' asked Sandoz.

'No; I shall put some vine leaves around her head. A Bacchante, you understand.'

At this Claude flew into a violent pa.s.sion.

'A Bacchante? Do you want to make fools of people? Does such a thing as a Bacchante exist? A vintaging girl, eh? And quite modern, dash it all.

I know she's nude, so let her be a peasant woman who has undressed.

And that must be properly conveyed, mind; people must realise that she lives.'

Mahoudeau, taken aback, listened, trembling. He was afraid of Claude, and bowed to his ideal of strength and truth. So he even improved upon the painter's idea.

'Yes, yes, that's what I meant to say--a vintaging girl. And you'll see whether there isn't a real touch of woman about her.'

At that moment Sandoz, who had been making the tour of the huge block of clay, exclaimed: 'Why, here's that sneak of a Chaine.'

Behind the pile, indeed, sat Chaine, a burly fellow who was quietly painting away, copying the fireless rusty stove on a small canvas. It could be told that he was a peasant by his heavy, deliberate manner and his bull-neck, tanned and hardened like leather. His only noticeable feature was his forehead, displaying all the b.u.mps of obstinacy; for his nose was so small as to be lost between his red cheeks, while a stiff beard hid his powerful jaws. He came from Saint Firmin, a village about six miles from Pla.s.sans, where he had been a cow-boy, until he drew for the conscription; and his misfortunes dated from the enthusiasm that a gentleman of the neighbourhood had shown for the walking-stick handles which he carved out of roots with his knife. From that moment, having become a rustic genius, an embryo great man for this local connoisseur, who happened to be a member of the museum committee, he had been helped by him, adulated and driven crazy with hopes; but he had successively failed in everything--his studies and compet.i.tions--thus missing the town's purse. Nevertheless, he had started for Paris, after worrying his father, a wretched peasant, into premature payment of his heritage, a thousand francs, on which he reckoned to live for a twelvemonth while awaiting the promised victory. The thousand francs had lasted eighteen months. Then, as he had only twenty francs left, he had taken up his quarters with his friend, Mahoudeau. They both slept in the same bed, in the dark back shop; they both in turn cut slices from the same loaves of bread--of which they bought sufficient for a fortnight at a time, so that it might get very hard, and that they might thus be able to eat but little of it.

'I say, Chaine,' continued Sandoz, 'your stove is really very exact.'

Chaine, without answering, gave a chuckle of triumph which lighted up his face like a sunbeam. By a crowning stroke of imbecility, and to make his misfortunes perfect, his protector's advice had thrown him into painting, in spite of the real taste that he showed for wood carving.

And he painted like a whitewasher, mixing his colours as a hodman mixes his mortar, and managing to make the clearest and brightest of them quite muddy. His triumph consisted, however, in combining exactness with awkwardness; he displayed all the naive minuteness of the primitive painters; in fact, his mind, barely raised from the clods, delighted in petty details. The stove, with its perspective all awry, was tame and precise, and in colour as dingy as mire.

Claude approached and felt full of compa.s.sion at the sight of that painting, and though he was as a rule so harsh towards bad painters, his compa.s.sion prompted him to say a word of praise.

'Ah! one can't say that you are a trickster; you paint, at any rate, as you feel. Very good, indeed.'

However, the door of the shop had opened, and a good-looking, fair fellow, with a big pink nose, and large, blue, short-sighted eyes, entered shouting:

'I say, why does that herbalist woman next door always stand on her doorstep? What an ugly mug she's got!'

They all laughed, except Mahoudeau, who seemed very much embarra.s.sed.

'Jory, the King of Blunderers,' declared Sandoz, shaking hands with the new comer.

'Why? What? Is Mahoudeau interested in her? I didn't know,' resumed Jory, when he had at length grasped the situation. 'Well, well, what does it matter? When everything's said, they are all irresistible.'

'As for you,' the sculptor rejoined, 'I can see you have tumbled on your lady-love's finger-nails again. She has dug a bit out of your cheek!'

They all burst out laughing anew, while Jory, in his turn, reddened. In fact, his face was scratched: there were even two deep gashes across it.

The son of a magistrate of Pla.s.sans, whom he had driven half-crazy by his dissolute conduct, he had crowned everything by running away with a music-hall singer under the pretext of going to Paris to follow the literary profession. During the six months that they had been camping together in a shady hotel of the Quartier Latin, the girl had almost flayed him alive each time she caught him paying attention to anybody else of her s.e.x. And, as this often happened, he always had some fresh scar to show--a b.l.o.o.d.y nose, a torn ear, or a damaged eye, swollen and blackened.

At last they all began to talk, with the exception of Chaine, who went on painting with the determined expression of an ox at the plough. Jory had at once gone into ecstasies over the roughly indicated figure of the vintaging girl. He worshipped a ma.s.sive style of beauty. His first writings in his native town had been some Parna.s.sian sonnets celebrating the copious charms of a handsome pork-butcheress. In Paris--where he had fallen in with the whole band of Pla.s.sans--he had taken to art criticism, and, for a livelihood, he wrote articles for twenty francs apiece in a small, slashing paper called 'The Drummer.' Indeed, one of these articles, a study on a picture by Claude exhibited at Papa Malgras's, had just caused a tremendous scandal; for Jory had therein run down all the painters whom the public appreciated to extol his friend, whom he set up as the leader of a new school, the school of the 'open air.' Very practical at heart, he did not care in reality a rap about anything that did not conduce to his own pleasures; he simply repeated the theories he heard enunciated by his friends. 'I say, Mahoudeau,' he now exclaimed, 'you shall have an article; I'll launch that woman of yours. What limbs, my boys! She's magnificent!'

Then suddenly changing the conversation: 'By the way,' he said, 'my miserly father has apologised. He is afraid I shall drag his name through the mud, so he sends me a hundred francs a month now. I am paying my debts.'

'Debts! you are too careful to have any,' muttered Sandoz, with a smile.

In fact, Jory displayed a hereditary tightness of fist which much amused his friends. He managed to lead a profligate life without money and without incurring debts; and with the skill he thus displayed was allied constant duplicity, a habit of incessantly lying, which he had contracted in the devout sphere of his family, where his anxiety to hide his vices had made him lie about everything at all hours, and even without occasion. But he now gave a superb reply, the cry of a sage of deep experience.

'Oh, you fellows, you don't know the worth of money!'

This time he was hooted. What a philistine! And the invectives continued, when some light taps on one of the window-panes suddenly made the din cease.

'She is really becoming a nuisance,' said Mahoudeau, with a gesture of annoyance.

'Eh? Who is it? The herbalist woman?' asked Jory. 'Let her come in; it will be great fun.'

The door indeed had already been opened, and Mahoudeau's neighbour, Madame Jabouille, or Mathilde, as she was familiarly called, appeared on the threshold. She was about thirty, with a flat face horribly emaciated, and pa.s.sionate eyes, the lids of which had a bluish tinge as if they were bruised. It was said that some members of the clergy had brought about her marriage with little Jabouille, at a time when the latter's business was still flourishing, thanks to the custom of all the pious folk of the neighbourhood. The truth was, that one sometimes espied black ca.s.socks stealthily crossing that mysterious shop, where all the aromatic herbs set a perfume of incense. A kind of cloistral quietude pervaded the place; the devotees who came in spoke in low voices, as if in a confessional, slipped their purchases into their bags furtively, and went off with downcast eyes. Unfortunately, some very horrid rumours had got abroad--slander invented by the wine-shop keeper opposite, said pious folks. At any rate, since the widower had re-married, the business had been going to the dogs. The gla.s.s jars seemed to have lost all their brightness, and the dried herbs, suspended from the ceiling, were tumbling to dust. Jabouille himself was coughing his life out, reduced to a very skeleton. And although Mathilde professed to be religious, the pious customers gradually deserted her, being of opinion that she made herself too conspicuous with young fellows of the neighbourhood now that Jabouille was almost eaten out of house and home.

For a moment Mathilde remained motionless, blinking her eyes. A pungent smell had spread through the shop, a smell of simples, which she brought with her in her clothes and greasy, tumbled hair; the sickly sweetness of mallow, the sharp odour of elderseed, the bitter effluvia of rhubarb, but, above all, the hot whiff of peppermint, which seemed like her very breath.

She made a gesture of feigned surprise. 'Oh, dear me! you have company--I did not know; I'll drop in again.'

'Yes, do,' said Mahoudeau, looking very vexed. 'Besides, I am going out; you can give me a sitting on Sunday.'

At this Claude, stupefied, fairly stared at the emaciated Mathilde, and then at the huge vintaging woman.

'What?' he cried, 'is it madame who poses for that figure? The d.i.c.kens, you exaggerate!'

Then the laughter began again, while the sculptor stammered his explanations. 'Oh! she only poses for the head and the hands, and merely just to give me a few indications.'

Mathilde, however, laughed with the others, with a sharp, brazen-faced laughter, showing the while the gaping holes in her mouth, where several teeth were wanting.