under the guidance of the author, he next inspected the other rare bric-à-brac that Mme de Burne had collected, thanks to the counsels of her friends. He looked with astonishment and delight at the various articles, apparently agreeably disappointed to find them there, and in every case he took them up and turned them lightly over in his hands, as if to place himself in direct personal contact with them. There was a statuette of bronze, heavy as a cannonball, hidden away in a dark corner; he took it up with one hand, carried it to the lamp, examined it at length, and replaced jt where it belonged without visible effort. Lamarthe exclaimed: “The great, strong fellow! he is built expressly to wrestle with stone and marble!” while the ladies looked at him approvingly.
Dinner was now announced. The mistress of the house took the sculptor’s arm to pass to the diningroom, and when she had seated him in the place of honor at her right hand, she asked him out of courtesy, just as she would have questioned a scion of some great family as to the exact origin of his name: “Your art, Monsieur, has also the additional honor, has it not, of being the most ancient of all?”
He replied in his calm deep voice: “Mon Dieu, Madame, the shepherds in the Bible play upon the flute, therefore music would seem to be the more ancient — although true music, as we understand it, does not go very far back, while true sculpture dates from remote antiquity.”
“You are fond of music?”
“I love all the arts,” he replied with grave earnestness.
“Is it known who was the inventor of your art?” He reflected a moment, then replied in tender accents, as if he had been relating some touching tale: “According to Grecian tradition it was Dædalus the Athenian. The most attractive legend, however, is that which attributes the invention to a Sicyonian potter named Dibutades. His daughter Kora having traced her betrothed’s profile with the assistance of an arrow, her father filled in the rude sketch with clay and modeled it. It was then that my art was born.”
“Charming!” murmured Lamarthe. Then turning to Mme de Burne, he said: “You cannot imagine, Madame, how interesting this man becomes when he talks of what he loves; what power he has to express and explain it and make people adore it.”
But the sculptor did not seem disposed either to pose for the admiration of the guests or to perorate. He had tucked a corner of his napkin between his shirt-collar and his neck and was reverentially eating his soup, with that appearance of respect that peasants manifest for that portion of the meal. Then he drank a glass of wine and drew himself up with an air of greater ease, of making himself more at home. Now and then he made a movement as if to turn around, for he had perceived the reflection in a mirror of a modern group that stood on the mantelshelf behind him. He did not recognize it and was seeking to divine the author. At last, unable longer to resist the impulse, he asked: “It is by Falguière, is it not?”
Mme de Burne laughed. “Yes, it is by Falguière. How could you tell, in a glass?”
He smiled in turn. “Ah, Madame, I can’t explain how it is done, but I can tell at a glance the sculpture of those men who are painters as well, and the painting of those who also practice sculpture. It is not a bit like the work of a man who devotes himself to one art exclusively.”
Lamarthe, wishing to show off his friend, called for explanations, and Prédolé proceeded to give them. In his slow, precise manner of speech he defined and illustrated the painting of sculptors and the sculpture of painters in such a clear and original way that he was listened to as much with eyes as with ears. Commencing his demonstration at the earliest period and pursuing it through the history of art and gathering examples from epoch to epoch, he came down to the time of the early Italian masters who were painters and sculptors at the same time, Nicolas and John of Pisa, Donatello, Lorenzo Ghiberti. He spoke of Diderot’s interesting remarks upon the same subject, and in conclusion mentioned Ghiberti’s bronze gates of the baptistry of Saint John at Florence, such living and dramatically forceful bas-reliefs that they seem more like paintings upon canvas. He waved his great hands before him as if he were modeling, with such ease and grace of motion as to delight every eye, calling up above the plates and glasses the pictures that his tongue told of, and reconstructing the work that he mentioned with such conviction that everyone followed the motions of his fingers with breathless attention. Then some dishes that he fancied were placed before him and he ceased talking and began eating.
He scarcely spoke during the remainder of the dinner, not troubling himself to follow the conversation, which ranged from some bit of theatrical gossip to a political rumor; from a ball to a wedding; from an article in the “Revue des Deux Mondes” to the horse-show that had just opened. His appetite was good, and he drank a good deal, without being at all affected by it, having a sound, hard head that good wine could not easily upset.
When they had returned to the drawingroom, Lamarthe, who had not drawn the sculptor out to the extent that he wished to do, drew him over to a glass case to show him a priceless object, a classic, historic gem: a silver inkstand carved by Benvenuto Cellini. The men listened with extreme interest to his long and eloquent rhapsody as they stood grouped about him, while the two women, seated in front of the fire and rather disgusted to see so much enthusiasm wasted upon the form of inanimate objects, appeared to be a little bored and chatted together in a low voice from time to time. After that conversation became general, but not animated, for it had been somewhat damped by the ideas that had passed into the atmosphere of this pretty room, with its furnishing of precious objects.
Prédolé left early, assigning as a reason that he had to be at work at daybreak every morning. When he was gone Lamarthe enthusiastically asked Mme, de Burne: “Well, how did you like him?”
She replied, hesitatingly and with something of an air of ill nature: “He is quite interesting, but prosy.”
The novelist smiled and said to himself: “Parbleu, that is because he did not admire your toilette; and you are the only one of all your pretty things that he hardly condescended to look at.” He exchanged a few pleasant remarks with her and went over and took a seat by Mme de Malten, to whom he began to be very attentive. The Comte de Bernhaus approached the mistress of the house, and taking a small footstool, appeared sunk in devotion at her feet. Mariolle, Massival, Maltry, and M. de Pradon continued to talk of the sculptor, who had made a deep impression on their minds. M. de Maltry was comparing him to the old masters, for whom life was embellished and illuminated by an exclusive and consuming love of the manifestations of beauty, and he philosophized upon his theme with many very subtle and very tiresome observations.
Massival, quickly tiring of a conversation which made no reference to his own art, crossed the room to Mme de Malten and seated himself beside Lamarthe, who soon yielded his place to him and went and rejoined the men.
“Shall we go?” he said to Mariolle.
“Yes, by all means!”
The novelist liked to walk the streets at night with some friend and talk, when the incisive, peremptory tones of his voice seemed to lay hold of the walls of the houses and climb up them. He had an impression that he was very eloquent, witty, and sagacious during these nocturnal tête-à-têtes, which were monologues rather than conversations so far as his part in them was concerned. The approbation that he thus gained for himself sufficed his needs, and the gentle fatigue of legs and lungs assured him a good night’s rest.
Mariolle, for his part, had reached the limit of his endurance. The moment that he was outside her door all his wretchedness and sorrow, all his irremediable disappointment, boiled up and overflowed his heart. He could stand it no longer; he would have no more of it. He would go away and never return.
The two men found themselves alone with each other in the street. The wind had changed and the cold that had prevailed
