were those which impelled people to virtuous actions; all others were injurious.
“But that depends on the execution,” cried Pellerin. “I might produce masterpieces.”
“So much the worse for you, then; you have no right — — “
“What?”
“No, monsieur, you have no right to excite my interest in matters of which I disapprove. What need have we of laborious trifles, from which it is impossible to derive any benefit — those Venuses, for instance, with all your landscapes? I see there no instruction for the people! Show us rather their miseries! arouse enthusiasm in us for their sacrifices! Ah, my God! there is no lack of subjects — the farm, the workshop — — “
Pellerin stammered forth his indignation at this, and, imagining that he had found an argument:
“Molière, do you accept him?”
“Certainly!” said Sénécal. “I admire him as the precursor of the French Revolution.”
“Ha! the Revolution! What art! Never was there a more pitiable epoch!”
“None greater, Monsieur!”
Pellerin folded his arms, and looking at him straight in the face:
“You have the appearance of a famous member of the National Guard!”
His opponent, accustomed to discussions, responded:
“I am not, and I detest it just as much as you. But with such principles we corrupt the crowd. This sort of thing, however, is profitable to the Government. It would not be so powerful but for the complicity of a lot of rogues of that sort.”
The painter took up the defence of the picture-dealer, for Sénécal’s opinions exasperated him. He even went so far as to maintain that Arnoux was really a man with a heart of gold, devoted to his friends, deeply attached to his wife.
“Oho! if you offered him a good sum, he would not refuse to let her serve as a model.”
Frederick turned pale.
“So then, he has done you some great injury, Monsieur?”
“Me? no! I saw him once at a café with a friend. That’s all.”
Sénécal had spoken truly. But he had his teeth daily set on edge by the announcements in L’Art Industriel. Arnoux was for him the representative of a world which he considered fatal to democracy. An austere Republican, he suspected that there was something corrupt in every form of elegance, and the more so as he wanted nothing and was inflexible in his integrity.
They found some difficulty in resuming the conversation. The painter soon recalled to mind his appointment, the tutor his pupils; and, when they had gone, after a long silence, Deslauriers asked a number of questions about Arnoux.
“You will introduce me there later, will you not, old fellow?”
“Certainly,” said Frederick. Then they thought about settling themselves. Deslauriers had without much trouble obtained the post of second clerk in a solicitor’s office; he had also entered his name for the terms at the Law School, and bought the indispensable books; and the life of which they had dreamed now began.
It was delightful, owing to their youth, which made everything assume a beautiful aspect. As Deslauriers had said nothing as to any pecuniary arrangement, Frederick did not refer to the subject. He helped to defray all the expenses, kept the cupboard well stocked, and looked after all the household requirements; but if it happened to be desirable to give the doorkeeper a rating, the clerk took that on his own shoulders, still playing the part, which he had assumed in their college days, of protector and senior.
Separated all day long, they met again in the evening. Each took his place at the fireside and set about his work. But ere long it would be interrupted. Then would follow endless outpourings, unaccountable bursts of merriment, and occasional disputes about the lamp flaring too much or a book being mislaid, momentary ebullitions of anger which subsided in hearty laughter.
While in bed they left open the door of the little room where Deslauriers slept, and kept chattering to each other from a distance.
In the morning they walked in their shirt-sleeves on the terrace. The sun rose; light vapours passed over the river. From the flower-market close beside them the noise of screaming reached their ears; and the smoke from their pipes whirled round in the clear air, which was refreshing to their eyes still puffed from sleep. While they inhaled it, their hearts swelled with great expectations.
When it was not raining on Sunday they went out together, and, arm in arm, they sauntered through the streets. The same reflection nearly always occurred to them at the same time, or else they would go on chatting without noticing anything around them. Deslauriers longed for riches, as a means for gaining power over men. He was anxious to possess an influence over a vast number of people, to make a great noise, to have three secretaries under his command, and to give a big political dinner once a month.
Frederick would have furnished for himself a palace in the Moorish fashion, to spend his life reclining on cashmere divans, to the murmur of a jet of water, attended by negro pages. And these things, of which he had only dreamed, became in the end so definite that they made him feel as dejected as if he had lost them.
“What is the use of talking about all these things,” said he, “when we’ll never have them?”
“Who knows?” returned Deslauriers.
In spite of his democratic views, he urged Frederick to get an introduction into the Dambreuses’ house.
The other, by way of objection, pointed to the failure of his previous attempts.
“Bah! go back there. They’ll give you an invitation!”
Towards the close of the month of March, they received amongst other bills of a rather awkward description that of the restaurant-keeper who supplied them with dinners. Frederick, not having the entire amount, borrowed a hundred crowns from Deslauriers. A fortnight afterwards, he renewed the same request, and the clerk administered a lecture to him on the extravagant habits to which he gave himself up in the Arnoux’s society.
As a matter of fact, he put no restraint upon himself in this respect. A view of Venice, a view of Naples, and another of Constantinople occupying the centre of three walls respectively, equestrian subjects by Alfred de Dreux here and there, a group by Pradier over the mantelpiece, numbers of L’Art Industriel lying on the piano, and works in boards on the floor in the corners, encumbered the apartment which he occupied to such an extent that it was hard to find a place to lay a book on, or to move one’s elbows about freely. Frederick maintained that he needed all this for his painting.
He pursued his art-studies under Pellerin. But when he called on the artist, the latter was often out, being accustomed to attend at every funeral and public occurrence of which an account was given in the newspapers, and so it was that Frederick spent entire hours alone in the studio. The quietude of this spacious room, which nothing disturbed save the scampering of the mice, the light falling from the ceiling, or the hissing noise of the stove, made him sink into a kind of intellectual ease. Then his eyes, wandering away from the task at which he was engaged, roamed over the shell-work on the wall, around the objects of virtù on the whatnot, along the torsos on which the dust that had collected made, as
