His Masterpiece Part 30

'Well, what do you think of it?'

Claude, who had only previously seen a little rough model of the statue, nodded his head, in order that he might not have to answer immediately.

Decidedly, that good fellow Mahoudeau was turning traitor, and drifting towards gracefulness, in spite of himself, for pretty things ever sprang from under his big fingers, former stonecutter though he was. Since his colossal 'Vintaging Girl,' he had gone on reducing and reducing the proportions of his figures without appearing to be aware of it himself, always ready to stick out ferociously for the gigantic, which agreed with his temperament, but yielding to the partiality of his eyes for sweetness and gracefulness. And indeed real nature broke at last through inflated ambition. Exaggerated still, his 'Bathing Girl' was already possessed of great charm, with her quivering shoulders and her tightly-crossed arms that supported her breast.

'Well, you don't like her?' he asked, looking annoyed.

'Oh, yes, I do! I think you are right to tone things down a bit, seeing that you feel like that. You'll have a great success with this. Yes, it's evident it will please people very much.'

Mahoudeau, whom such praises would once have thrown into consternation, seemed delighted. He explained that he wished to conquer public opinion without relinquis.h.i.+ng a t.i.the of his convictions.

'Ah! dash it! it takes a weight off my mind to find you pleased,' said he, 'for I should have destroyed it if you had told me to do so, I give you my word! Another fortnight's work, and I'll sell my skin to no matter whom in order to pay the moulder. I say, I shall have a fine show at the Salon, perhaps get a medal.'

He laughed, waved his arms about, and then, breaking off:

'As we are not in a hurry, sit down a bit. I want to get the wraps quite thawed.'

The stove, which was becoming red hot, diffused great heat. The figure, placed close by, seemed to revive under the warm air that now crept up her from her s.h.i.+ns to her neck. And the two friends, who had sat down, continued looking the statue full in the face, chatting about it and noting each detail. The sculptor especially grew excited in his delight, and indulged in caressing gestures.

All at once, however, Claude fancied he was the victim of some hallucination. To him the figure seemed to be moving; a quiver like the ripple of a wavelet crossed her stomach, and her left hip became straightened, as if the right leg were about to step out.

'Have you noticed the smooth surface just about the loins?' Mahoudeau went on, without noticing anything. 'Ah, my boy, I took great pains over that!'

But by degrees the whole statue was becoming animated. The loins swayed and the bosom swelled, as with a deep sigh, between the parted arms. And suddenly the head drooped, the thighs bent, and the figure came forward like a living being, with all the wild anguish, the grief-inspired spring of a woman who is flinging herself down.

Claude at last understood things, when Mahoudeau uttered a terrible cry.

'By heavens, she's breaking to pieces!--she is coming down!'

The clay, in thawing, had snapped the weak wooden trusses. There came a cracking noise, as if bones indeed were splitting; and Mahoudeau, with the same pa.s.sionate gesture with which he had caressed the figure from afar, working himself into a fever, opened both arms, at the risk of being killed by the fall. For a moment the bathing girl swayed to and fro, and then with one crash came down on her face, broken in twain at the ankles, and leaving her feet sticking to the boards.

Claude had jumped up to hold his friend back.

'Dash it! you'll be smashed!' he cried.

But dreading to see her finish herself off on the floor, Mahoudeau remained with hands outstretched. And the girl seemed to fling herself on his neck. He caught her in his arms, winding them tightly around her.

Her bosom was flattened against his shoulder and her thighs beat against his own, while her decapitated head rolled upon the floor. The shock was so violent that Mahoudeau was carried off his legs and thrown over, as far back as the wall; and there, without relaxing his hold on the girl's trunk, he remained as if stunned lying beside her.

'Ah! confound it!' repeated Claude, furiously, believing that his friend was dead.

With great difficulty Mahoudeau rose to his knees, and burst into violent sobs. He had only damaged his face in the fall. Some blood dribbled down one of his cheeks, mingling with his tears.

'Ah! curse poverty!' he said. 'It's enough to make a fellow drown himself not to be able to buy a couple of rods! And there she is, there she is!'

His sobs grew louder; they became an agonising wail; the painful shrieking of a lover before the mutilated corpse of his affections. With unsteady hands he touched the limbs lying in confusion around him; the head, the torso, the arms that had snapped in twain; above aught else the bosom, now caved in. That bosom, flattened, as if it had been operated upon for some terrible disease, suffocated him, and he unceasingly returned to it, probing the sore, trying to find the gash by which life had fled, while his tears, mingled with blood, flowed freely, and stained the statue's gaping wounds with red.

'Do help me!' he gasped. 'One can't leave her like this.'

Claude was overcome also, and his own eyes grew moist from a feeling of artistic brotherliness. He hastened to his comrade's aide, but the sculptor, after claiming his a.s.sistance, persisted in picking up the remains by himself, as if dreading the rough handling of anybody else.

He slowly crawled about on his knees, took up the fragments one by one, and put them together on a board. The figure soon lay there in its entirety, as if it had been one of those girls who, committing suicide from love, throw themselves from some monument and are shattered by their fall, and put together again, looking both grotesque and lamentable, to be carried to the Morgue. Mahoudeau, seated on the floor before his statue, did not take his eyes from it, but became absorbed in heart-rending contemplation. However, his sobs subsided, and at last he said with a long-drawn sigh: 'I shall have to model her lying down!

There's no other way! Ah, my poor old woman, I had such trouble to set her on her legs, and I thought her so grand like that!'

But all at once Claude grew uneasy. What about his wedding? Mahoudeau must change his clothes. As he had no other frock-coat than the one he was wearing, he was obliged to make a jacket do. Then, the figure having been covered with linen wraps once more, like a corpse over which a sheet has been pulled, they both started off at a run. The stove was roaring away, the thaw filled the whole studio with water, and slush streamed from the old dust-begrimed plaster casts.

When they reached the Rue de Douai there was no one there except little Jacques, in charge of the doorkeeper. Christine, tired of waiting, had just started off with the three others, thinking that there had been some mistake--that Claude might have told her that he would go straight to the mayor's offices with Mahoudeau. The pair fell into a sharp trot, but only overtook Christine and their comrades in the Rue Drouot in front of the munic.i.p.al edifice. They all went upstairs together, and as they were late they met with a very cool reception from the usher on duty. The wedding was got over in a few minutes, in a perfectly empty room. The mayor mumbled on, and the bride and bridegroom curtly uttered the binding 'Yes,' while their witnesses were marvelling at the bad taste of the appointments of the apartment. Once outside, Claude took Christine's arm again, and that was all.

It was pleasant walking in the clear frosty weather. Thus the party quietly went back on foot, climbing the Rue des Martyrs to reach the restaurant on the Boulevard de Clichy. A small private room had been engaged; the lunch was a very friendly affair, and not a word was said about the simple formality that had just been gone through; other subjects were spoken of all the while, as at one of their customary gatherings.

It was thus that Christine, who in reality was very affected despite her pretended indifference, heard her husband and his friends excite themselves for three mortal hours about Mahoudeau's unfortunate statue.

Since the others had been made acquainted with the story, they kept harping on every particular of it. Sandoz thought the whole thing very wonderful; Jory and Gagniere discussed the strength of stays and trusses; the former mainly concerned about the monetary loss involved, and the other demonstrating with a chair that the statue might have been kept up. As for Mahoudeau, still very shaky and growing dazed; he complained of a stiffness which he had not felt before; his limbs began to hurt him, he had strained his muscles and bruised his skin as if he had been caught in the embrace of a stone siren. Christine washed the scratch on his cheek, which had begun to bleed again, and it seemed to her as if the mutilated bathing girl had sat down to table with them, as if she alone was of any importance that day; for she alone seemed to interest Claude, whose narrative, repeated a score of times, was full of endless particulars about the emotion he had felt on seeing that bosom and those hips of clay shattered at his feet.

However, at dessert there came a diversion, for Gagniere all at once remarked to Jory:

'By the way, I saw you with Mathilde the day before yesterday. Yes, yes, in the Rue Dauphine.'

Jory, who had turned very red, tried to deny it; 'Oh, a mere accidental meeting--honour bright!' he stammered. 'I don't know where she hangs out, or I would tell you.'

'What! is it you who are hiding her?' exclaimed Mahoudeau. 'Well, n.o.body wants to see her again!'

The truth was that Jory, throwing to the winds all his habits of prudence and parsimony, was now secretly providing for Mathilde. She had gained an ascendency over him by his vices.

They still lingered at table, and night was falling when they escorted Mahoudeau to his own door. Claude and Christine, on reaching home, took Jacques from the doorkeeper, and found the studio quite chilly, wrapped in such dense gloom that they had to grope about for several minutes before they were able to light the lamp. They also had to light the stove again, and it struck seven o'clock before they were able to draw breath at their ease. They were not hungry, so they merely finished the remains of some boiled beef, mainly by way of encouraging the child to eat his soup; and when they had put him to bed, they settled themselves with the lamp betwixt them, as was their habit every evening.

However, Christine had not put out any work, she felt too much moved to sew. She sat there with her hands resting idly on the table, looking at Claude, who on his side had at once become absorbed in a sketch, a bit of his picture, some workmen of the Port Saint Nicolas, unloading plaster. Invincible dreaminess came over the young woman, all sorts of recollections and regrets became apparent in the depths of her dim eyes; and by degrees growing sadness, great mute grief took absolute possession of her, amid the indifference, the boundless solitude into which she seemed to be drifting, although she was so near to Claude. He was, indeed, on the other side of the table, yet how far away she felt him to be! He was yonder before that point of the Cite, he was even farther still, in the infinite inaccessible regions of art; so far, indeed, that she would now never more be able to join him! She several times tried to start a conversation, but without eliciting any answer.

The hours went by, she grew weary and numb with doing nothing, and she ended by taking out her purse and counting her money.

'Do you know how much we have to begin our married life with?'

Claude did not even raise his head.

'We've nine sous. Ah! talk of poverty--'

He shrugged his shoulders, and finally growled: 'We shall be rich some day; don't fret.'

Then the silence fell again, and she did not even attempt to break it, but gazed at her nine coppers laid in a row upon the table. At last, as it struck midnight, she s.h.i.+vered, ill with waiting and chilled by the cold.

'Let's go to bed, dear,' she murmured; 'I'm dead tired.'

He, however, was working frantically, and did not even hear her.

'The fire's gone out,' she began again, 'we shall make ourselves ill; let's go to bed.'

Her imploring voice reached him at last, and made him start with sudden exasperation.

'Oh! go if you like! You can see very well that I want to finish something!'

She remained there for another minute, amazed by his sudden anger, her face expressive of deep sorrow. Then, feeling that he would rather be without her, that the very presence of a woman doing nothing upset him, she rose from the table and went off, leaving the door wide open. Half an hour, three-quarters went by, nothing stirred, not a sound came from her room; but she was not asleep, her eyes were staring into the gloom; and at last she timidly ventured upon a final appeal, from the depths of the dark alcove.

An oath was the only reply she received. And nothing stirred after that.

She perhaps dozed off. The cold in the studio grew keener, and the wick of the lamp began to carbonise and burn red, while Claude, still bending over his sketch, did not seem conscious of the pa.s.sing minutes.