Perpetual work is the law of art, as it is the law of life, for art is idealized creation.  Hence great artists and perfect poets wait neither for commission nor for purchasers.  They are constantly creating —­to-day, to-morrow, always.  The result is the habit of work, the unfailing apprehension of the difficulties which keep them in close intercourse with the Muse and her productive forces.  Canova lived in his studio, as Voltaire lived in his study; and so must Homer and Phidias have lived.

While Lisbeth kept Wenceslas Steinbock in thraldom in his garret, he was on the thorny road trodden by all these great men, which leads to the Alpine heights of glory.  Then happiness, in the person of Hortense, had reduced the poet to idleness—­the normal condition of all artists, since to them idleness is fully occupied.  Their joy is such as that of the pasha of a seraglio; they revel with ideas, they get drunk at the founts of intellect.  Great artists, such as Steinbock, wrapped in reverie, are rightly spoken of as dreamers.  They, like opium-eaters, all sink into poverty, whereas if they had been kept up to the mark by the stern demands of life, they might have been great men.

At the same time, these half-artists are delightful; men like them and cram them with praise; they even seem superior to the true artists, who are taxed with conceit, unsociableness, contempt of the laws of society.  This is why:  Great men are the slaves of their work.  Their indifference to outer things, their devotion to their work, make simpletons regard them as egotists, and they are expected to wear the same garb as the dandy who fulfils the trivial evolutions called social duties.  These men want the lions of the Atlas to be combed and scented like a lady’s poodle.

These artists, who are too rarely matched to meet their fellows, fall into habits of solitary exclusiveness; they are inexplicable to the majority, which, as we know, consists mostly of fools—­of the envious, the ignorant, and the superficial.

Now you may imagine what part a wife should play in the life of these glorious and exceptional beings.  She ought to be what, for five years, Lisbeth had been, but with the added offering of love, humble and patient love, always ready and always smiling.

Hortense, enlightened by her anxieties as a mother, and driven by dire necessity, had discovered too late the mistakes she had been involuntarily led into by her excessive love.  Still, the worthy daughter of her mother, her heart ached at the thought of worrying Wenceslas; she loved her dear poet too much to become his torturer; and she could foresee the hour when beggary awaited her, her child, and her husband.

“Come, come, my child,” said Lisbeth, seeing the tears in her cousin’s lovely eyes, “you must not despair.  A glassful of tears will not buy a plate of soup.  How much do you want?”

“Well, five or six thousand francs.”