Anxiety seemed to seize hold of Claude, when the autumn of the second year tinged the leaves yellow, and ushered in the cold weather.  The season happened to be abominable; a fortnight of pouring rain kept him idle at home; and then fog came at every moment, hindering his work.  He sat in front of the fire, out of sorts; he never spoke of Paris, but the city rose up over yonder, on the horizon, the winter city, with its gaslamps flaring already at five o’clock, its gatherings of friends, spurring each other on to emulation, and its life of ardent production, which even the frosts of December could not slacken.  He went there thrice in one month, on the pretext of seeing Malgras, to whom he had, again, sold a few small pictures.  He no longer avoided passing in front of Faucheur’s inn; he even allowed himself to be waylaid at times by old Porrette, and to accept a glass of white wine at the inn, and his glance scoured the room as if, despite the season, he had been looking for some comrades of yore, who had arrived there, perchance, that morning.  He lingered as if awaiting them; then, in despair at his solitude, he returned home, stifling with all that was fermenting within him, ill at having nobody to whom he might shout the thoughts which made his brain almost burst.

However, the winter went by, and Claude had the consolation of being able to paint some lovely snow scenes.  A third year was beginning, when, towards the close of May, an unexpected meeting filled him with emotion.  He had that morning climbed up to the plateau to find a subject, having at last grown tired of the banks of the Seine; and at the bend of a road he stopped short in amazement on seeing Dubuche, in a silk hat, and carefully-buttoned frock coat, coming towards him, between the double row of elder hedges.

‘What! is it you?’

The architect stammered from sheer vexation: 

’Yes, I am going to pay a visit.  It’s confoundedly idiotic in the country, eh?  But it can’t be helped.  There are certain things one’s obliged to do.  And you live near here, eh?  I knew—­that is to say, I didn’t.  I had been told something about it, but I thought it was on the opposite side, farther down.’

Claude, very much moved at seeing him, helped him out of his difficulty.

’All right, all right, old man, there is no need to apologise.  I am the most guilty party.  Ah! it’s a long while since we saw one another!  If you knew what a thump my heart gave when I saw your nose appear from behind the leaves!’

Then he took his arm and accompanied him, giggling with pleasure, while the other, in his constant worry about his future, which always made him talk about himself, at once began speaking of his prospects.  He had just become a first-class pupil at the School, after securing the regulation ‘honourable mentions,’ with infinite trouble.  But his success left him as perplexed as ever.  His parents no longer sent him a penny, they wailed about their poverty so much