And the grudge had now lasted for nearly three months without a break, without an explanation.  They had arranged their lives accordingly; they had reduced their strictly necessary intercourse to a series of short phrases charcoaled on the walls.  As for the rest, they lived as before, sharing the same bed in the back shop.  After all, there was no need for so much talk in life, people managed to understand one another all the same.

While filling the stove, Mahoudeau continued to relieve his mind.

’Well, you may believe me if you like, but when a fellow’s almost starving it isn’t disagreeable to keep quiet.  Yes, one gets numb amidst silence; it’s like an inside coating that stills the gnawing of the stomach a bit.  Ah, that Chaine!  You haven’t a notion of his peasant nature.  When he had spent his last copper without earning the fortune he expected by painting, he went into trade, a petty trade, which was to enable him to finish his studies.  Isn’t the fellow a sharp ’un, eh?  And just listen to his plan.  He had some olive oil sent to him from Saint-Firmin, his village, and then he tramped the streets and found a market for the oil among well-to-do families from Provence living in Paris.  Unfortunately, it did not last.  He is such a clod-hopper that they showed him the door on all sides.  And as there was a jar of oil left which nobody would buy, well, old man, we live upon it.  Yes, on the days when we happen to have some bread we dip our bread into it.’

Thereupon he pointed to the jar standing in a corner of the shop.  Some of the oil having been spilt, the wall and the floor were darkened by large greasy stains.

Claude left off laughing.  Ah! misery, how discouraging it was! how could he show himself hard on those whom it crushed?  He walked about the studio, no longer vexed at finding models weakened by concessions to middle-class taste; he even felt tolerant with regard to that hideous bust.  But, all at once, he came across a copy that Chaine had made at the Louvre, a Mantegna, which was marvellously exact in its dryness.

‘Oh, the brute,’ he muttered, ’it’s almost the original; he’s never done anything better than that.  Perhaps his only fault is that he was born four centuries too late.’

Then, as the heat became too great, he took off his over-coat, adding: 

‘He’s a long while fetching his tobacco.’

‘Oh! his tobacco!  I know what that means,’ said Mahoudeau, who had set to work at his bust, finishing the whiskers; ’he has simply gone next door.’

‘Oh! so you still see the herbalist?’

‘Yes, she comes in and out.’