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 assistance, 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 municipal 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.