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 shivered, 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 passing minutes.

At two o’clock, however, he rose up, furious to find the lamp going out for lack of oil.  He only had time to take it into the other room, so that he might not have to undress in the dark.  But his displeasure increased on seeing that Christine’s eyes were wide open.  He felt inclined to complain of it.  However, after some random remarks, he suddenly exclaimed: