In spite of himself, his first idea of a picture on a smaller scale took him back to the Cite.  Why should not he paint a simple view, on a moderate sized canvas?  But a kind of shame, mingled with strange jealousy, prevented him from settling himself in his old spot under the Pont des Saints-Peres.  It seemed to him as if that spot were sacred now; that he ought not to offer any outrage to his great work, dead as it was.  So he stationed himself at the end of the bank, above the bridge.  This time, at any rate, he would work directly from nature; and he felt happy at not having to resort to any trickery, as was unavoidable with works of a large size.  The small picture, very carefully painted, more highly finished than usual, met, however, with the same fate as the others before the hanging committee, who were indignant with this style of painting, executed with a tipsy brush, as was said at the time in the studios.  The slap in the face which Claude thus received was all the more severe, as a report had spread of concessions, of advances made by him to the School of Arts, in order that his work might be received.  And when the picture came back to him, he, deeply wounded, weeping with rage, tore it into narrow shreds, which he burned in his stove.  It was not sufficient that he should kill that one with a knife-thrust, it must be annihilated.

Another year went by for Claude in desultory toil.  He worked from force of habit, but finished nothing; he himself saying, with a dolorous laugh, that he had lost himself, and was trying to find himself again.  In reality, tenacious consciousness of his genius left him a hope which nothing could destroy, even during his longest crises of despondency.  He suffered like some one damned, for ever rolling the rock which slipped back and crushed him; but the future remained, with the certainty of one day seizing that rock in his powerful arms and flinging it upward to the stars.  His friends at last beheld his eyes light up with passion once more.  It was known that he again secluded himself in the Rue Tourlaque.  He who formerly had always been carried beyond the work on which he was engaged, by some dream of a picture to come, now stood at bay before that subject of the Cite.  It had become his fixed idea—­the bar that closed up his life.  And soon he began to speak freely of it again in a new blaze of enthusiasm, exclaiming, with childish delight, that he had found his way and that he felt certain of victory.

One day Claude, who, so far, had not opened his door to his friends, condescended to admit Sandoz.  The latter tumbled upon a study with a deal of dash in it, thrown off without a model, and again admirable in colour.  The subject had remained the same—­the Port St. Nicolas on the left, the swimming-baths on the right, the Seine and Cite in the background.  But Sandoz was amazed at perceiving, instead of the boat sculled by a waterman, another large skiff taking up the whole centre of the composition—­a skiff occupied by three women.  One, in a bathing costume, was rowing; another sat over the edge with her legs dangling in the water, her costume partially unfastened, showing her bare shoulder; while the third stood erect and nude at the prow, so bright in tone that she seemed effulgent, like the sun.