the Rue de Douai.  What was the use of paying two rents?  There was room enough in the old drying-shed in the Rue Tourlaque—­still stained with the dyes of former days—­to afford accommodation for three people.  Settling there was, nevertheless, a difficult affair; for however big the place was, it provided them, after all, with but one room.  It was like a gipsy’s shed, where everything had to be done in common.  As the landlord was unwilling, the painter himself had to divide it at one end by a partition of boards, behind which he devised a kitchen and a bedroom.  They were then delighted with the place, despite the chinks through which the wind blew, and although on rainy days they had to set basins beneath the broader cracks in the roof.  The whole looked mournfully bare; their few poor sticks seemed to dance alongside the naked walls.  They themselves pretended to be proud at being lodged so spaciously; they told their friends that Jacques would at least have a little room to run about.  Poor Jacques, in spite of his nine years, did not seem to be growing; his head alone became larger and larger.  They could not send him to school for more than a week at a stretch, for he came back absolutely dazed, ill from having tried to learn, in such wise that they nearly always allowed him to live on all fours around them, crawling from one corner to another.

Christine, who for quite a long while had not shared Claude’s daily work, now once more found herself beside him throughout his long hours of toil.  She helped him to scrape and pumice the old canvas of the big picture, and gave him advice about attaching it more securely to the wall.  But they found that another disaster had befallen them—­the steps had become warped by the water constantly trickling through the roof, and, for fear of an accident, Claude had to strengthen them with an oak cross-piece, she handing him the necessary nails one by one.  Then once more, and for the second time, everything was ready.  She watched him again outlining the work, standing behind him the while, till she felt faint with fatigue, and finally dropping to the floor, where she remained squatting, and still looking at him.

Ah! how she would have liked to snatch him from that painting which had seized hold of him!  It was for that purpose that she made herself his servant, only too happy to lower herself to a labourer’s toil.  Since she shared his work again, since the three of them, he, she, and the canvas, were side by side, her hope revived.  If he had escaped her when she, all alone, cried her eyes out in the Rue de Douai, if he lingered till late in the Rue Tourlaque, fascinated as by a mistress, perhaps now that she was present she might regain her hold over him.  Ah, painting, painting! in what jealous hatred she held it!  Hers was no longer the revolt of a girl of the bourgeoisie, who painted neatly in water-colours, against independent, brutal, magnificent art.  No, little by little she had come to understand it,