Claude, who was delighted, at first made a study, a simple academic study, in the attitude required for his picture.  They waited until Jacques had gone to school, and the sitting lasted for hours.  During the earlier days Christine suffered a great deal from being obliged to remain in the same position; then she grew used to it, not daring to complain, lest she might vex him, and even restraining her tears when he roughly pushed her about.  And he soon acquired the habit of doing so, treating her like a mere model; more exacting with her, however, than if he had paid her, never afraid of unduly taxing her strength, since she was his wife.  He employed her for every purpose, at every minute, for an arm, a foot, the most trifling detail that he stood in need of.  And thus in a way he lowered her to the level of a ’living lay figure,’ which he stuck in front of him and copied as he might have copied a pitcher or a stew-pan for a bit of still life.

This time Claude proceeded leisurely, and before roughing in the large figure he tired Christine for months by making her pose in twenty different ways.  At last, one day, he began the roughing in.  It was an autumnal morning, the north wind was already sharp, and it was by no means warm even in the big studio, although the stove was roaring.  As little Jacques was poorly again and unable to go to school, they had decided to lock him up in the room at the back, telling him to be very good.  And then the mother settled herself near the stove, motionless, in the attitude required.

During the first hour, the painter, perched upon his steps, kept glancing at her, but did not speak a word.  Unutterable sadness stole over her, and she felt afraid of fainting, no longer knowing whether she was suffering from the cold or from a despair that had come from afar, and the bitterness of which she felt to be rising within her.  Her fatigue became so great that she staggered and hobbled about on her numbed legs.

‘What, already?’ cried Claude.  ’Why, you haven’t been at it more than a quarter of an hour.  You don’t want to earn your seven francs, then?’

He was joking in a gruff voice, delighted with his work.  And she had scarcely recovered the use of her limbs, beneath the dressing-gown she had wrapped round her, when he went on shouting:  ’Come on, come on, no idling!  It’s a grand day to-day is!  I must either show some genius or else kick the bucket.’

Then, in a weary way, she at last resumed the pose.

The misfortune was that before long, both by his glances and the language he used, she fully realised that she herself was as nothing to him.  If ever he praised a limb, a tint, a contour, it was solely from the artistic point of view.  Great enthusiasm and passion he often showed, but it was not passion for herself as in the old days.  She felt confused and deeply mortified.  Ah! this was the end; in her he no longer loved aught but his art, the example