so much so that he would have liked to take his work back and hide it.  Then his delicacy of feeling, his artistic pride again gave way, so much did protracted waiting for success make his wretched heart bleed.  Ah! to be seen, to make his way despite everything!  He had reached the point when conscience capitulates; he once more began to long for the opening of the Salon with all the feverish impatience of a beginner, again living in a state of illusion which showed him a crowd, a press of moving heads acclaiming his canvas.

By degrees Paris had made it the fashion to patronise ’varnishing day’—­that day formerly set aside for painters only to come and finish the toilets of their pictures.  Now, however, it was like a feast of early fruit, one of those solemnities which set the city agog and attract a tremendous crowd.  For a week past the newspaper press, the streets, and the public had belonged to the artists.  They held Paris in their grasp; the only matters talked of were themselves, their exhibits, their sayings or doings—­in fact, everything connected with them.  It was one of those infatuations which at last draw bands of country folk, common soldiers, and even nursemaids to the galleries on days of gratuitous admission, in such wise that fifty thousand visitors are recorded on some fine Sundays, an entire army, all the rear battalions of the ignorant lower orders, following society, and marching, with dilated eyes, through that vast picture shop.

That famous ‘varnishing day’ at first frightened Claude, who was intimidated by the thought of all the fine people whom the newspapers spoke about, and he resolved to wait for the more democratic day of the real inauguration.  He even refused to accompany Sandoz.  But he was consumed by such a fever, that after all he started off abruptly at eight o’clock in the morning, barely taking time to eat a bit of bread and cheese beforehand.  Christine, who lacked the courage to go with him, kissed him again and again, feeling anxious and moved.

‘Mind, my dear, don’t worry, whatever happens,’ said she.

Claude felt somewhat oppressed as he entered the Gallery of Honour.  His heart was beating fast from the swiftness with which he had climbed the grand staircase.  There was a limpid May sky out of doors, and through the linen awnings, stretched under the glazed roof, there filtered a bright white light, while the open doorways, communicating with the garden gallery, admitted moist gusts of quivering freshness.  For a moment Claude drew breath in that atmosphere which was already tainted with a vague smell of varnish and the odour of the musk with which the women present perfumed themselves.  At a glance he took stock of the pictures on the walls:  a huge massacre scene in front of him, streaming with carmine; a colossal, pallid, religious picture on his left; a Government order, the commonplace delineation of some official festivity, on the right; and then a variety of portraits,