Claude was trying to find a word of admiration for the ’Village Funeral.’

‘The little cemetery in the background is so pretty!’ he said at last.  ‘Is it possible that the public—­’

But Bongrand interrupted him in a rough voice: 

‘No compliments of condolence, my friend, eh?  I see clear enough.’

At this moment somebody nodded to them in a familiar way, and Claude recognised Naudet—­a Naudet who had grown and expanded, gilded by the success of his colossal strokes of business.  Ambition was turning his head; he talked about sinking all the other picture dealers; he had built himself a palace, in which he posed as the king of the market, centralising masterpieces, and there opening large art shops of the modern style.  One heard a jingle of millions on the very threshold of his hall; he held exhibitions there, even ran up other galleries elsewhere; and each time that May came round, he awaited the visits of the American amateurs whom he charged fifty thousand francs for a picture which he himself had purchased for ten thousand.  Moreover, he lived in princely style, with a wife and children, a mistress, a country estate in Picardy, and extensive shooting grounds.  His first large profits had come from the rise in value of works left by illustrious artists, now defunct, whose talent had been denied while they lived, such as Courbet, Millet, and Rousseau; and this had ended by making him disdain any picture signed by a still struggling artist.  However, ominous rumours were already in circulation.  As the number of well-known pictures was limited, and the number of amateurs could barely be increased, a time seemed to be coming when business would prove very difficult.  There was talk of a syndicate, of an understanding with certain bankers to keep up the present high prices; the expedient of simulated sales was resorted to at the Hotel Drouot —­pictures being bought in at a big figure by the dealer himself—­and bankruptcy seemed to be at the end of all that Stock Exchange jobbery, a perfect tumble head-over-heels after all the excessive, mendacious agiotage.

‘Good-day, dear master,’ said Naudet, who had drawn near.  ’So you have come, like everybody else, to see my Fagerolles, eh?’

He no longer treated Bongrand in the wheedling, respectful manner of yore.  And he spoke of Fagerolles as of a painter belonging to him, of a workman to whom he paid wages, and whom he often scolded.  It was he who had settled the young artist in the Avenue de Villiers, compelling him to have a little mansion of his own, furnishing it as he would have furnished a place for a hussy, running him into debt with supplies of carpets and nick-nacks, so that he might afterwards hold him at his mercy; and now he began to accuse him of lacking orderliness and seriousness, of compromising himself like a feather-brain.  Take that picture, for instance, a serious painter would never have sent it to the Salon; it made a stir, no doubt, and people even talked of its obtaining the medal of honour; but nothing could have a worse effect on high prices.  When a man wanted to get hold of the Yankees, he ought to know how to remain at home, like an idol in the depths of his tabernacle.