‘Claude!  Claude! what are you doing?’

He turned round, with his face as white as a sheet and his eyes haggard.

‘I’m looking,’ he said.

But she closed the window with trembling hands, and after that significant incident such anguish clung to her that she no longer slept at night-time.

XI

CLAUDE set to work again on the very next day, and months elapsed, indeed the whole summer went by, in heavy quietude.  He had found a job, some little paintings of flowers for England, the proceeds of which sufficed for their daily bread.  All his available time was again devoted to his large canvas, and he no longer went into the same fits of anger over it, but seemed to resign himself to that eternal task, evincing obstinate, hopeless industry.  However, his eyes retained their crazy expression—­one could see the death of light, as it were, in them, when they gazed upon the failure of his existence.

About this period Sandoz also experienced great grief.  His mother died, his whole life was upset—­that life of three together, so homely in its character, and shared merely by a few friends.  He began to hate the pavilion of the Rue Nollet, and, moreover, success suddenly declared itself with respect to his books, which hitherto had sold but moderately well.  So, prompted by the advent of comparative wealth, he rented in the Rue de Londres a spacious flat, the arrangements of which occupied him and his wife for several months.  Sandoz’s grief had drawn him closer to Claude again, both being disgusted with everything.  After the terrible blow of the Salon, the novelist had felt very anxious about his old chum, divining that something had irreparably snapped within him, that there was some wound by which life ebbed away unseen.  Then, however, finding Claude so cold and quiet, he ended by growing somewhat reassured.

Sandoz often walked up to the Rue Tourlaque, and whenever he found only Christine at home, he questioned her, realising that she also lived in apprehension of a calamity of which she never spoke.  Her face bore a look of worry, and now and again she started nervously, like a mother who watches over her child and trembles at the slightest sound, with the fear that death may be entering the chamber.

One July morning Sandoz asked her:  ’Well, are you pleased?  Claude’s quiet, he works a deal.’

She gave the large picture her usual glance, a side glance full of terror and hatred.

‘Yes, yes, he works,’ she said.  ’He wants to finish everything else before taking up the woman again.’  And without confessing the fear that harassed her, she added in a lower tone:  ’But his eyes—­have you noticed his eyes?  They always have the same wild expression.  I know very well that he lies, despite his pretence of taking things so easily.  Pray, come and see him, and take him out with you, so as to change the current of his thoughts.  He only has you left; help me, do help me!’