‘Just leave me alone, will you?  I’m working.’

Christine remained silent for a moment.  She was drawing herself erect, her eyes began to gleam with fire, rebellion inflated her gentle, charming form.  Then she burst forth, with the growl of a slave driven to extremities.

’Well, no, I won’t leave you alone!  I’ve had enough of it.  I’ll tell you what’s stifling me, what has been killing me ever since I have known you.  Ah! that painting, yes, your painting, she’s the murderess who has poisoned my life!  I had a presentiment of it on the first day; your painting frightened me as if it were a monster.  I found it abominable, execrable; but then, one’s cowardly, I loved you too much not to like it also; I ended by growing accustomed to it!  But later on, how I suffered!—­how it tortured me!  For ten years I don’t recollect having spent a day without shedding tears.  No, leave me!  I am easing my mind, I must speak out, since I have found strength enough to do so.  For ten years I have been abandoned and crushed every day.  Ah! to be nothing more to you, to feel myself cast more and more on one side, to fall to the rank of a servant; and to see that other one, that thief, place herself between you and me and clutch hold of you and triumph and insult me!  For dare, yes, dare to say that she hasn’t taken possession of you, limb by limb, glided into your brain, your heart, your flesh, everywhere!  She holds you like a vice, she feeds on you; in fact, she’s your wife, not I. She’s the only one you care for!  Ah! the cursed wretch, the hussy!’

Claude was now listening to her, in his astonishment at that dolorous outburst; and being but half roused from his exasperated creative dream, he did not as yet very well understand why she was talking to him like that.  And at sight of his stupor, the shuddering of a man surprised in a debauch, she flew into a still greater passion; she mounted the steps, tore the candlestick from his hand, and in her turn flashed the light in front of the picture.

‘Just look!’ she cried, ’just tell me how you have improved matters?  It’s hideous, it’s lamentable and grotesque; you’ll end by seeing so yourself.  Come, isn’t it ugly, isn’t it idiotic?  You see very well that you are conquered, so why should you persist any longer?  There is no sense in it, that’s what upsets me.  If you can’t be a great painter, life, at least, remains to us.  Ah! life, life!’

She had placed the candle on the platform of the steps, and as he had gone down, staggering, she sprang off to join him, and they both found themselves below, he crouching on the last step, and she pressing his inert, dangling hands with all her strength.