hrew his hat and umbrella on the bed, placed his basket on the
ground, set the radish and bread on the table, and kneeling down before
his stove, stuffed it with fuel, and lighted it by blowing with vigorous
lungs on the embers contained in his earthen pot.

When, to use the consecrated expression, the stove began to draw, Rodin
spread out the handkerchiefs, which served him for curtains; then,
thinking himself quite safe from every eye, he took from the side-pocket
of his great-coat the letter that Mother Arsene had given him. In doing
so, he brought out several papers and different articles; one of these
papers, folded into a thick and rumpled packet, fell upon the table,
and flew open. It contained a silver cross of the Legion of Honor, black
with time. The red ribbon of this cross had almost entirely lost its
original color. At sight of this cross, which he replaced in his pocket
with the medal of which Faringhea had despoiled Djalma, Rodin shrugged
his shoulders with a contemptuous and sardonic air; then, producing his
large silver watch, he laid it on the table by the side of the letter
from Rome. He looked at this letter with a singular mixture of suspicion
and hope, of fear, and impatient curiosity. After a moment's reflection,
he prepared to unseal the envelope; but suddenly he threw it down again
upon the table, as if, by a strange caprice, he had wished to prolong
for a few minutes that agony of uncertainty, as poignant and irritating
as the emotion of the gambler.

Looking at his watch, Rodin resolved not to open the letter, until the
hand should mark half-past nine, of which it still wanted seven minutes.
In one of those whims of puerile fatalism, from which great minds have
not been exempt, Rodin said to himself: "I burn with impatience to open
this letter. If I do not open it till half-past nine, the news will be
favorable." To employ these minutes, Rodin took several turns up and
down the room, and stood in admiring contemplation before two old
prints, stained with damp and age, and fastened to the wall by rusty
nails. The first of these works of art--the only ornaments with which
Rodin had decorated this hole--was one of those coarse pictures,
illuminated with red, yellow, green, and blue, such as are sold at
fairs; an Italian inscription announced that this print had been
manufactured at Rome. It represented a woman covered with rags, bearing
a wallet, and having a little child upon her knees; a horrib