. For a moment he
strolled along aimlessly; but, as he paused at the corner of the Rue
de Seine, not knowing which way to go, he suddenly recollected what his
friend had told him about a certain night spent at the Dequersonniere
studio--a night of terrible hard work, the eve of the day on which the
pupils' designs had to be deposited at the School of Arts. At once he
walked towards the Rue du Four, where the studio was situated. Hitherto
he had carefully abstained from calling there for Dubuche, from fear of
the yells with which outsiders were greeted. But now he made straight
for the place without flinching, his timidity disappearing so thoroughly
before the anguish of loneliness that he felt ready to undergo any
amount of insult could he but secure a companion in misfortune.

The studio was situated in the narrowest part of the Rue du Four, at
the far end of a decrepit, tumble-down building. Claude had to cross two
evil-smelling courtyards to reach a third, across which ran a sort of
big closed shed, a huge out-house of board and plaster work, which had
once served as a packing-case maker's workshop. From outside, through
the four large windows, whose panes were daubed with a coating of white
lead, nothing could be seen but the bare whitewashed ceiling.

Having pushed the door open, Claude remained motionless on the
threshold. The place stretched out before him, with its four long tables
ranged lengthwise to the windows--broad double tables they were, which
had swarms of students on either side, and were littered with moist
sponges, paint saucers, iron candlesticks, water bowls, and wooden
boxes, in which each pupil kept his white linen blouse, his compasses,
and colours. In one corner, the stove, neglected since the previous
winter, stood rusting by the side of a pile of coke that had not been
swept away; while at the other end a large iron cistern with a tap was
suspended between two towels. And amidst the bare untidiness of this
shed, the eye was especially attracted by the walls which, above,
displayed a litter of plaster casts ranged in haphazard fashion on
shelves, and disappeared lower down behind forests of T-squares and
bevels, and piles of drawing boards, tied together with webbing straps.
Bit by bit, such parts of the partitions as had remained unoccupied
had become covered with inscriptions and drawings, a constantly rising
flotsam and jetsam of scrawls traced there as on the margin of an
ever-open book.