ome
unexpectedly, found him treating Mathilde, the herbalist woman, to a
pot of jam? No, he would never forgive him for treating himself in that
dirty fashion to delicacies on the sly, while he, Mahoudeau, was half
starving, and eating dry bread. The deuce! one ought to share and share
alike.

And the grudge had now lasted for nearly three months without a break,
without an explanation. They had arranged their lives accordingly; they
had reduced their strictly necessary intercourse to a series of short
phrases charcoaled on the walls. As for the rest, they lived as before,
sharing the same bed in the back shop. After all, there was no need for
so much talk in life, people managed to understand one another all the
same.

While filling the stove, Mahoudeau continued to relieve his mind.

'Well, you may believe me if you like, but when a fellow's almost
starving it isn't disagreeable to keep quiet. Yes, one gets numb amidst
silence; it's like an inside coating that stills the gnawing of the
stomach a bit. Ah, that Chaine! You haven't a notion of his peasant
nature. When he had spent his last copper without earning the fortune
he expected by painting, he went into trade, a petty trade, which was to
enable him to finish his studies. Isn't the fellow a sharp 'un, eh?
And just listen to his plan. He had some olive oil sent to him from
Saint-Firmin, his village, and then he tramped the streets and found
a market for the oil among well-to-do families from Provence living in
Paris. Unfortunately, it did not last. He is such a clod-hopper that
they showed him the door on all sides. And as there was a jar of oil
left which nobody would buy, well, old man, we live upon it. Yes, on the
days when we happen to have some bread we dip our bread into it.'

Thereupon he pointed to the jar standing in a corner of the shop. Some
of the oil having been spilt, the wall and the floor were darkened by
large greasy stains.

Claude left off laughing. Ah! misery, how discouraging it was! how
could he show himself hard on those whom it crushed? He walked about
the studio, no longer vexed at finding models weakened by concessions
to middle-class taste; he even felt tolerant with regard to that hideous
bust. But, all at once, he came across a copy that Chaine had made at
the Louvre, a Mantegna, which was marvellously exact in its dryness.

'Oh, the brute,' he muttered, 'it's almost the original; he's never done
anything better than that. Perhap