the immense ark, all the arts blended
in one; the real humanity of the personages at last expressed, the
orchestra itself living apart the life of the drama. And what a massacre
of conventionality, of inept formulas! what a revolutionary emancipation
amid the infinite! The overture of "Tannhauser," ah! that's the sublime
hallelujah of the new era. First of all comes the chant of the pilgrims,
the religious strain, calm, deep and slowly throbbing; then the voices
of the sirens gradually drown it; the voluptuous pleasures of Venus,
full of enervating delight and languor, grow more and more imperious and
disorderly; and soon the sacred air gradually returns, like the aspiring
voice of space, and seizes hold of all other strains and blends them
in one supreme harmony, to waft them away on the wings of a triumphal
hymn!'

'I am going to shut up, sir,' repeated the waiter.

Claude, who no longer listened, he also being absorbed in his own
passion, emptied his glass of beer and cried: 'Eh, old man, they are
going to shut up.'

Then Gagniere trembled. A painful twitch came over his ecstatic face,
and he shivered as if he had dropped from the stars. He gulped down his
beer, and once on the pavement outside, after pressing his companion's
hand in silence, he walked off into the gloom.

It was nearly two o'clock in the morning when Claude returned to the Rue
de Douai. During the week that he had been scouring Paris anew, he had
each time brought back with him the feverish excitement of the day. But
he had never before returned so late, with his brain so hot and smoky.
Christine, overcome with fatigue, was asleep under the lamp, which had
gone out, her brow resting on the edge of the table.

VIII

AT last Christine gave a final stroke with her feather-broom, and they
were settled. The studio in the Rue de Douai, small and inconvenient,
had only one little room, and a kitchen, as big as a cupboard, attached
to it. They were obliged to take their meals in the studio; they had
to live in it, with the child always tumbling about their legs. And
Christine had a deal of trouble in making their few sticks suffice, as
she wished to do, in order to save expense. After all, she was obliged
to buy a second-hand bedstead; and yielded to the temptation of having
some white muslin curtains, which cost her seven sous the metre. The
den then seemed charming to her, and she began to keep it scrupulously
clean, resolving to do everythi