, he began bewailing his fate in an angry
voice. What a dog's life a sculptor's was! The most bungling stonemason
was better off. A figure which the Government bought for three thousand
francs cost well nigh two thousand, what with its model, clay, marble
or bronze, all sorts of expenses, indeed, and for all that it remained
buried in some official cellar on the pretext that there was no room
for it elsewhere. The niches of the public buildings remained empty,
pedestals were awaiting statues in the public gardens. No matter, there
was never any room! And there were no possible commissions from private
people; at best one received an order for a few busts, and at very rare
intervals one for a memorial statue, subscribed for by the public and
hurriedly executed at reduced terms. Sculpture was the noblest of arts,
the most manly, yes, but the one which led the most surely to death by
starvation!

'Is your machine progressing?' asked Claude.

'Without this confounded cold, it would be finished,' answered
Mahoudeau. 'I'll show it you.'

He rose from his knees after listening to the snorting of the stove.
In the middle of the studio, on a packing-case, strengthened by
cross-pieces, stood a statue swathed is linen wraps which were quite
rigid, hard frozen, draping the figure with the whiteness of a shroud.
This statue embodied Mahoudeau's old dream, unrealised until now from
lack of means--it was an upright figure of that bathing girl of whom
more than a dozen small models had been knocking about his place for
years. In a moment of impatient revolt he himself had manufactured
trusses and stays out of broom-handles, dispensing with the necessary
iron work in the hope that the wood would prove sufficiently solid.
From time to time he shook the figure to try it, but as yet it had not
budged.

'The devil!' he muttered; 'some warmth will do her good. These wraps
seem glued to her--they form quite a breastplate.'

The linen was crackling between his fingers, and splinters of ice were
breaking off. He was obliged to wait until the heat produced a slight
thaw, and then with great care he stripped the figure, baring the
head first, then the bosom, and then the hips, well pleased at finding
everything intact, and smiling like a lover at a woman fondly adored.

'Well, what do you think of it?'

Claude, who had only previously seen a little rough model of the statue,
nodded his head, in order that he might not have to answer immed