one which he saw on the wall, beaming with life. He constantly
referred to it, compared it with the one he was painting, distracted by
the fear of being unable to equal it. He cast one glance at it, another
at Christine, and a third at his canvas, and burst into oaths whenever
he felt dissatisfied. He ended by abusing his wife.

She was no longer young. Age had spoilt her figure, and that it was
which spoilt his work. She listened, and staggered in her very grief.
Those sittings, from which she had already suffered so much, were
becoming unbearable torture now. What was this new freak of crushing
her with her own girlhood, of fanning her jealousy by filling her with
regret for vanished beauty? She was becoming her own rival, she could
no longer look at that old picture of herself without being stung at the
heart by hateful envy. Ah, how heavily had that picture, that study
she had sat for long ago, weighed upon her existence! The whole of her
misfortunes sprang from it. It had changed the current of her existence.
And it had come to life again, it rose from the dead, endowed with
greater vitality than herself, to finish killing her, for there was no
longer aught but one woman for Claude--she who was shown reclining on
the old canvas, and who now arose and became the upright figure of his
new picture.

Then Christine felt herself growing older and older at each successive
sitting. And she experienced the infinite despair which comes upon
passionate women when love, like beauty, abandons them. Was it because
of this that Claude no longer cared for her, that he sought refuge in
an unnatural passion for his work? She soon lost all clear perception
of things; she fell into a state of utter neglect, going about in a
dressing jacket and dirty petticoats, devoid of all coquettish feeling,
discouraged by the idea that it was useless for her to continue
struggling, since she had become old.

There were occasionally abominable scenes between her and Claude, who
this time, however, obstinately stuck to his work and finished his
picture, swearing that, come what might, he would send it to the Salon.
He lived on his steps, cleaning up his backgrounds until dark. At last,
thoroughly exhausted, he declared that he would touch the canvas no
more; and Sandoz, on coming to see him one day, at four o'clock, did not
find him at home. Christine declared that he had just gone out to take a
breath of air on the height of Montmartre.

The