d his way to the Rue Tourlaque. He came thither for little Jacques,
his godson, and for the sorrowing woman also, that Christine whose
passionate features amidst all this distress moved him deeply, like a
vision of one of the ardently amorous creatures whom he would have
liked to embody in his books. But, above all, his feeling of artistic
brotherliness had increased since he had seen Claude losing ground,
foundering amidst the heroic folly of art. At first he had remained
utterly astonished at it, for he had believed in his friend more than in
himself. Since their college days, he had always placed himself second,
while setting Claude very high on fame's ladder--on the same rung,
indeed, as the masters who revolutionise a period. Then he had been
grievously affected by that bankruptcy of genius; he had become full
of bitter, heartfelt pity at the sight of the horrible torture of
impotency. Did one ever know who was the madman in art? Every failure
touched him to the quick, and the more a picture or a book verged upon
aberration, sank to the grotesque and lamentable, the more did Sandoz
quiver with compassion, the more did he long to lull to sleep, in the
soothing extravagance of their dreams, those who were thus blasted by
their own work.

On the day when Sandoz called, and failed to find Claude at home, he did
not go away; but, seeing Christine's eyelids red with crying, he said:

'If you think that he'll be in soon, I'll wait for him.'

'Oh! he surely won't be long.'

'In that case I'll wait, unless I am in your way.'

Never had her demeanour, the crushed look of a neglected woman, her
listless movements, her slow speech, her indifference for everything but
the passion that was consuming her, moved him so deeply. For the last
week, perhaps, she had not put a chair in its place, or dusted a piece
of furniture; she left the place to go to wreck and ruin, scarcely
having the strength to drag herself about. And it was enough to break
one's heart to behold that misery ending in filth beneath the glaring
light from the big window; to gaze on that ill-pargetted shanty, so bare
and disorderly, where one shivered with melancholy although it was a
bright February afternoon.

Christine had slowly sat down beside an iron bedstead, which Sandoz had
not noticed when he came in.

'Hallo,' he said, 'is Jacques ill?'

She was covering up the child, who constantly flung off the bedclothes.

'Yes, he hasn't been up these thre