-a mere patch of
soil, sloping down abruptly, with a bed where four pear trees stand,
and the rest taken up by a fowl-house, made out of green boards, old
plaster, and wire network, held together with bits of string.'

His words came slowly; he blinked while he spoke as if the thought of
his picture had returned to him and was gradually taking possession
of him, to such a degree as to hamper him in his speech about other
matters.

'Well, as luck would have it, I found Courajod on his doorstep to-day.
An old man of more than eighty, wrinkled and shrunk to the size of a
boy. I should like you to see him, with his clogs, his peasant's jersey
and his coloured handkerchief wound over his head as if he were an old
market-woman. I pluckily went up to him, saying, "Monsieur Courajod, I
know you very well; you have a picture in the Luxembourg Gallery which
is a masterpiece. Allow a painter to shake hands with you as he would
with his master." And then you should have seen him take fright, draw
back and stutter, as if I were going to strike him. A regular flight!
However, I followed him, and gradually he recovered his composure, and
showed me his hens, his ducks, his rabbits and dogs--an extraordinary
collection of birds and beasts; there was even a raven among them. He
lives in the midst of them all; he speaks to no one but his animals.
As for the view, it's simply magnificent; you see the whole of the
St. Denis plain for miles upon miles; rivers and towns, smoking
factory-chimneys, and puffing railway-engines; in short, the place is
a real hermitage on a hill, with its back turned to Paris and its eyes
fixed on the boundless country. As a matter of course, I came back to
his picture. "Oh, Monsieur Courajod," said I, "what talent you showed!
If you only knew how much we all admire you. You are one of our
illustrious men; you'll remain the ancestor of us all." But his lips
began to tremble again; he looked at me with an air of terror-stricken
stupidity; I am sure he would not have waved me back with a more
imploring gesture if I had unearthed under his very eyes the corpse of
some forgotten comrade of his youth. He kept chewing disconnected words
between his toothless gums; it was the mumbling of an old man who had
sunk into second childhood, and whom it's impossible to understand.
"Don't know--so long ago--too old--don't care a rap." To make a long
story short, he showed me the door; I heard him hurriedly turn the
key in lock,