barricading himself and his birds and animals against the
admiration of the outside world. Ah, my good fellow, the idea of it!
That great man ending his life like a retired grocer; that voluntary
relapse into "nothingness" even before death. Ah, the glory, the glory
for which we others are ready to die!'

Claude's voice, which had sunk lower and lower, died away at last in
a melancholy sigh. Darkness was still coming on; after gradually
collecting in the corners, it rose like a slow, inexorable tide, first
submerging the legs of the chairs and the table, all the confusion of
things that littered the tiled floor. The lower part of the picture was
already growing dim, and Claude, with his eyes still desperately fixed
on it, seemed to be watching the ascent of the darkness as if he had at
last judged his work in the expiring light. And no sound was heard save
the stertorous breathing of the sick child, near whom there still loomed
the dark silhouette of the motionless mother.

Then Sandoz spoke in his turn, his hands also crossed behind his head,
and his back resting against one of the cushions of the couch.

'Does one ever know? Would it not be better, perhaps, to live and die
unknown? What a sell it would be if artistic glory existed no more than
the Paradise which is talked about in catechisms and which even children
nowadays make fun of! We, who no longer believe in the Divinity, still
believe in our own immortality. What a farce it all is!'

Then, affected to melancholy himself by the mournfulness of the
twilight, and stirred by all the human suffering he beheld around him,
he began to speak of his own torments.

'Look here, old man, I, whom you envy, perhaps--yes, I, who am beginning
to get on in the world, as middle-class people say--I, who publish books
and earn a little money--well, I am being killed by it all. I have often
already told you this, but you don't believe me, because, as you only
turn out work with a deal of trouble and cannot bring yourself to public
notice, happiness in your eyes could naturally consist in producing a
great deal, in being seen, and praised or slated. Well, get admitted to
the next Salon, get into the thick of the battle, paint other pictures,
and then tell me whether that suffices, and whether you are happy at
last. Listen; work has taken up the whole of my existence. Little by
little, it has robbed me of my mother, of my wife, of everything I love.
It is like a germ thrown int