and an icy chillness blew from above, moistening
the sand in which one's feet sank. In the distance, behind a torn
curtain, one could see rows of statues, the rejected sculptural
exhibits, the casts which poor sculptors did not even remove,
gathered together in a livid kind of Morgue, in a state of lamentable
abandonment. But what surprised one, on raising one's head, was the
continuous din, the mighty tramp of the public over the flooring of the
upper galleries. One was deafened by it; it rolled on without a pause,
as if interminable trains, going at full speed, were ever and ever
shaking the iron girders.

When Mahoudeau had been complimented, he told Claude that he had
searched for his picture in vain. In the depths of what hole could they
have put it? Then, in a fit of affectionate remembrance for the past,
he asked anxiously after Gagniere and Dubuche. Where were the Salons of
yore which they had all reached in a band, the mad excursions through
the galleries as in an enemy's country, the violent disdain they had
felt on going away, the discussions which had made their tongues swell
and emptied their brains? Nobody now saw Dubuche. Two or three times a
month Gagniere came from Melun, in a state of bewilderment, to attend
some concert; and he now took such little interest in painting that he
had not even looked in at the Salon, although he exhibited his usual
landscape, the same view of the banks of the Seine which he had been
sending for the last fifteen years--a picture of a pretty greyish tint,
so conscientious and quiet that the public had never remarked it.

'I was going upstairs,' resumed Mahoudeau. 'Will you come with me?'

Claude, pale with suffering, raised his eyes every second. Ah! that
terrible rumbling, that devouring gallop of the monster overhead, the
shock of which he felt in his very limbs!

He held out his hand without speaking.

'What! are you going to leave us?' exclaimed Sandoz. Take just another
turn with us, and we'll go away together.'

Then, on seeing Claude so weary, a feeling of pity made his heart
contract. He divined that the poor fellow's courage was exhausted, that
he was desirous of solitude, seized with a desire to fly off alone and
hide his wound.

'Then, good-bye, old man: I'll call and see you to-morrow.'

Staggering, and as if pursued by the tempest upstairs, Claude
disappeared behind the clumps of shrubbery in the garden. But two hours
later Sandoz, who after losing Ma