he woman's figure which he no longer touched: it was like a hesitating
desire combined with sacred awe, a passion which he refused to satisfy,
as he felt certain that it would cost him his life. When he set to work
again at the other figures and the background of the picture, he well
knew that the woman's figure was still there, and his glance wavered
whenever he espied it; he felt that he would only remain master of
himself as long as he did not touch it again.

One evening, Christine, who now visited at Sandoz's and never missed a
single Thursday there, in the hope of seeing her big sick child of an
artist brighten up in the society of his friends, took the novelist
aside and begged him to drop in at their place on the morrow. And on the
next day Sandoz, who, as it happened, wanted to take some notes for
a novel, on the other side of Montmartre, went in search of Claude,
carried him off and kept him idling about until night-time.

On this occasion they went as far as the gate of Clignancourt, where a
perpetual fair was held, with merry-go-rounds, shooting-galleries, and
taverns, and on reaching the spot they were stupefied to find themselves
face to face with Chaine, who was enthroned in a large and stylish
booth. It was a kind of chapel, highly ornamented. There were four
circular revolving stands set in a row and loaded with articles in china
and glass, all sorts of ornaments and nick-nacks, whose gilding and
polish shone amid an harmonica-like tinkling whenever the hand of a
gamester set the stand in motion. It then spun round, grating against
a feather, which, on the rotatory movement ceasing, indicated what
article, if any, had been won. The big prize was a live rabbit, adorned
with pink favours, which waltzed and revolved unceasingly, intoxicated
with fright. And all this display was set in red hangings, scalloped at
the top; and between the curtains one saw three pictures hanging at the
rear of the booth, as in the sanctuary of some tabernacle. They were
Chaine's three masterpieces, which now followed him from fair to fair,
from one end of Paris to the other. The 'Woman taken in Adultery' in the
centre, the copy of the Mantegna on the left, and Mahoudeau's stove
on the right. Of an evening, when the petroleum lamps flamed and the
revolving stands glowed and radiated like planets, nothing seemed
finer than those pictures hanging amid the blood-tinged purple of the
hangings, and a gaping crowd often flocked to vi