e of the quays, in front of Paris studded with
stars like a frosty sky? And what inner conflict, what matter that had
to be decided, contracted his face like that? Then, resistance being
impossible, she succumbed and glided into the slumber following upon
great weariness.

An hour later, the consciousness of something missing, the anguish
of uneasiness awoke her with a sudden start. She at once felt the bed
beside her, it was already cold: he was no longer there, she had already
divined it while asleep. And she was growing alarmed, still but half
awake, her head heavy and her ears buzzing, when through the doorway,
left ajar, she perceived a ray of light coming from the studio. She then
felt reassured, she thought that in a fit of sleeplessness he had gone
to fetch some book or other; but at last, as he did not return, she
ended by softly rising so as to take a peep. What she beheld quite
unsettled her, and kept her standing on the tiled floor, with her feet
bare, in such surprise that she did not at first dare to show herself.

Claude, who was in his shirt-sleeves, despite the coldness of the
temperature, having merely put on his trousers and slippers in his
haste, was standing on the steps in front of his large picture. His
palette was lying at his feet, and with one hand he held the candle,
while with the other he painted. His eyes were dilated like those of
a somnambulist, his gestures were precise and stiff; he stooped every
minute to take some colour on his brush, and then rose up, casting a
large fantastic shadow on the wall. And there was not a sound; frightful
silence reigned in the big dim room.

Christine guessed the truth and shuddered. The besetting worry,
made more acute by that hour spent on the Pont des Saints-Peres, had
prevented him from sleeping and had brought him once more before his
canvas, consumed with a longing to look at it again, in spite of the
lateness of the hour. He had, no doubt, only climbed the steps to fill
his eyes the nearer. Then, tortured by the sight of some faulty shade,
upset by some defect, to such a point that he could not wait for
daylight, he had caught up a brush, at first merely wishing to give
a simple touch, and then had been carried on from correction to
correction, until at last, with the candle in his hand, he painted there
like a man in a state of hallucination, amid the pale light which darted
hither and thither as he gesticulated. His powerless creative rage had