ting.
It was but the mother remonstrating with her big mad boy of an artist
that spoke.

'What are you doing there, Claude? Is it reasonable, Claude, to have
such ideas? Come to bed, I beg of you, don't stay on those steps where
you will catch your death of cold!'

He did not answer; he stooped again to take some more paint on his
brush, and made the figure flash with two bright strokes of vermilion.

'Listen to me, Claude, in pity come to me--you know that I love you--you
see how anxious you have made me. Come, oh! come, if you don't want me
to die of cold and waiting for you.'

With his face haggard, he did not look at her; but while he bedecked a
part of the figure with carmine, he grumbled in a husky voice:

'Just leave me alone, will you? I'm working.'

Christine remained silent for a moment. She was drawing herself erect,
her eyes began to gleam with fire, rebellion inflated her gentle,
charming form. Then she burst forth, with the growl of a slave driven to
extremities.

'Well, no, I won't leave you alone! I've had enough of it. I'll tell
you what's stifling me, what has been killing me ever since I have known
you. Ah! that painting, yes, your painting, she's the murderess who
has poisoned my life! I had a presentiment of it on the first day; your
painting frightened me as if it were a monster. I found it abominable,
execrable; but then, one's cowardly, I loved you too much not to like
it also; I ended by growing accustomed to it! But later on, how I
suffered!--how it tortured me! For ten years I don't recollect having
spent a day without shedding tears. No, leave me! I am easing my mind,
I must speak out, since I have found strength enough to do so. For ten
years I have been abandoned and crushed every day. Ah! to be nothing
more to you, to feel myself cast more and more on one side, to fall
to the rank of a servant; and to see that other one, that thief, place
herself between you and me and clutch hold of you and triumph and insult
me! For dare, yes, dare to say that she hasn't taken possession of
you, limb by limb, glided into your brain, your heart, your flesh,
everywhere! She holds you like a vice, she feeds on you; in fact,
she's your wife, not I. She's the only one you care for! Ah! the cursed
wretch, the hussy!'

Claude was now listening to her, in his astonishment at that dolorous
outburst; and being but half roused from his exasperated creative dream,
he did not as yet very well understand why