still remained dirty and mournful--it was one
of those lugubrious winter dawns; and an hour later Christine herself
awoke with a great chilly shiver. She did not understand at first. How
did it happen that she was alone? Then she remembered: she had fallen
asleep with her cheek against his. How was it then that he had left her?
Where could he be? Suddenly, amid her torpor, she sprang out of bed and
ran into the studio. Good God! had he returned to the other then? Had
the other seized hold of him again, when she herself fancied that she
had conquered him for ever?

She saw nothing at the first glance she took; in the cold and murky
morning twilight the studio seemed to her to be deserted. But whilst she
was tranquillising herself at seeing nobody there, she raised her eyes
to the canvas, and a terrible cry leapt from her gaping mouth:

'Claude! oh, Claude!'

Claude had hanged himself from the steps in front of his spoilt work. He
had simply taken one of the cords which held the frame to the wall,
and had mounted the platform, so as to fasten the rope to an oaken
crosspiece, which he himself had one day nailed to the uprights to
consolidate them. Then from up above he had leapt into space. He was
hanging there in his shirt, with his feet bare, looking horrible, with
his black tongue protruding, and his bloodshot eyes starting from their
orbits; he seemed to have grown frightfully tall in his motionless
stiffness, and his face was turned towards the picture, close to the
nude woman, as if he had wished to infuse his soul into her with
his last gasp, and as if he were still looking at her with his
expressionless eyes.

Christine, however, remained erect, quite overwhelmed with the grief,
fright, and anger which dilated her body. Only a continuous howl
came from her throat. She opened her arms, stretched them towards the
picture, and clenched both hands.

'Oh, Claude! oh, Claude!' she gasped at last, 'she has taken you
back--the hussy has killed you, killed you, killed you!'

Then her legs gave way. She span round and fell all of a heap upon the
tiled flooring. Her excessive suffering had taken all the blood from her
heart, and, fainting away, she lay there, as if she were dead, like a
white rag, miserable, done for, crushed beneath the fierce sovereignty
of Art. Above her the nude woman rose radiant in her symbolic idol's
brightness; painting triumphed, alone immortal and erect, even when mad.

At nine o'clock on t