silent.

"The Bishop and Vice Inquisitor declare him in contempt and pronounce
against him the sentence of excommunication, which is soon made public.
They decide in addition that the hearing shall be continued next day--"

A ring of the doorbell interrupted Durtal's perusal of his notes. Des
Hermies entered.

"I have just seen Carhaix. He is ill," he said.

"That so? What seems to be the matter?"

"Nothing very serious. A slight attack of bronchitis. He'll be up in a
few days if he will consent to keep quiet."

"I must go see him tomorrow," said Durtal.

"And what are you doing?" enquired Des Hermies. "Working hard?"

"Why, yes. I am digging into the trial of the noble baron de Rais. It
will be as tedious to read as to write!"

"And you don't know yet when you will finish your volume?"

"No," answered Durtal, stretching. "As a matter of fact I wish it might
never be finished. What will become of me when it is? I'll have to look
around for another subject, and, when I find one, do all the drudgery of
planning and then getting the introductory chapter written--the mean
part of any literary work is getting started. I shall pass mortal hours
doing nothing. Really, when I think it over, literature has only one
excuse for existing; it saves the person who makes it from the
disgustingness of life."

"And, charitably, it lessens the distress of us few who still love art."

"Few indeed!"

"And the number keeps diminishing. The new generation no longer
interests itself in anything except gambling and jockeys."

"Yes, you're quite right. The men can't spare from gambling the time to
read, so it is only the society women who buy books and pass judgment on
them. It is to The Lady, as Schopenhauer called her, to the little
goose, as I should characterize her, that we are indebted for these
shoals of lukewarm and mucilaginous novels which nowadays get puffed."

"You think, then, that we are in for a pretty literature. Naturally you
can't please women by enunciating vigorous ideas in a crisp style."

"But," Durtal went on, after a silence, "it is perhaps best that the
case should be as it is. The rare artists who remain have no business to
be thinking about the public. The artist lives and works far from the
drawing-room, far from the clamour of the little fellows who fix up the
custom-made literature. The only legitimate source of vexation to an
author is to see his work, when printed, exposed to the contaminating