Descoings used to write to me; she was the
only one of late years who told me much about you."

"Talent!" exclaimed the artist, "not as yet; but with time and patience
I may win fame and fortune."

"By painting?" said Monsieur Hochon ironically.

"Come, Adolphine," said Madame Hochon, "go and see about dinner."

"Mother," said Joseph, "I will attend to the trunks which they are
bringing in."

"Hochon," said the grandmother to Francois, "show the rooms to Monsieur
Bridau."

As the dinner was to be served at four o'clock and it was now only half
past three, Baruch rushed into the town to tell the news of the Bridau
arrival, describe Agathe's dress, and more particularly to picture
Joseph, whose haggard, unhealthy, and determined face was not unlike the
ideal of a brigand. That evening Joseph was the topic of conversation in
all the households of Issoudun.

"That sister of Rouget must have seen a monkey before her son was born,"
said one; "he is the image of a baboon."

"He has the face of a brigand and the eyes of a basilisk."

"All artists are like that."

"They are as wicked as the red ass, and as spiteful as monkeys."

"It is part of their business."

"I have just seen Monsieur Beaussier, and he says he would not like to
meet him in a dark wood; he saw him in the diligence."

"He has got hollows over the eyes like a horse, and he laughs like a
maniac."

"The fellow looks as though he were capable of anything; perhaps it's
his fault that his brother, a fine handsome man they tell me, has gone
to the bad. Poor Madame Bridau doesn't seem as if she were very happy
with him."

"Suppose we take advantage of his being here, and have our portraits
painted?"

The result of all these observations, scattered through the town was,
naturally, to excite curiosity. All those who had the right to visit the
Hochons resolved to call that very night and examine the Parisians. The
arrival of these two persons in the stagnant town was like the falling
of a beam into a community of frogs.

After stowing his mother's things and his own into the two attic
chambers, which he examined as he did so, Joseph took note of the silent
house, where the walls, the stair-case, the wood-work, were devoid of
decoration and humid with frost, and where there was literally nothing
beyond the merest necessaries. He felt the brusque transition from his
poetic Paris to the dumb and arid province; and when, coming downstairs,
he chanced to