ever
expecting to see all Paris come ashore there. He had Paris on the brain;
he went there every month and returned desolate, unable to work. Autumn
came, then winter, a very wet and muddy winter, and he spent it in
a state of morose torpidity, bitter even against Sandoz, who, having
married in October, could no longer come to Bennecourt so often. Claude
only seemed to wake up at each of the other's visits; deriving a week's
excitement from them, and never ceasing to comment feverishly about
the news brought from yonder. He, who formerly had hidden his regret of
Paris, nowadays bewildered Christine with the way in which he chatted
to her from morn till night about things she was quite ignorant of, and
people she had never seen. When Jacques fell asleep, there were endless
comments between the parents as they sat by the fireside. Claude grew
passionate, and Christine had to give her opinion and to pronounce
judgment on all sorts of matters.

Was not Gagniere an idiot for stultifying his brain with music, he who
might have developed so conscientious a talent as a landscape painter?
It was said that he was now taking lessons on the piano from a young
lady--the idea, at his age! What did she, Christine, think of it? And
Jory had been trying to get into the good graces of Irma Becot again,
ever since she had secured that little house in the Rue de Moscou!
Christine knew those two; two jades who well went together, weren't
they? But the most cunning of the whole lot was Fagerolles, to whom he,
Claude, would tell a few plain truths and no mistake, when he met him.
What! the turn-coat had competed for the Prix de Rome, which, of course,
he had managed to miss. To think of it. That fellow did nothing but jeer
at the School, and talked about knocking everything down, yet took part
in official competitions! Ah, there was no doubt but that the itching to
succeed, the wish to pass over one's comrades and be hailed by idiots,
impelled some people to very dirty tricks. Surely Christine did not mean
to stick up for him, eh? She was not sufficiently a philistine to defend
him. And when she had agreed with everything Claude said, he always
came back with nervous laughter to the same story--which he thought
exceedingly comical--the story of Mahoudeau and Chaine, who, between
them, had killed little Jabouille, the husband of Mathilde, that
dreadful herbalist woman. Yes, killed the poor consumptive fellow with
kindness one evening when he