ques was poorly again and unable to go to school, they had
decided to lock him up in the room at the back, telling him to be very
good. And then the mother settled herself near the stove, motionless, in
the attitude required.

During the first hour, the painter, perched upon his steps, kept
glancing at her, but did not speak a word. Unutterable sadness stole
over her, and she felt afraid of fainting, no longer knowing whether she
was suffering from the cold or from a despair that had come from afar,
and the bitterness of which she felt to be rising within her. Her
fatigue became so great that she staggered and hobbled about on her
numbed legs.

'What, already?' cried Claude. 'Why, you haven't been at it more than a
quarter of an hour. You don't want to earn your seven francs, then?'

He was joking in a gruff voice, delighted with his work. And she had
scarcely recovered the use of her limbs, beneath the dressing-gown she
had wrapped round her, when he went on shouting: 'Come on, come on, no
idling! It's a grand day to-day is! I must either show some genius or
else kick the bucket.'

Then, in a weary way, she at last resumed the pose.

The misfortune was that before long, both by his glances and the
language he used, she fully realised that she herself was as nothing to
him. If ever he praised a limb, a tint, a contour, it was solely from
the artistic point of view. Great enthusiasm and passion he often
showed, but it was not passion for herself as in the old days. She felt
confused and deeply mortified. Ah! this was the end; in her he no longer
loved aught but his art, the example of nature and life! And then,
with her eyes gazing into space, she would remain rigid, like a statue,
keeping back the tears which made her heart swell, lacking even the
wretched consolation of being able to cry. And day by day the same sorry
life began afresh for her. To stand there as his model had become her
profession. She could not refuse, however bitter her grief. Their once
happy life was all over, there now seemed to be three people in the
place; it was as if Claude had introduced a mistress into it--that woman
he was painting. The huge picture rose up between them, parted them as
with a wall, beyond which he lived with the other. That duplication of
herself well nigh drove Christine mad with jealousy, and yet she was
conscious of the pettiness of her sufferings, and did not dare to
confess them lest he should laugh at her. Howeve