rk. You count your task by the
hour, like a cabdriver. But the spark, my dear boy, which, like a golden
bee flits through the brain of the true artist, and emits from its wings
both light and music, when has it ever visited you? Not once, and you
are well aware of it. It has always frightened you, that divine little
bee! And yet it is this only that gives real talent. Ah! I know many who
also work, but very differently from you, with all the anxiety and fever
of sincere research, and yet who will never reach the point you have
attained. Look here, acknowledge this much, now we are alone. Your one
talent has been marrying a pretty woman."

"Monsieur!" interrupted Guillardin, turning purple. The voice proceeded
unchanged: "Ah well! This burst of indignation is a good sign. It proves
to me what all the world knows indeed; that you are certainly more fool
than knave. Come, come, you need not roll such furious eyes at me. In
the first place, if you touch me, if you make the least crease or tear
in me, it will be impossible to go to the reception to-day, and then,
what will Madame Guillardin say? For after all, it is to her that all
the glory of this great day is due.

[Illustration: p219-230]

It is she whom the five Academies are about to receive, and I can assure
you that if I appeared at the _Institut_ on her pretty person, still
so elegant and slender notwithstanding her age, I should cut a very
different figure than with you. Confound it, Monsieur Guillardin,
we must look facts in the face! You owe everything to that woman;
everything, your house, your forty thousand francs (sixteen hundred
pounds) a year, your cross of the Legion of Honour, your laurels, your
medals."

And with the gesture of a one-armed man, the green coat, with its empty
embroidered sleeve, pointed out to the unfortunate sculptor the glorious
insignia hung up on the walls of his alcove. Then, as though wishing
the better to torment his victim, to assume every aspect, and every
attitude, the cruel coat drew nearer the fire, and leaning forward on
his arm-chair with a little old-fashioned and confidential air, he spoke
familiarly, in the tone of a long-established intimacy:

"Come, old boy, what I've said seems to upset you. Yet it is better you
should know what everybody is aware of. And who could tell you better
than your own coat? Let us reason a little. What had you when you
married? Nothing. What did your wife bring you? Nothing. Then how do