One day he was with me at the Cafe opposite Janot's, when two or three
of the studio came in and sat at our table. There was the usual eager
talk. The subject, the new impressionism.

"But to understand it, you must be in the movement," cried Fougere, not
dreaming of discourtesy.

But Paragot took the saying to heart.

"I see it now," said he afterwards. "I am no longer in the movement. You
young men have passed me by. I am left stranded. You may ask why I don't
seek the company of my own contemporaries? Who are they that know me,
save worthless rags like Felicien Garbure? Stranded, my son. I have had
my day."

After that he refused to talk at such social gatherings as chance
afforded, and moodily listened, while he consumed profitless alcohol.
Then he began to frequent the low-life cafes of the Halles. When he had
nearly poisoned himself with vile absinthe and sickened himself with the
conversation of fishwives, he sent for me in despair.

I found him half-dressed walking up and down the salon. He looked very
ill.

"I am going to leave Paris to-day," he began, as soon as I entered. "It
is a city of Dead Sea apples. It has no place for me, save the sewer. I
don't like the sewer. I am going away. I shall never come back to Paris
again."

"But where are you going, Master?" I asked in some surprise.

He did not know. He would pack his bundle and flee like Christian from
the accursed city. Like Christian he would go on a Pilgrim's Progress.
He would seek sweet pure things. He would go forth and work in the
fields. The old life had come to an end. The sow had been mistaken. It
could not return to its wallowing in the mire. Wallowing was disgustful.
Was ever man in such a position? The vagabond life had made the
conventions of civilisation impossible. The contact with convention and
clean English ways had killed his zest for the old order of which only
the mud remained. There was nothing for it but to leave Paris.

He poured out his heart to me in a torrent of excited words, here and
there none too coherent. He must work. He had lost the great art by
which he was to cover Europe with palaces. That was no longer.

"My God!" said he stopping short. "The true knowledge of it has only
come to me lately. I was living in a Fool's Paradise. I could never have
designed a building. I should have lived on her bounty. Thank God I was
saved the shame of it."

He went on. Again he repeated his intention of leaving Paris. I m