His Masterpiece, Émile Zola [essential reading txt] 📗

more upright and better soul; but as a result of self-examination, a gnawing fear of impotence, an unavowed dread haunted him.

“And at ‘the Rejected,’ ” asked Sandoz; “how goes it there?”

“Superb; you’ll see.”

Then turning towards Claude, and keeping both the young man’s hands in his own, “You, my good fellow, you are a trump. Listen! they say I am clever: well, I’d give ten years of my life to have painted that big hussy of yours.”

Praise like that, coming from such lips, moved the young painter to tears. Victory had come at last, then? He failed to find a word of thanks, and abruptly changed the conversation, wishing to hide his emotion.

“That good fellow Mahoudeau!” he said, “why, his figure’s capital! He has a deuced fine temperament, hasn’t he?”

Sandoz and Claude had begun to walk round the plaster figure. Bongrand replied with a smile.

“Yes, yes; there’s too much fullness and massiveness in parts. But just look at the articulations, they are delicate and really pretty. Come, goodbye, I must leave you. I’m going to sit down a while. My legs are bending under me.”

Claude had raised his head to listen. A tremendous uproar, an incessant crashing that had not struck him at first, careered through the air; it was like the din of a tempest beating against a cliff, the rumbling of an untiring assault, dashing forward from endless space.

“Hallow, what’s that?” he muttered.

“That,” said Bongrand, as he walked away, “that’s the crowd upstairs in the galleries.”

And the two young fellows, having crossed the garden, then went up to the Salon of the Rejected.

It had been installed in first-rate style. The officially received pictures were not lodged more sumptuously: lofty hangings of old tapestry at the doors; “the line” set off with green baize; seats of crimson velvet; white linen screens under the large skylights of the roof. And all along the suite of galleries the first impression was the same⁠—there were the same gilt frames, the same bright colours on the canvases. But there was a special kind of cheerfulness, a sparkle of youth which one did not altogether realise at first. The crowd, already compact, increased every minute, for the official Salon was being deserted. People came stung by curiosity, impelled by a desire to judge the judges, and, above all, full of the conviction that they were going to see some very diverting things. It was very hot; a fine dust arose from the flooring; and certainly, towards four o’clock people would stifle there.

“Hang it!” said Sandoz, trying to elbow his way, “it will be no easy job to move about and find your picture.”

A burst of fraternal feverishness made him eager to get to it. That day he only lived for the work and glory of his old chum.

“Don’t worry!” exclaimed Claude; “we shall get to it all right. My picture won’t fly off.”

And he affected to be in no hurry, in spite of the almost irresistible desire that he felt to run. He raised his head and looked around him; and soon, amidst the loud voices of the crowd that had bewildered him, he distinguished some restrained laughter, which was almost drowned by the tramp of feet and the hubbub of conversation. Before certain pictures the public stood joking. This made him feel uneasy, for despite all his revolutionary brutality he was as sensitive and as credulous as a woman, and always looked forward to martyrdom, though he was ever grieved and stupefied at being repulsed and railed at.

“They seem gay here,” he muttered.

“Well, there’s good reason,” remarked Sandoz. “Just look at those extravagant jades!”

At the same moment, while still lingering in the first gallery, Fagerolles ran up against them without seeing them. He started, being no doubt annoyed by the meeting. However, he recovered his composure immediately, and behaved very amiably.

“Hallo! I was just thinking of you. I have been here for the last hour.”

“Where have they put Claude’s picture?” asked Sandoz. Fagerolles, who had just remained for twenty minutes in front of that picture studying it and studying the impression which it produced on the public, answered without wincing, “I don’t know; I haven’t been able to find it. We’ll look for it together if you like.”

And he joined them. Terrible wag as he was, he no longer affected lowbred manners to the same degree as formerly; he already began to dress well, and although with his mocking nature he was still disposed to snap at everybody as of old, he pursed his lips into the serious expression of a fellow who wants to make his way in the world. With an air of conviction he added: “I must say that I now regret not having sent anything this year! I should be here with all the rest of you, and have my share of success. And there are really some astonishing things, my boys! those horses, for instance.”

He pointed to a huge canvas in front of them, before which the crowd was gathering and laughing. It was, so people said, the work of an erstwhile veterinary surgeon, and showed a number of life-size horses in a meadow, fantastic horses, blue, violet, and pink, whose astonishing anatomy transpierced their sides.

“I say, don’t you humbug us,” exclaimed Claude, suspiciously.

But Fagerolles pretended to be enthusiastic. “What do you mean? The picture’s full of talent. The fellow who painted it understands horses devilish well. No doubt he paints like a brute. But what’s the odds if he’s original, and contributes a document?”

As he spoke Fagerolles’ delicate girlish face remained perfectly grave, and it was impossible to tell whether he was joking. There was but the slightest yellow twinkle of spitefulness in the depths of his grey eyes. And he finished with a sarcastic allusion, the drift of which was as yet patent to him alone. “Ah, well! if you let yourself be influenced by the fools who laugh, you’ll have enough to do by and by.”

The three friends had gone on again, only advancing, however, with infinite