His Masterpiece

She was no longer young. Age had spoilt her figure, and that it was which spoilt his work. She listened, and staggered in her very grief. Those sittings, from which she had alre...

But, while he was speaking, the cause of her great grief dawned upon him. No doubt, on a day like that, he ought to have shown more affection; but his neglect was unintentional...

IT was nearly three o’clock when they went to bed that night, with the bitter cold November wind blowing through their little room and the big studio. Christine, breathless from...

‘It surprises you, eh? but there are days when I ask myself whether I shall be able to draw a nose correctly. Yes, with every one of my pictures I still feel the emotion of a be...

In spite of herself, she then glanced at the startling sketches with which the walls seemed ablaze, and her limpid eyes assumed an uneasy expression at the sight of that rough,...

‘HIS MASTERPIECE,’ which in the original French bears the title of _L’Œuvre_, is a strikingly accurate story of artistic life in Paris during the latter years of the Second Empi...

However, Claude did make some attempts at work. He began a study of the slopes of Jeufosse, with the Seine in the foreground; but Christine followed him to the islet where he ha...

He blew out the candle, and the silence became more intense. In spite of his fatigue, his eyes soon opened again, and gazed upward at the large window of the studio. The sky had...

One day, however, there happened what Claude had always secretly feared. Christine no longer seemed to believe in the possibility of meeting anybody who knew her. In fact, was t...

Mahoudeau also was singing victory, constantly dragging in his ‘Vintaging Girl,’ the daring points of which he explained to the silent Chaîne, the only one who listened to him;...

Shortly after this meeting, and towards the middle of August, Sandoz devised a real excursion which would take up a whole day. He had met Dubuche--Dubuche, careworn and mournful...

Claude, who was delighted, at first made a study, a simple academic study, in the attitude required for his picture. They waited until Jacques had gone to school, and the sittin...

After that Henriette and Sandoz, who were in consternation, witnessed the rout of their menu. The truffle salad, the ice, the dessert, everything was swallowed without being at...

‘Why, nothing at all, old man,’ answered Sandoz, seating himself more comfortably on the cushions. ‘His letter is idiotic. He is just finishing his law studies, and he will inhe...

It was only at this period that the idea of marrying Christine came to Claude. Though yielding to the advice of Sandoz, who expressed his surprise at the prolongation of an irre...

The belated customer rose up, shivering, fumbled in the dark corner where he was seated for his walking-stick, and when the waiter had picked it up for him from under the seats...

While Christine, preparing lunch, turned the house up-side down, Claude retained Sandoz in the studio. In a few words he told him the whole of the story, who she was, how they h...

The hearse slowly ascended the steep thoroughfare which winds round the flanks of the height of Montmartre; and now and then cross streets, sloping downward, sudden gaps amid th...

‘What a fool you are,’ replied Jory, in a burst of exalted conviction. ‘That’s what I call success. Does it matter a curse if they laugh? We have made our mark; to-morrow every...

What did he want to do then, since his tired fingers were no longer able to grasp the brush? He did not know, but, however powerless he might be, he was gnawed by a mad craving...

That delicate attention on Christine’s part, that fresh and fragrant lilac, affected him greatly, as if presaging a happy day. Still in his nightshirt, with his feet bare, he pl...

The others laughed; and lowering his voice he told them about the girl, who was named Irma Bécot. She was the daughter of a grocer in the Rue Montorgueil, and had been to school...

‘Bah! what does it matter? Well, there’s nothing hereafter. We are even madder than the fools who kill themselves for a woman. When the earth splits to pieces in space like a dr...

But Claude felt colder in the shop than outside. He kept the collar of his coat turned up, and plunged his hands deep into his pockets; shivering before the dripping moisture of...

Claude, who had stepped back as far as the wall, remained leaning against it, and gazing at his work. Seeing which, Sandoz, overcome by fatigue, left the couch and joined him. T...

‘True, I work. I work out my books to their last pages--But if you only knew, if I told you amidst what discouragement, amidst what torture! Won’t those idiots take it into thei...

At other times, Christine, when questioned by Claude about Clermont, forgot those sorrows to recall more cheerful memories. She laughed gaily at the idea of their encampment, as...

Claude, who had looked and listened, was overwhelmed with sadness. The crush was still increasing, he now had nought before him but faces gaping and sweating in the heat, which...

‘Yes, yes, I had made up my mind; but I had not seen it as I saw it just now in the waning daylight. I have failed with it, failed with it again--it struck my eyes like a blow,...

Sandoz had at last obtained two cups of coffee, and as the waiter had forgotten to bring any sugar, he had to content himself with some pieces which a party had left on an adjoi...

Then Claude began to look for his own picture. He tried to find his way by means of the initial letters inscribed above the entrances of the galleries, but made a mistake, and w...

It was highly amusing to hear him speak of the famous Naudet, full of disdain for the millions turned over by that speculator, ‘millions that would some day fall upon his nose,’...

He was small and thin, with a bony face, already wrinkled at twenty-seven. His black mane-like hair lay entangled over his very low forehead, and his sallow mask, ugly almost to...

To tell the truth, there was constant hostility between Bongrand and the President of the hanging committee, Mazel, a famous master of the School of Arts, and the last rampart o...

This ‘Village Wedding’--a party of wedding guests roaming through a corn-field, peasants studied from life, with an epic look of the heroes of Homer about them--had so far remai...