"Oh, yes! that quack!"
He remembers, and I show him the portrait and facsimile.
He laughs sceptically, and remains quite calm and indifferent. That is all.
Some days later I am sitting with my mysterious friend, with our glasses of absinthe, on the terrace of the Café de Versailles, when a fellow in workman's clothes, with a malicious aspect, suddenly stops before the café, then rushes through the customers, and bawls at my friend in his loudest voice: "At last I have you, you sharper, who fleeced me! What is the meaning of it? First of all, you order a cross for thirty francs, and then you disappear. Son of a dog! Do you think a cross like that makes itself?"
He continued to rage. The café waiters vainly attempted to remove him; he threatened to fetch the police, while the unfortunate accused, motionless, dumb, and prostrate, like a condemned man, remained exposed to the gaze of a circle of artists who all knew him more or less. When the commotion was over, I asked him with a bewildered mind, as if I had witnessed a witches' sabbath: "What cross worth thirty francs? I don't understand a word of the business?"
"It was a model of Joan of Arc's cross which I was going to use for my picture of the crucified woman."
"He certainly was a devil, that workman."
After a pause, I continue: "It is odd, but one does not play unpunished either with the Cross or with Joan of Arc."
"You believe in them?"