The servant was now handing round the undercut. They ate, and emptied the decanters; but their bitterness was so great that the best things were offered without being tasted, which distressed the master and mistress of the house.
‘Mushrooms, eh?’ the sculptor ended by repeating. ‘No, thanks.’ And he added: ‘The funny part of it all is, that Naudet is suing Fagerolles. Oh, quite so! he’s going to distrain on him. Ah! it makes me laugh! We shall see a pretty scouring in the Avenue de Villiers among all those petty painters with mansions of their own. House property will go for nothing next spring! Well, Naudet, who had compelled Fagerolles to build a house, and who furnished it for him as he would have furnished a place for a hussy, wanted to get hold of his nick-nacks and hangings again. But Fagerolles had borrowed money on them, so it seems. You can imagine the state of affairs; the dealer accuses the artist of having spoilt his game by exhibiting with the vanity of a giddy fool; while the painter replies that he doesn’t mean to be robbed any longer; and they’ll end by devouring each other—at least, I hope so.’
Gagnière raised his voice, the gentle but inexorable voice of a dreamer just awakened.
‘Fagerolles is done for. Besides, he never had any success.’
The others protested. Well, what about the hundred thousand francs’ worth of pictures he had sold a year, and his medals and his cross of the Legion of Honour? But Gagnière, still obstinate, smiled with a mysterious air, as if facts could not prevail against his inner conviction. He wagged his head and, full of disdain, replied:
‘Let me be! He never knew anything about chiaroscuro.’
Jory was about to defend the talent of Fagerolles, whom he considered to be his own creation, when Henriette solicited a little attention for the raviolis. There was a short slackening of the quarrel amid the crystalline clinking of the glasses and the light clatter of the forks. The table, laid with such fine symmetry, was already in confusion, and seemed to sparkle still more amid the ardent fire of the quarrel. And Sandoz, growing anxious, felt astonished. What was the matter with them all that they attacked Fagerolles so harshly? Hadn’t they all begun together, and were they not all to reach the goal in the same victory? For the first time, a feeling of uneasiness disturbed his dream of eternity, that delight in his Thursdays, which he had pictured following one upon another, all alike, all of them happy ones, into the far distance of the future. But the feeling was as yet only skin deep, and he laughingly exclaimed:
‘Husband your strength, Claude, here are the hazel-hens. Eh! Claude, where are you?’
Since silence had prevailed, Claude had relapsed into his dream, gazing about him vacantly, and taking a second help of raviolis without knowing what he was about; Christine, who said nothing, but sat there looking sad and charming, did not take her eyes off him. He started when Sandoz spoke, and chose a leg from amid the bits of hazel-hen now being served, the strong fumes of which filled the room with a resinous smell.
‘Do you smell that?’ exclaimed Sandoz, amused; ‘one would think one were swallowing all the forests of Russia.’