Laurent became pensive. Several times he repeated mechanically: "Glory!"—then he knelt in front of the hearth, poking the fire as he was accustomed to do when he wished to be alone with himself. Thérèse went out to countermand the orders for her journey. She was well aware that Laurent would have followed her.
When she returned, she found him very calm and cheerful.
"This world is only a dull comedy," he said; "but why seek to rise above it, since we do not know what there may be higher up, or even if there is anything at all? Glory, at which you laugh in your sleeve, I know very well——"
"I do not laugh at other people's glory."
"What other people?"
"Those who believe in it and love it."
"God knows whether I believe in it, Thérèse, or whether I snap my fingers at it as a mere farce! But one can love a thing of which he knows the trifling value. You love a balky horse that breaks your neck, the tobacco that poisons you, a wretched play that makes you laugh, and glory, which is only a masquerade! Glory! what is glory to a living artist? Newspaper articles that tear you to pieces and make people talk about you, and laudatory articles that no one reads, for the public is amused only by bitter criticisms, and when its idol is praised to the skies it ceases to care for him at all. And then the groups that gather about a painted canvas, and the monumental orders which fill you with delight and ambition, and leave you half-dead with fatigue, with your ideal unrealized. And then—the Institute—a collection of men who detest you, and who themselves——"
Here Laurent indulged in the most intensely bitter sarcasms, and concluded his dithyramb by saying:
"No matter! such is the glory of this world! We spit upon it, but we cannot do without it, since there is nothing better!"
Their conversation was prolonged until evening, satirical, philosophical, and becoming gradually altogether impersonal. To look at them and listen to them, one would have said that they were two friends, naturally peaceable, who had never quarrelled. This strange situation had occurred several times in the midst of their fiercest storms: when their hearts were silent, their minds still understood each other and agreed.