"No, that's old fashioned. I must model a profound statue out of nothing, like poetry and glory."
"Bravo! Bravo!" cried Tristouse clapping her hands, "A statue out of nothing, empty, that's lovely, and when will you make it?"
"Tomorrow, if you wish; we shall go and dine, pass the night together, and in the morning we shall go to the Meudon woods where I shall make this profound statue."
* * *
No sooner said, than done. They went and dined with the élite of the Montmartre, returned to sleep at midnight and on the next morning at nine o'clock, after having armed himself with a pick-axe, a spade, a shovel and some boasting-chisels, they took the road for the pretty Meudon woods, where they met the Prince of Poets, accompanied by his little friend, quite happy over the pleasant days he had spent in the City-prison.
In the clearing, the Bird of Benin set to work. In a few hours he had dug a trench of about a meter and a half in breadth and two in depth.
Then they had lunch on the grass.
The afternoon was devoted by the Bird of Benin to sculpturing the interior of the monument to Croniamantal.
On the following day, the sculptor came back with workingmen who fixed up an armed cement wall, six inches broad on top, and eighteen inches broad at the base, so that the empty space had the form of Croniamantal, and the hole was full of his spectre.
* * *