He found Toto dressed and in his atelier. He was looking at Sisera and Jael. Jael had the air and aspect of a stout housemaid nailing carpets down with energy.
“How could I have painted that beast?” asked Toto. “She is all flesh, she is an animal, she is like a bull-fighter in a skirt. Imagine a woman like that, and then imagine Célestin.”
“Are you going to remove these canvases to your new atelier?”
“Mon Dieu, no! I will remove nothing that reminds me of this place. I tell you what: I will make you a present of this picture. You can have the water-nymph too.”
“Thanks,” said Gaillard in an unenthusiastic voice. “I will not remove them at present; they would remind me too much of all the pleasant times that are gone. I feel very depressed this morning, Toto—I mean Désiré; one cannot get out of old habits in a hurry without shivering.”
He looked out of a side window and away over the roofs of Paris. The morning was sitting on the roofs pelting the city with roses; the city grumbled, Gaillard sighed.
“Oh, the good times, how they pass! Do you remember, Désiré, the night you won a thousand napoleons at the Grand Club? It is only a month ago, yet it seems a year.”
“The night we tied the two cats by the tail and hung them from a lamp-post? Where did De Mirecourt get those cats? He suddenly appeared with them. Do you remember the sergent-de-ville who tried to get them down?”
“I had forgotten the incident of the cats. I remember it dimly now—one was a tortoise-shell. Yes, those were pleasant times. Désiré, it is not too late to go back to them; consider your position well before you take this step.”
“Come,” said Toto, “I am going.”