He was anxious to rush off to the ministry. Was the Chamber sitting to-day? No. He would perhaps then find Sulpice at his first call. The messengers knew him.
He speedily hastened to Place Bréda, looking for a carriage. On the way, he stumbled against a man who came down on the same side, smoking a cigar.
"Oh! Monsieur de Lissac!"
Guy instinctively stepped back one pace; he recognized Uncle Kayser. Then, suddenly, his anger, which up to that time he had been able to restrain, burst forth, and in a few words energetic and rapid, he told Simon, who remained bewildered and somewhat pale, as if one had tried to force a quarrel on him, what he thought of Marianne's infamy.
The uncle said nothing, regretted that he had met Lissac, and contented himself with stammering from time to time:
"She has done that?—What! she has done that?—Ah! the rogue."
"And what do you say about it, you, Simon Kayser?"
"I?—What do I say about it?—Why—"
Little by little he recovered his sang-froid, looking at matters from the lofty heights of his artist's philosophy.
"It is rather too strong. What do you want?—It is not even moral, but it has character! And in art, after the moral idea comes character! Ah! bless me! character, that is something!—Otherwise, I disapprove. It is brutal, vulgar, that lack of ideal. I defy you to symbolize that. Love Avenging Itself Against Love—Jealousy Calling the Police to Its Aid in Order to Triumph over Dead Love! It is old, it lacks originality, it smacks of Prud'hon!—The Correggio of the décolleté!—It is like Tassaert, it is of the sprightly kind!—I would never paint so, that is what I say about it!"