He broke off, as he saw Julie turn away hastily and hasten toward the building. Angelica was about to follow, but she made a sign that she wanted to go alone, and hurriedly entered the house.
Inside, she listened for a moment at the door of the "saint-factory;" as all was quiet she knocked with a trembling hand and called Jansen's name. Immediately after the door opened, and he stood before her.
He was wrapped in his cloak, his hair hung disheveled about his temples, all the blood seemed to have left his face, and his eyes had neither a wild nor a sad look; but their tired, wandering gaze pained Julie more than the most passionate excitement.
"It is you!" he said. "You are a little too early for me. I, as you see--won't you come in? To be sure, it doesn't look very inviting here--I have been clearing out a little, and because I did it in the dark--"
She had to exert all her strength in order to cast an apparently composed look around the room.
"What harm have these innocent figures done you?" she asked, closing the door behind her.
"Innocent?--ha, ha! They only pretend to be so. In reality they all have the devil in them, in spite of their saints' halo. Not a single one of them is really innocent. I ought to know that best, for I made them. And I tell you, the reflection from the snow outside made it bright enough for me to see the lie grinning from these stupid faces. So I made an end of it and smashed them all to bits--another lie wiped out of the world. I have been doing things by halves long enough; the other half always avenges itself. Now I feel better again, especially since I have seen you."
He pressed her hand: his voice sounded hoarse and strained; his eyes were bloodshot. She had to forcibly keep down her tears, as she stepped over the wreck upon the floor.
"I am glad that it all lies behind you now," she said. "I can feel with you how it must pain you to make something in which your whole heart is not interested. But come away from this destruction. We will make a fire in the studio, and talk. Did you know that little Frances spent the night with me? The darling child! It was hard for me to give her back to the foster-mother. But then it won't be for long now."
He made no answer, but submissively allowed himself to be led away without raising his eyes from the ground. While she kindled the fire, he sat on the sofa, his arms hanging down between his knees, and began to hum a tune as if in accompaniment to the music made by the crackling flames in the iron stove. He did not appear to notice that she had again stepped to his side. It was not until she bent over, threw her arms round his neck, and, with the tears streaming down her face, kissed him again and again, that he became conscious of what was passing; and, even then, he seemed to see everything as if through a mist.