Vaguely, Ventrillon removed the ruin from his head, and stared at it, stupefied. The crowd was wild with restrained excitement, but he heard not their whispers, or even their sudden, suppressed little outbursts of high-strung laughter. The portrait was destroyed. The Belletaille hated him. She had made him ridiculous. Tout Paris would reject him. There were now no future commissions on which to count. He was hungry, he had not a sou, and even the hat of eight reflections was a wreck in his hand.
Ventrillon reflected. This was his to-morrow, his to-morrow at Volland’s.
SEVENTH REFLECTION
But certain fierce and earnest words whispered in his ear with excited persistency began at last to penetrate the vacuum of his deadened brain. Puzzled, he turned to face the speaker.
A thin, blond young man with white eyelashes was begging anxiously:
“I’ll give you a hundred francs for that hat! I’ll give you two hundred! I’ll give you five hundred——”
Ventrillon blinked. Then his brain cleared, as does the atmosphere with lightning.
“No!” he thundered in a voice which filled the room. “Nom de dieu! No!” And Ventrillon was himself again.
“A chair!” he shouted. “Somebody find me a chair!”
Nobody knew what was going to happen next, but everybody was ready and delighted to do anything which might promote its happening. From somewhere a chair was passed over the heads of the crowd. Ventrillon mounted upon it.