‘Well, you may believe me if you like, but when a fellow’s almost starving it isn’t disagreeable to keep quiet. Yes, one gets numb amidst silence; it’s like an inside coating that stills the gnawing of the stomach a bit. Ah, that Chaîne! You haven’t a notion of his peasant nature. When he had spent his last copper without earning the fortune he expected by painting, he went into trade, a petty trade, which was to enable him to finish his studies. Isn’t the fellow a sharp ‘un, eh? And just listen to his plan. He had some olive oil sent to him from Saint-Firmin, his village, and then he tramped the streets and found a market for the oil among well-to-do families from Provence living in Paris. Unfortunately, it did not last. He is such a clod-hopper that they showed him the door on all sides. And as there was a jar of oil left which nobody would buy, well, old man, we live upon it. Yes, on the days when we happen to have some bread we dip our bread into it.’ Thereupon he pointed to the jar standing in a corner of the shop. Some of the oil having been spilt, the wall and the floor were darkened by large greasy stains. Claude left off laughing. Ah! misery, how discouraging it was! how could he show himself hard on those whom it crushed? He walked about the studio, no longer vexed at finding models weakened by concessions to middle-class taste; he even felt tolerant with regard to that hideous bust. But, all at once, he came across a copy that Chaîne had made at the Louvre, a Mantegna, which was marvellously exact in its dryness. ‘Oh, the brute,’ he muttered, ‘it’s almost the original; he’s never done anything better than that. Perhaps his only fault is that he was born four centuries too late.’ Then, as the heat became too great, he took off his over-coat, adding: ‘He’s a long while fetching his tobacco.’ ‘Oh! his tobacco! I know what that means,’ said Mahoudeau, who had set to work at his bust, finishing the whiskers; ‘he has simply gone next door.’ ‘Oh! so you still see the herbalist?’ ‘Yes, she comes in and out.’ He spoke of Mathilde and Chaîne without the least show of anger, simply saying that he thought the woman crazy. Since little Jabouille’s death she had become devout again, though this did not prevent her from scandalising the neighbourhood. Her business was going to wreck, and bankruptcy seemed impending. One night, the gas company having cut off the gas in default of payment, she had come to borrow some of their olive oil, which, after all, would not burn in the lamps. In short, it was quite a disaster; that mysterious shop, with its fleeting shadows of priests’ gowns, its discreet confessional-like whispers, and its odour of sacristy incense, was gliding to the abandonment of ruin. And the wretchedness had reached such a point that the dried herbs suspended from the ceiling swarmed with spiders, while defunct leeches, which had already turned green, floated on the tops of the glass jars.