And he pushed the notary in his evening coat into the street. At the end of five minutes, they had returned, one of them with the wax-candles and the other with the hoop of a cask. Then Romantin plunged his hand into a cupboard, and drew forth twenty empty bottles, which he fixed in the form of a crown around the hoop. He then went downstairs to borrow a ladder from the janitress, after having explained that he had made interest with the old woman by painting the portrait of her cat, exhibited on the easel. When he returned with the ladder, he said to M. Saval: “Are you active?” The other, without understanding, answered: “Why, yes.” “Well, you just climb up there, and fasten this chandelier for me to the ring of the ceiling. Then, you put a wax-candle in each bottle, and light it. I tell you I have a genius for lighting up. But off with your coat, damn it! You are just like a Jeames.” The door was opened brusquely. A woman appeared, her eyes flashing, and remained standing on the threshold. Romantin gazed at her with a look of terror. She waited some seconds, crossing her arms over her breast, and then in a shrill, vibrating, exasperated voice said: “Ha! you dirty scoundrel, is this the way you leave me?” Romantin made no reply. She went on: “Ha! you scoundrel! You did a nice thing in parking me off to the country. You'll soon see the way I'll settle your jollification. Yes, I'm going to receive your friends.” She grew warmer. “I'm going to slap their faces with the bottles and the wax-candles----” Romantin said in a soft tone: “Mathilde----” But she did not pay any attention to him; she went on: “Wait a little, my fine fellow! wait a little!” Romantin went over to her, and tried to take her by the hands. “Mathilde----” But she was now fairly under way; and on she went, emptying the vials of her wrath with strong words and reproaches. They flowed out of her mouth like, a stream sweeping a heap of filth along with it. The words pouring forth seemed struggling for exit. She stuttered, stammered, yelled, suddenly recovering her voice to cast forth an insult or a curse. He seized her hands without her having noticed it. She did not seem to see anything, so taken up was she in scolding and relieving her feelings. And suddenly she began to weep. The tears flowed from her eyes, but this did not stop her complaints. But her words were uttered in a screaming falsetto voice with tears in it and interrupted by sobs. She commenced afresh twice or three times, till she stopped as if something were choking her, and at last she ceased with a regular flood of tears. Then he clasped her in his arms and kissed her hair, affected himself. “Mathilde, my little Mathilde, listen. You must be reasonable. You know, if I give a supper-party to my friends, it is to thank these gentlemen for the medal I got at the Salon. I cannot receive women. You ought to understand that. It is not the same with artists as with other people.”