degree of calmness and resolution on being obliged to button up his coat. The wind seemingly swept from his clothes all the greasy odour of the pork shop, which had made him feel so languid. He was returning home when he met Claude Lantier. The artist, hidden in the folds of his greenish overcoat, spoke in a hollow voice full of suppressed anger. He was in a passion with painting, declared that it was a dog’s trade, and swore that he would not take up a brush again as long as he lived. That very afternoon he had thrust his foot through a study which he had been making of the head of that hussy Cadine. Claude was subject to these outbursts, the fruit of his inability to execute the lasting, living works which he dreamed of. And at such times life became an utter blank to him, and he wandered about the streets, wrapped in the gloomiest thoughts, and waiting for the morning as for a sort of resurrection. He used to say that he felt bright and cheerful in the morning, and horribly miserable in the evening.[*] Each of his days was a long effort ending in disappointment. Florent scarcely recognised in him the careless night wanderer of the markets. They had already met again at the pork shop, and Claude, who knew the fugitive’s story, had grasped his hand and told him that he was a sterling fellow. It was very seldom, however, that the artist went to the Quenus’. [*] Claude Lantier’s struggle for fame is fully described in M. Zola’s novel, _L’Oeuvre_ (“His Masterpiece”). —Translator. “Are you still at my aunt’s?” he asked. “I can’t imagine how you manage to exist amidst all that cookery. The places reeks with the smell of meat. When I’ve been there for an hour I feel as though I shouldn’t want anything to eat for another three days. I ought not to have gone there this morning; it was that which made me make a mess of my work.” Then, after he and Florent had taken a few steps in silence, he resumed: “Ah! the good people! They quite grieve me with their fine health. I had thought of painting their portraits, but I’ve never been able to succeed with such round faces, in which there is never a bone. Ah! You wouldn’t find my aunt Lisa kicking her foot through her pans! I was an idiot to have destroyed Cadine’s head! Now that I come to think of it, it wasn’t so very bad, perhaps, after all.” Then they began to talk about Aunt Lisa. Claude said that his mother[*] had not seen anything of her for a long time, and he hinted that the pork butcher’s wife was somewhat ashamed of her sister having married a common working man; moreover, she wasn’t at all fond of unfortunate folks. Speaking of himself, he told Florent that a benevolent gentleman had sent him to college, being very pleased with the donkeys and old women that he had managed to draw when only eight years old; but the good soul had died, leaving him an income of a thousand francs, which just saved him from perishing of hunger. [*] Gervaise, the heroine of the _Assommoir_.