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She did not say that she had not seen Choulette since autumn, and that he neglected her with the capriciousness of a man not in society. "He has wit," she said, "fantasy, and an original temperament. He pleases me." And as he reproached her for having an odd taste, she replied: "I haven't a taste, I have tastes. You do not disapprove of them all, I suppose."
"Yes," said Dechartre, "the things we see at night are unfortunate remains of what we have neglected the day before. Dreams avenge things one has disdained. They are reproaches of abandoned friends. Hence their sadness." She was lost in dreams for a moment, then she said: "That is perhaps true." Then, quickly, she asked Choulette if he had finished the portrait of Misery on his stick.
"I wash my hands," he said, "of the evil that Madame Martin does or may do by her speech, or otherwise." And he rose, awkwardly, after Miss Bell, who took the arm of Professor Arrighi. In the drawing-room she said, while serving the coffee: "Monsieur Choulette, why do you condemn us to the savage sadness of equality? Why, Daphnis's flute would not be melodious if it were made of seven equal reeds.
But Choulette, whom the dryness of the Tuscan climate tired, regretted green Umbria and its humid sky. He recalled Assisi. He said: "There are woods and rocks, a fair sky and white clouds. I have walked there in the footsteps of good Saint Francis, and I transcribed his canticle to the sun in old French rhymes, simple and poor." Madame Martin said she would like to hear it.
"Oh, Monsieur Choulette," said Miss Bell, "this canticle goes up to heaven, like the hermit in the Campo Santo of Pisa, whom some one saw going up the mountain that the goats liked. I will tell you. The old hermit went up, leaning on the staff of faith, and his step was unequal because the crutch, being on one side, gave one of his feet an advantage over the other.
She did not know, and she did not have the heart to try to know. She would have to look through recesses of her mind which she preferred not to open. She murmured carelessly: "We long to be loved, and when we are loved we are tormented or worried." The day was finished in reading and thinking. Choulette did not reappear.
Dechartre was there, reciting verses of Dante, and looking at Florence: "At the hour when our mind, a greater stranger to the flesh..." Near him, Choulette, seated on the balustrade of the terrace, his legs hanging, and his nose in his beard, was still at work on the figure of Misery on his stick.
Why had she not thought of taking a stone of the pavilion wherein she had forgotten the world? A shout from Pauline drew her from her thoughts. Choulette, jumping from a bush, had suddenly kissed the maid, who was carrying overcoats and bags into the carriage. Now he was running through the alleys, joyful, his ears standing out like horns. He bowed to the Countess Martin.
O marvellous echo of your voice, holy Elizabeth of Hungary!" Madame Martin smiled. She thought that Choulette was mocking. But he denied the charge, indignantly, and Miss Bell said that Madame Martin was wrong. It was a fault of the French, she said, to think that people were always jesting. Then they reverted to the subject of art, which in that country is inhaled with the air.
His happiness made him afraid. They were already at table when Choulette appeared, with the face of an antique satyr. A terrible joy shone in his phosphorous eyes.
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