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And the housekeeper was furious at seeing so many people with dirty boots going up her stairs, and she would complain bitterly. And the proprietor would watch uneasily these meetings of anarchists, and make remarks. Watelet would contemplate leaving his flat: but that hurt him: he had his little whimsies: he was gentle and obstinate, and he put up with the proprietor's observations.
But with both Elsberger and Watelet he met with a polite but categorical refusal. These people seemed to make it a point of honor to bury themselves alive, each in his own mausoleum.
Thanks to him, though without any deliberate effort on his part, the Abbe Corneille and M. Watelet, two men who seemed very far indeed from understanding each other, made friends. Christophe used to borrow books from both of them and, with a want of ceremony which shocked Olivier, he used to lend their books in turn to the other.
His picture, "Felled Trees, Forest of Compiègne," received a medal, and was purchased by the Due d'Orleans. The following year the jury, presided over by Watelet, a justly forgotten painter, refused Rousseau's pictures, and from that time until 1849, when the overthrow of Louis Philippe had opened the Salon doors to all comers, no picture by Rousseau was exhibited at the Salon.
What a pity! Such a pretty girl, too!..." As though they had thought her deaf, or dumb, or soft in the head.... At first Aubert was abashed by the knowledge and distinguished manners of the priest and M. Watelet, and sat mum, listening intently to what they said. Then, little by little, he joined in the conversation, giving way to the naive pleasure that he found in hearing himself speak.
But Watelet was not to be put off, and went on explaining his system gently but firmly: Christophe could not find out anything about the rest of his life.
He met a tradesman, who told him that the tenant of the third floor, M. Watelet, had just died suddenly of angina pectoris. Christophe was filled with pity, not so much for his unhappy neighbor as for the child who was left alone in the world. M. Watelet was not known to have any relations, and there was every reason to believe that he had left the girl almost entirely unprovided for.
Watelet says that he saw four different drawings by him for the celebrated Temptation of St. Anthony. His drawings are also greatly admired and highly prized.
She was an orphan, the daughter of poor parents, whom Watelet had adopted when she was four or five, after the death of her father and mother in an epidemic. He had an almost boundless love for the poor, especially for poor children. It was a sort of mystic tenderness with him as with Vincent de Paul.
A book by Kropotkin, which had been borrowed from M. Watelet, and for different reasons had given great pleasure to all three of them, began the process of bringing them together. It chanced one evening that they met in Christophe's room.
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