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Updated: May 15, 2025
Insensibly all this faded away, the bats commenced their rapid course, and I retired to my mattress in sweet peace and tranquillity. The old curiosity seller, Toubac, knew the way to my little lodging as well as I did, and was not afraid to climb the ladder.
The affair was soon concluded, and Toubac, well satisfied, descended the ladder, entreating me to think no more of the student of Heidelberg. I would gladly have followed my good friend's counsel; but, when the devil once mixes himself up in our concerns, it is not easy to disembarrass ourselves of him. In my solitary hours all these events were reproduced with frightful distinctness in my mind.
At the slightest sound I raised my slate; my curiosity was without limit, insatiable. Toubac complained greatly. "Master Christian," said he, "how in the devil do you pass your time? Formerly you painted something for me every week; now you do not finish a piece once a month. Oh, you painters! 'Lazy as a painter' is a good, wise proverb.
I said to myself, in a sort of stupor. My faith, it was the height of folly in me to be interested in her! However, I would like to see her grimace again; old Toubac would willingly give me fifteen florins if I could paint it for him. I must confess that these pleasantries of mine did not entirely reassure me. The hideous glance which the old shrew had given me pursued me everywhere.
I was seated upon my one chair, my hands clasped upon my knees, and my eyes fixed before me. Toubac, surprised at my inattention, repeated in a louder voice: "Master Christian, Master Christian!" Then, striding over the sill, he advanced and struck me on the shoulder. "Well, well, what is the matter now?" "Ah, is that you, Toubac?" "Eh, parbleu! I rather think so; are you ill?"
More than once, while climbing the almost perpendicular ladder to my loft, feeling my clothing caught on some point, I trembled from head to foot, imagining that the old wretch was hanging to the tails of my coat in order to destroy me. Toubac, to whom I related this adventure, was far from laughing at it; indeed, he assumed a grave and solemn air.
The window opposite was still open; the end of a rope floated from the crossbeam. I had not dreamed. I had, indeed, seen the butterfly of the night; I had seen the man hanging, and I had seen Fledermausse. That day Toubac made me a visit, and, as his great nose appeared on a level with the floor, he exclaimed: "Master Christian, have you nothing to sell?" I did not hear him.
"You are right," said Toubac, astonished at the violence of my excitement. "We will speak of other things. Apropos, Master Christian, where is our landscape of 'Saint Odille'?" This question brought me back to the world of realities. I showed the old man the painting I had just completed.
Then his great back, seeming to elongate, grew up, even to the roof, and the good man laughed silently. I must do justice to Toubac: he never haggled with me about prices; he bought all my paintings at fifteen florins, one with the other, and sold them again for forty each. "This was an honest Jew!" I began to grow fond of this mode of existence, and to find new charms in it day by day.
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