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Updated: June 11, 2025
AS Claude could not paint his huge picture in the small studio of the Rue de Douai, he made up his mind to rent some shed that would be spacious enough, elsewhere; and strolling one day on the heights of Montmartre, he found what he wanted half way down the slope of the Rue Tourlaque, a street that descends abruptly behind the cemetery, and whence one overlooks Clichy as far as the marshes of Gennevilliers.
He had turned round and was making off, when she overtook him, and, pretending that she was frightened, begged that he would not leave her to climb up to Montmartre alone at that time of night. This consideration alone brought him back. He took her arm again; they ascended the Rue Blanche and the Rue Lepic, and at last found themselves in the Rue Tourlaque.
But Claude evoked the little fellow such as he had once been, and beheld him again over yonder in the country, so fresh and pinky, as he rolled about in the grass; then in the Rue de Douai, growing pale and stupid by degrees, and then in the Rue Tourlaque, no longer able to carry his head, and dying one night, all alone, while his mother was asleep; and he beheld her also, that mother, the sad woman who had stopped at home, to weep there, no doubt, as she was now in the habit of doing for entire days.
When Claude at last left the bridge, with stumbling steps, Christine had to pass in front and run in order to be home in the Rue Tourlaque before him. IT was nearly three o'clock when they went to bed that night, with the bitter cold November wind blowing through their little room and the big studio.
At last all the additions were centralised and the definite result proclaimed. Fagerolles was elected, coming fifteenth among forty, or five places ahead of Bongrand, who had been a candidate on the same list, but whose name must have been frequently struck out. And daylight was breaking when Claude reached home in the Rue Tourlaque, feeling both worn out and delighted.
There was room enough in the old drying-shed in the Rue Tourlaque still stained with the dyes of former days to afford accommodation for three people. Settling there was, nevertheless, a difficult affair; for however big the place was, it provided them, after all, with but one room. It was like a gipsy's shed, where everything had to be done in common.
They left the restaurant, roamed about the streets, and foundered again in the depths of a cafe, where they philosophised. They had come by degrees to raking up the memories of their childhood, and this ended by filling their hearts with sadness. One o'clock in the morning struck when they decided to go home. However, Sandoz talked of seeing Claude as far as the Rue Tourlaque.
When the third Salon drew nigh, there came a terrible crisis; he remained for a fortnight without going to his studio in the Rue Tourlaque, and when he did so, it was as to a house desolated by death. He turned the huge canvas to the wall and rolled his steps into a corner; he would have smashed and burned everything if his faltering hands had found strength enough.
As soon as Claude and Christine reached the Place de la Trinite on their way home, the painter let go of his wife's arm; and, stammering that he had to go somewhere, he begged her to return to the Rue Tourlaque without him. She had felt him shuddering, and she remained quite scared with surprise and fear. Somewhere to go at that hour past midnight! Where had he to go, and what for?
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