And it was not the love of drinking that attracted Citizen Regimbart to these places, but the inveterate habit of talking politics at such resorts. With advancing age, he had lost his vivacity, and now exhibited only a silent moroseness. One would have said, judging from the gravity of his countenence, that he was turning over in his mind the affairs of the whole world. Nothing, however, came from it; and nobody, even amongst his own friends, knew him to have any occupation, although he gave himself out as being up to his eyes in business.
Arnoux appeared to have a very great esteem for him. One day he said to Frederick:
“He knows a lot, I assure you. He is an able man.”
On another occasion Regimbart spread over his desk papers relating to the kaolin mines in Brittany. Arnoux referred to his own experience on the subject.
Frederick showed himself more ceremonious towards Regimbart, going so far as to invite him from time to time to take a glass of absinthe; and, although he considered him a stupid man, he often remained a full hour in his company solely because he was Jacques Arnoux’s friend.
After pushing forward some contemporary masters in the early portions of their career, the picture-dealer, a man of progressive ideas, had tried, while clinging to his artistic ways, to extend his pecuniary profits. His object was to emancipate the fine arts, to get the sublime at a cheap rate. Over every industry associated with Parisian luxury he exercised an influence which proved fortunate with respect to little things, but fatal with respect to great things. With his mania for pandering to public opinion, he made clever artists swerve from their true path, corrupted the strong, exhausted the weak, and got distinction for those of mediocre talent; he set them up with the assistance of his connections and of his magazine. Tyros in painting were ambitious of seeing their works in his shop-window, and upholsterers brought specimens of furniture to his house. Frederick regarded him, at the same time, as a millionaire, as a dilettante, and as a man of action. However, he found many things that filled him with astonishment, for my lord Arnoux was rather sly in his commercial transactions.
He received from the very heart of Germany or of Italy a picture purchased in Paris for fifteen hundred francs, and, exhibiting an invoice that brought the price up to four thousand, sold it over again through complaisance for three thousand five hundred. One of his usual tricks with painters was to exact as a drink-allowance an abatement in the purchase-money of their pictures, under the pretence that he would bring out an engraving of it. He always, when selling such pictures, made a profit by the abatement; but the engraving never appeared. To those who complained that he had taken an advantage of them, he would reply by a slap on the stomach. Generous in other ways, he squandered money on cigars for his acquaintances, “thee’d” and “thou’d” persons who were unknown, displayed enthusiasm about a work or a man; and, after that, sticking to his opinion, and, regardless of consequences, spared no expense in journeys, correspondence, and advertising. He looked upon himself as very upright, and, yielding to an irresistible impulse to unbosom himself, ingenuously told his friends about certain indelicate acts of which he had been guilty. Once, in order to annoy a member of his own trade who inaugurated another art journal with a big banquet, he asked Frederick to write, under his own eyes, a little before the hour fixed for the entertainment, letters to the guests recalling the invitations.
“This impugns nobody’s honour, do you understand?”
And the young man did not dare to refuse the service.
Next day, on entering with Hussonnet M. Arnoux’s office, Frederick saw through the door (the one opening on the staircase) the hem of a lady’s dress disappearing.
“A thousand pardons!” said Hussonnet. “If I had known that there were women — — “
“Oh! as for that one, she is my own,” replied Arnoux. “She just came in to pay me a visit as she was passing.”
“You don’t say so!” said Frederick.
“Why, yes; she is going back home again.”
The charm of the things around him was suddenly withdrawn. That which had seemed to him to be diffused vaguely through the place had now vanished — or, rather, it had never been there. He experienced an infinite amazement, and, as it were, the painful sensation of having been betrayed.
Arnoux, while rummaging about in his drawer, began to smile. Was he laughing at him? The clerk laid down a bundle of moist papers on the table.
“Ha! the placards,” exclaimed the picture-dealer. “I am not ready to dine this evening.”
Regimbart took up his hat.
“What, are you leaving me?”
“Seven o’clock,” said Regimbart.
Frederick followed him.
At the corner of the Rue Montmartre, he turned round. He glanced towards the windows of the first floor, and he laughed internally with self-pity as he recalled to mind with what love he had so often contemplated them. Where, then, did she reside? How was he to meet her now? Once more around the object of his desire a solitude opened more immense than ever!
“Are you coming to take it?” asked Regimbart.
“To take what?”
“The absinthe.”
And, yielding to his importunities, Frederick allowed himself to be led towards the Bordelais smoking-divan. Whilst his companion, leaning on his elbow, was staring at the decanter, he was turning his eyes to the right and to the left. But he caught a glimpse of Pellerin’s profile on the footpath outside; the painter gave a quick tap at the windowpane, and he had scarcely sat down when Regimbart asked him why they no longer saw him at the office of L’Art Industriel.
“May I perish before ever I go back there again. The fellow is a brute, a mere tradesman, a wretch, a downright rogue!”
These insulting words harmonised with Frederick’s present angry mood. Nevertheless, he was wounded, for it seemed to him that they hit at Madame Arnoux more or less.
“Why, what has he done to you?” said Regimbart.
Pellerin stamped with his foot on the ground, and his only response was an energetic puff.
He had been devoting himself to artistic work of a kind that he did not care to connect his name with, such as portraits for two crayons, or pasticcios from the great masters for amateurs of limited knowledge; and, as he felt humiliated by these inferior productions, he preferred to hold his tongue on the subject as a general rule. But “Arnoux’s dirty conduct” exasperated him too much. He had to relieve his feelings.
In accordance with an order, which had been given in Frederick’s very presence, he had brought Arnoux two pictures. Thereupon the dealer took the liberty of criticising them. He found fault with the composition, the colouring, and the drawing — above all the drawing; he would not, in short, take them at any price. But, driven to extremities by a bill falling due, Pellerin had to give them to the Jew Isaac; and, a fortnight later, Arnoux himself sold them to a Spaniard for two thousand francs.
“Not a sou less! What rascality! and, faith, he has done many other things just as bad. One of these mornings we’ll see him in the dock!”
“How you exaggerate!” said Frederick, in a timid voice.
“Come, now, that’s good; I exaggerate!” exclaimed the artist, giving the table a great blow with his fist.
This violence