Face to face with privations, he felt himself
a coward. He would not have accepted a day without bread, for the utmost
glory art could bestow. As he had said himself, he sent art to the
deuce, as soon as he recognised that it would never suffice to satisfy
his numerous requirements. His first efforts had been below mediocrity;
his peasant eyes caught a clumsy, slovenly view of nature; his muddy,
badly drawn, grimacing pictures, defied all criticism.
But he did not seem to have an over-dose of vanity for an artist; he was
not in dire despair when he had to put aside his brushes. All he really
regretted was the vast studio of his college chum, where he had been
voluptuously grovelling for four or five years. He also regretted the
women who came to pose there. Nevertheless he found himself at ease in
his position as clerk; he lived very well in a brutish fashion, and he
was fond of this daily task, which did not fatigue him, and soothed
his mind. Still one thing irritated him: the food at the eighteen sous
ordinaries failed to appease the gluttonous appetite of his stomach.
As Camille listened to his friend, he contemplated him with all the
astonishment of a simpleton.
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