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By Root 922 0

to add that he was going to rent a little studio where he would go back to painting. He discoursed at length on the tedium of his job and the broad horizons that Art would open up for him. Now that he had some money and could try for success, he wanted to see if he might not be capable of doing great things. His speech on the subject merely concealed the fact that he urgently desired to go back to his former bohemian existence. Thérèse pursed her lips, without answering; she did not intend Laurent to waste the little fortune that guaranteed her freedom. When her husband pressed her, in order to obtain her consent, she replied with a few curt answers and gave him to understand that if he left his office, he would earn nothing more and would be entirely dependent on her. As she spoke, Laurent looked at her intently, which disturbed her. The refusal she was about to make stopped in her throat. She thought that she could read this threat in her accomplice’s eyes: ‘If you don’t agree, I’ll tell all.’ She began to stammer. At this, Mme Raquin exclaimed that her dear son’s wish was only too proper and that he must have the means to become a man of talent. The good woman spoiled Laurent as she had once spoiled Camille. She was entirely softened by the young man’s marks of affection towards her, she belonged to him and always took his side.

So it was decided that the artist would rent a studio and have a hundred francs a month for the various expenses that might arise. In that way the family budget was settled: the profits from the haberdashery business would pay the rent of the shop and the apartment, and almost cover the family’s day-to-day expenditure; Laurent would deduct the rent of his studio and his hundred francs a month out of the two thousand and a few hundred francs of income from the capital; and the rest of that income would go on whatever else they needed. In this way, they would not break into the capital. This made Thérèse a little easier, but she made her husband swear never to exceed the amount that had been allocated to him. And she told herself that, in any case, Laurent would not be able to draw on the forty thousand francs without her signature, promising herself that she would never sign any paper.

The very next day, Laurent rented a little studio that he had had his eye on for a month, at the bottom of the Rue Mazarine. He did not want to leave his work until he had a bolt-hole where he could spend his days in peace, away from Thérèse. At the end of the fortnight, he said farewell to his colleagues. Grivet was amazed by his departure. A young man, he kept saying, who had such a bright future before him, a young man who, in four years, had risen to a salary that he, Grivet, had taken twenty years to attain! Laurent astonished him even more when he told him that he was going to devote himself to painting.

At length, the artist moved into his studio. This was a kind of square attic, about five or six metres long and wide. The ceiling sloped abruptly, at a steep angle, with a wide window in it that threw a harsh white light on the floor and the blackish walls. The noise of the street did not reach up to this level. The room, silent, murky, with its window on the sky, seemed like a hole or a burial vault dug into grey clay. Laurent furnished this tomb as best he could. He brought two chairs with tattered cane seats, a table that he had to prop against the wall to prevent it sliding to the floor, an old kitchen cupboard, his paintbox and his old easel. The one luxury item in the place was a huge divan, which he bought from a secondhand dealer for thirty francs.

He waited for a fortnight without even thinking of picking up a brush. He would arrive between eight and nine o’clock, have a smoke, lie down on the divan and wait for noon, happy that it was morning and he still had long hours of daylight ahead of him. At twelve, he went out for lunch, then hastened back so that he could be alone and not have to look at Thérèse’s pale face any more. In this way he would digest his food, sleep and lounge around until