第52章

Do you remember, my dear Madame de Camps, that in 1831 you and I went together to the Beaux-Arts to see the exhibition of works which were competing for the Grand Prix in sculpture? The subject given out for competition was Niobe weeping for her children.Do you also remember my indignation at one of the competing works around which the crowd was so compact that we could scarcely approach it? The insolent youth had dared to turn that sacred subject into jest! His Niobe was infinitely touching in her beauty and grief, but to represent her children, as he did, by monkeys squirming on the ground in the most varied and grotesque attitudes, what a deplorable abuse of talent!--You tried in vain to make me see that the monkeys were enchantingly graceful and clever, and that a mother's blind idolatry could not be more ingeniously ridiculed; I held to the opinion that the conception was monstrous, and the indignation of the old academicians who demanded the expulsion of this intolerable work, seemed to me most justifiable.But the Academy, instigated by the public and by the newspapers, which talked of opening a subscription to send the young sculptor to Rome, were not of my opinion and that of their older members.The extreme beauty of the Niobe atoned for all the rest and the defamer of mothers saw his work crowned, in spite of an admonition given to him by the venerable secretary on the day of the distribution of the prizes.But, poor fellow! I excuse him, for I now learn that he never knew his mother.It was Dorlange, the poor abandoned child at Tours, the friend of Marie-Gaston.

From 1827 to 1831 the two friends were inseparable.Dorlange, regularly supplied with means, was a sort of Marquis d'Aligre; Gaston, on the contrary, was reduced to his own resources for a living, and would have lived a life of extreme poverty had it not been for his friend.But where friends love each other--and the situation is more rare than people imagine--all on one side and nothing on the other is a determining cause for association.So, without any reckoning between them, our two pigeons held in common their purse, their earnings, their pains, pleasures, hopes, in fact, they held all things in common, and lived but one life between the two.This state of things lasted till Dorlange had won the Grand Prix, and started for Rome.

Henceforth community of interests was no longer possible.But Dorlange, still receiving an ample income through his mysterious dwarf, bethought himself of making over to Gaston the fifteen hundred francs paid to him by the government for the "prix de Rome." But a good heart in receiving is more rare than the good heart that gives.

His mind being ulcerated by constant misfortune Marie-Gaston refused, peremptorily, what pride insisted on calling alms.Work, he said, had been provided for him by Daniel d'Arthez, one of our greatest writers, and the payment for that, added to his own small means, sufficed him.This proud rejection, not properly understood by Dorlange, produced a slight coolness between the two friends;nevertheless, until the year 1833, their intimacy was maintained by a constant exchange of letters.But here, on Marie-Gaston's side, perfect confidence ceased, after a time, to exist.He was hiding something; his proud determination to depend wholly on himself was a sad mistake.Each day brought him nearer to penury.At last, staking all upon one throw, he imprudently involved himself in journalism.