Page:Crainquebille, Putois, Riquet and other profitable tales, 1915.djvu/112

 98 Monsieur Bergeret carefully readjusted it.

"And now how is it?"

"It hangs too much to the right."

Monsieur Bergeret did his best to bring the picture-frame into line with the horizon, and then drew back three steps in order to inspect his handiwork.

"I think it is right," he said.

"It is all right now ," said Zoé. "It worries me when a picture isn't straight."

"You are not the only one whom it worries, Zoé. There are many who feel like you. Any irregularity in simple matters is irritating because it is so easy to see the difference between what is and what ought to be. Some people cannot bear to see a badly hung wall-paper. The conditions of our humanity are indeed terrible and atrocious when a crooked picture frame upsets us."

"There is nothing extraordinary in that, Lucien. Little things occupy a large place in life. You yourself are constantly interested in trifles."

"All the years that I have been gazing at this potrait I have never remarked before what strikes me at this moment. I have just perceived that this portrait of our father is the portrait of a young man."

"Why, of course, Lucien. When the artist