Page:The Yellow Book - 04.djvu/129

Rh figure of the Christ standing in the chastened light at the far end of the studio. There had been a slight rattling sound—a curtain had been drawn, and then the beautiful form had stepped out and stood before them—the very type of manhood Christ had chosen, if pictures may be trusted, when He came to this earth: the pure forehead, the patient sorrowful eyes, reproach in the expression of the eyebrows and the mouth, the young beard and brown soft hair—in a word, the Nazarene.

When Dufour raised a wavering arm, and with a smile of drunken intelligence exclaimed, "Ah, c'est mon Jésus-Christ! Bonsoir, monsieur!" a renewed shiver of apprehension went round among the madly frightened people. Then he rose, throwing off a cowering woman, staggering a little, holding to his chair, and turned to address to his guests a mock speech of introduction:

"Mesdames et Messieurs, je vous presente mon modèle, l'excellent Ladislas!"

When he had declaimed thus, rising superior to a thickened stammer, "La Coquelicotte," as the orange lady had at once been named, bounded from her chair with a scream. It was the signal for a lightning change of emotion: the hysterics rose to an abandoned shout of uncontrollable laughter; the moaning woman raised her head; the men banged the table and exclaimed according to their mood. One caught a handful of green stuff from a vase that had already been knocked over, and dashed them to the ground in front of the rock-still white figure. The dark-haired woman—Wladislaw had not recognised her, and she wore shoes this time—laid her swollen hand upon Dufour's shoulder and cried harshly, "Va, Toni! Monsieur a besoin d'un àne!"

More screams greeted this pleasantry, and "La Coquelicotte"