“Not at all.  I am considered to be ignorant—­No, I have a plan to decorate in a uniform way, all the mayors’ offices in Paris and I want to propose it to him—­The Modern Marriage, an allegorical treatment!—­Law Imposing Duty on Love.  Something noble, full of expression, moralizing.  Art that will set people thinking, for the contemplation of lofty works can alone improve the morals and the masses—­You understand?”

“Perfectly.  You want a commission!”

“Ah! that’s a contemptible word, hold!  A commission!  Is a true artist commissioned?  He obeys his inspiration, he follows his ideal—­A commission! a commission!  Ugh!—­On my word, you would break the wings of faith!  Little one, have you any of that double zero Kummel left, that you had the other day?”

Marianne sought to spare Sulpice the importunities of her uncle.  She wished to keep the minister’s entire influence for herself.

She had nothing to fear, moreover.  Sulpice was hers as fully as she believed.  Like so many others who have lived without living, Sulpice did not know woman, and Marianne was ten times a woman, woman-child, woman-lover, woman-courtesan, woman-girl, and every day and every night she appeared to her lover renewed and surprising, freshly created for passion and pleasure.  Everything about her, even the frame that surrounded her beauty, the dwelling, perfumed with passionate love, distractedly captivated Sulpice.  Behind the dense curtains in the dressing-room upholstered like a boudoir, with its carpet intended only for naked feet, as the reclining chair with its extra covering of Oriental silk was adapted to moments of languishing repose, Sulpice saw and contemplated the vast wardrobe with its three mirrors reflecting the huge marble washstand with its silver spigots, its silver bowl, wherein the scented water gleamed opal-like with its perfumes, the gas illuminating the brushes decorated with monograms, standing out against the white marble, the manicure sets of fine steel, the dark-veined tortoise-shell combs, the coquettish superfluity of scissors and files scattered about amongst knickknacks, inlaid enamels, and Japanese ivory ornaments, and there, stretched out and watching Marianne, who came and went before him with a smile on her face, her hair unfastened, sometimes with bare shoulders, Sulpice saw, through a half-open door in the middle of a bathroom floored with blue Delft tiles, the bath that steamed with a perfumed vapor, odorous of thyme, and the water which was about to envelop in its warm embrace that rosy form that displayed beneath the lights and under the full blaze of the gas, the nudity of her flesh beneath a transparent Surah chemise, silky upon the living silk.