“Yet we really must give three or four dinners to our good political friends,” said M. Martin-Belleme.  “We shall invite some of the ancient radicals to meet the people of our circle.  It will be well to find some pretty women.  We might invite Madame Berard de la Malle; there has been no gossip about her for two years.  What do you think of it?”

“But, my dear, since I am to go next week—­”

This filled him with consternation.

They went, both silent and moody, into the drawing-room, where Paul Vence was waiting.  He often came in the evening.

She extended her hand to him.

“I am very glad to see you.  I am going out of town.  Paris is cold and bleak.  This weather tires and saddens me.  I am going to Florence, for six weeks, to visit Miss Bell.”

M. Martin-Belleme then lifted his eyes to heaven.

Vence asked whether she had been in Italy often.

“Three times; but I saw nothing.  This time I wish to see, to throw myself into things.  From Florence I shall take walks into Tuscany, into Umbria.  And, finally, I shall go to Venice.”

“You will do well.  Venice suggests the peace of the Sabbath-day in the grand week of creative and divine Italy.”

“Your friend Dechartre talked very prettily to me of Venice, of the atmosphere of Venice, which sows pearls.”

“Yes, at Venice the sky is a colorist.  Florence inspires the mind.  An old author has said:  ’The sky of Florence is light and subtle, and feeds the beautiful ideas of men.’  I have lived delicious days in Tuscany.  I wish I could live them again.”

“Come and see me there.”

He sighed.

The newspaper, books, and his daily work prevented him.

M. Martin-Belleme said everyone should bow before such reasons, and that one was too happy to read the articles and the fine books written by M. Paul Vence to have any wish to take him from his work.

“Oh, my books!  One never says in a book what one wishes to say.  It is impossible to express one’s self.  I know how to talk with my pen as well as any other person; but, after all, to talk or to write, what futile occupations!  How wretchedly inadequate are the little signs which form syllables, words, and phrases.  What becomes of the idea, the beautiful idea, which these miserable hieroglyphics hide?  What does the reader make of my writing?  A series of false sense, of counter sense, and of nonsense.  To read, to hear, is to translate.  There are beautiful translations, perhaps.  There are no faithful translations.  Why should I care for the admiration which they give to my books, since it is what they themselves see in them that they admire?  Every reader substitutes his visions in the place of ours.  We furnish him with the means to quicken his imagination.  It is a horrible thing to be a cause of such exercises.  It is an infamous profession.”

“You are jesting,” said M. Martin-Belleme.