The search for the proofs made by an assistant led to no results; there were no proofs.

“Exactly; and for several days I have thought of making some,” the photographer said.  “Because your day of glory will come, when your portrait will be in a distinguished place in the shop-windows and collections.  Every one talks of your ‘concours’.  Although I have abandoned medicine without the wish to return to it, I have not become indifferent to what concerns it, and I learned of your success.  Which portrait shall we put in circulation?  The old or the new?”

“The new.”

“Then let us arrange the pose.”

“Not to-day; it is only yesterday that I was shaved, fearing an attack of pelagre, and the skin covered by the beard has a crude whiteness that will accentuate the hardness of my physiognomy, which is really useless.  We will wait until the air has tanned me a little, and then I will return, I promise you.”

“How many proofs do you want of your old portrait?”

“One will do.”

“I will send you a dozen.”

“Do not take the trouble; I will take them when I come to pose.  But in the mean time, could you not show me the plate?”

“Nothing easier.”

When it was brought, Saniel took the glass plate with great care, holding it with the tips of his fingers by the two opposite corners, in order not to efface the portrait.  Then, as he was standing in the shadow of a blue curtain, he walked towards the chimney where the light was strong, and began his examination.

“It is very good,” he said; “very curious.”

“Only a photograph can have this documentary value.”

To compare this document with the reality, Saniel approached the chimney more closely, above which was a mirror.  When his feet touched the marble hearth he stopped, looking alternately at the plate which he held carefully in his hands, and at his face reflected in the glass.  Suddenly he made an exclamation; he let fall the plate, which, falling flat on the marble, broke into little pieces that flew here and there.

“How awkward I am!”

He showed a vexation that should not leave the smallest doubt in the photographer’s mind as to its truth.

“You must get one of the proofs that you have given away,” his friend said, “for I have not a single one left.”

“I will try and find one.”

What he did try to find on leaving was whether or no he had succeeded in rendering himself unrecognizable, for he could not trust to this experience, weakened by the fact that this old friend was a photographer.  With him it was a matter of business to note the typical traits that distinguish one face from another, and in a long practice he had acquired an accuracy Madame Dammauville could not possess.

Among the persons he knew, it seemed to him that the one in the best condition to give certainty to the proof was Madame Cormier.  He knew at this hour she would be alone, and as she had not been, assuredly, warned by her daughter that he intended to shave, the experiment would be presented in a way to give a result as exact as possible.