The idea of remaining by himself, of eating his heart out, disgusted
him. He would have gone straight to his friend, only he knew that the
latter must be at his office. Then the thought of Dubuche occurred to
him, but he hesitated, for their old friendship had lately been
cooling down. He felt that the fraternity of the earlier times of
effort no longer existed between them. He guessed that Dubuche lacked
intelligence, had become covertly hostile, and was occupied with
ambitions different from his own. However, he, Claude, must go
somewhere. So he made up his mind, and repaired to the Rue Jacob,
where the architect rented a small room on the sixth floor of a big
frigid-looking house.

Claude was already on the landing of the second floor, when the
doorkeeper, calling him back, snappishly told him that M. Dubuche was
not at home, and had, in fact, stayed out all night. The young man
slowly descended the stairs and found himself in the street,
stupefied, as it were, by so prodigious an event as an escapade on the
part of Dubuche. It was a piece of inconceivable bad luck. For a
moment he strolled along aimlessly; but, as he paused at the corner of
the Rue de Seine, not knowing which way to go, he suddenly recollected
what his friend had told him about a certain night spent at the
Dequersonniere studio--a night of terrible hard work, the eve of the
day on which the pupils' designs had to be deposited at the School of
Arts. At once he walked towards the Rue du Four, where the studio was
situated. Hitherto he had carefully abstained from calling there for
Dubuche, from fear of the yells with which outsiders were greeted. But
now he made straight for the place without flinching, his timidity
disappearing so thoroughly before the anguish of loneliness that he
felt ready to undergo any amount of insult could he but secure a
companion in misfortune.