the herbalist's shop delayed them for a moment. Between its windows,
decked with enemas, bandages, and similar things, beneath the dried
herbs hanging above the doorway, whence came a constant aromatic
smell, a thin, dark woman stood taking stock of them, while, behind
her, in the gloom of the shop, one saw the vague silhouette of a
little sickly-looking man, who was coughing and expectorating. The
friends nudged each other, their eyes lighted up with bantering mirth;
and then they turned the handle of Mahoudeau's door.

The shop, though tolerably roomy, was almost filled by a mass of clay:
a colossal Bacchante, falling back upon a rock. The wooden stays bent
beneath the weight of that almost shapeless pile, of which nothing but
some huge limbs could as yet be distinguished. Some water had been
spilt on the floor, several muddy buckets straggled here and there,
while a heap of moistened plaster was lying in a corner. On the
shelves, formerly occupied by fruit and vegetables, were scattered
some casts from the antique, covered with a tracery of cinder-like
dust which had gradually collected there. A wash-house kind of
dampness, a stale smell of moist clay, rose from the floor. And the
wretchedness of this sculptor's studio and the dirt attendant upon the
profession were made still more conspicuous by the wan light that
filtered through the shop windows besmeared with whitening.

'What! is it you?' shouted Mahoudeau, who sat before his female
figure, smoking a pipe.

He was small and thin, with a bony face, already wrinkled at
twenty-seven. His black mane-like hair lay entangled over his very low
forehead, and his sallow mask, ugly almost to ferociousness, was
lighted up by a pair of childish eyes, bright and empty, which smiled