by a few bribes of collaboration, crumbs that fall from the rich man's
table. They had been close friends since they both entered the law
school, where they were companions in folly rather than in study.
Marillac also had thrown himself into the arena of literature; then,
different fortunes having greeted the two friends' efforts, he had
descended little by little from the role of a rival to that of an
inferior. Marillac was an artist, talent accepted, from the tip of his
toes to the sole of his boots, which he wished to lengthen by pointed
toes out of respect for the Middle Ages; for he excelled above all things
in his manner of dressing, and possessed, among other intellectual
merits, the longest moustache in literature.

If he had not art in his brain, to make up for it he always had its name
at his tongue's end. Vaudeville writing or painting, poetry or music,
he dabbled in all these, like those horses sold as good for both riding
and driving, which are as bad in the saddle as in front of a tilbury.
He signed himself "Marillac, man of letters"; meanwhile, aside from his
profound disdain for the bourgeois, whom he called vulgar, and for the
French Academy, to which he had sworn never to belong, one could reproach
him with nothing. His penchant for the picturesque in expression was not
always, it is true, in the most excellent taste, but, in spite of these
little oddities, his unfortunate passion for art, and his affection for
the Middle Ages, he was a brave, worthy, and happy fellow, full of good
qualities, very much devoted to his friends, above all to Gerfaut. One
could, therefore, pardon him for being a pseudo-artist.

"Will your story be a long one?" said he to the playwright, when
Catherine had conducted them after supper to the double-bedded room,
where they were to pass the night.