They embraced. As always when they met, there was that similar look in their eyes, as in a mirror, the same dark cheer, and more cheerful still than dark for Corentin, but now for Collot more dark than cheerful. He was a little drunk as usuaclass="underline" the brandy, the shouting at the Jacobins, the self-assurance, the panache, the power, the fear, the compassionate zeal for the unfortunate that was for him a very strong and lasting liquor. But otherwise, he seemed to Corentin a bit changed; he had just returned from his long mission in Lyons, from the vertiginous proconsular heights, from the carnage; he had exercised absolute power unprotected, he had seen the abyss and the God of armies. The copper complexion was redder than usual, and mixed with the dark cheer was a kind of absence. Corentin saw all that very quickly, the three Jacobins were already at the table, breaking the bread and attacking the bacon; Proli had the best seat, in a prince’s or bishop’s richly colored armchair, the other two in chairs on either side; as he ate, Bourdon commented on the meeting at the Jacobins, in short, sibylline sentences that Corentin had trouble following, in which it was a question of Maximilien, of Camille who was done for, of Danton who was done for, of the Cordeliers who would not be pushed around, of the war, of fear, of power, of conflicting powers, of Robespierre again — this last name a little drawn out, as though falling from a cloud or emerging from a crypt; Collot sometimes nodded assent; Proli said nothing. They offered Corentin Clamart wine, which they were drinking from aristocratic glasses set there before their princes by the Sans Culottes. Whom Bourdon moreover soon ordered to be gone and added, as they were leaving, “Have this trash burned,” indicating the small sack of bones. Ducroquet, who had just stoked the fire, threw it into the bright flames, where it blazed and vanished in an instant like kindling. Ducroquet regarded it with a kind of melancholy or regret. “What are you waiting for?” asked Bourdon. The other man stood there foolishly for a moment, then let out a laugh and turned on his heels. Then the four Limousins on duty could be heard noisily seeing to the horses in the nave, then taking off under the vaults, and they were no longer there.
It was not Bourdon, it was Proli who spoke. He silenced Bourdon; he half turned toward Collot and asked him a brief question in a low voice, in which Corentin thought he heard the words confidence and secrecy. Yes, said Collot several times in a loud, firm voice. Proli looked at Corentin with that mixture of repulsion and respect that he often prompted, whether intentionally or not we do not know. He said: “Would you execute a commission, citizen painter?”
The question surprised and amused him. It also rejuvenated him.
He no longer really had private commissions. Not that he was unemployed, very much to the contrary: he was working for the Committee of the Arts, for the Nation, that is, for David, under David; under David’s orders he knocked off statues of liberty, scales of justice, red hats over Spartan skirts, commemorative plaques to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, odds and ends. They formed a team to do this, all of French painting or what remained of it: because David kept a cool head and needed manpower; and although he had ousted, imprisoned, and exiled all his direct rivals, those of his generation, the forty-year-olds, he had retained the old hands of the has-beens, Fragonard, Greuze, Corentin; and of course the lively hands and ambitious hunger of the young ones, Wicar, Gérard, Prud’hon, his assistants, small fry you had to keep an eye on like the plague. David, who feared Corentin because he was a master, also scorned him because he was old, Tiepolonian, obsolete; but he employed him; he knew that Corentin feared David more than David feared Corentin: because David sat on the Committee of General Security, so that he put his signature next to those of the eleven at the bottom of decrees, he had the ear of Robespierre — while his other ear and his sidelong glance somnambulistically lingered in Sparta, where his models, plans, and successive crazes came from, which Corentin executed with great seriousness and with irrepressible inner laughter.
“Would you execute a commission, citizen painter?”
Yes, he would — he might. He said so. He answered Proli without really looking at him, his glance shifting toward the bust of Marat, the two-cornered hats set before it like offerings, the fire, the wine. The fire was dying. Proli, prey to something more powerful than the annoyance and repulsion inspired in him by Corentin, regarded him with a cold intensity; neither Bourdon nor Collot spoke a word but regarded him with the same intense look. Corentin said (not to Proli but to the bust of Marat or to the fire) that his consent depended upon three things: if it was in his line of work, the wages, and the due date. Proli answered, his Flemish eyes losing none of their intense stupor, that so far as the delivery date was concerned, it was yesterday or tomorrow, that is, as soon as possible, days rather than weeks; from nowhere he pulled out a sack, opened it, and emptied it onto the table, a little beyond the empty plates, where the relics had been earlier: out spilled gold coins, piastres from Holland, Portuguese coins, ecus bearing the effigy of Louis, some three hundred judging from the looks of it, at a time when there was no more gold in France. Proli said that this was only the first payment for the painting, he would receive twice this amount upon delivery. Corentin thought to himself that this was nearly as much as for the large Marigny commission for the great hall at Louveciennes in the time of maman-putain, Jeanne Antoinette de Pompadour. His dark cheer increased: the wages were royal, the deadline tight, but at that time when he was painting very quickly, Corentin felt quite capable of knocking off some Fraternité or Égalité shrew in a couple of days. “And what am I to paint?” he asked. This time he looked squarely at Proli, as if Proli were a lackey. Proli looked at him the same way. In a sharp, fluty voice resembling Robespierre’s for a moment, Proli came out with it: “You know how to paint gods and heroes, citizen painter? It is an assembly of heroes that we ask of you. Paint them like gods or monsters, or even like men, if you like. Paint The Great Committee of Year II. The Committee of Public Safety. Do what you want with it: saints, tyrants, thieves, princes. But put them all together, at a real fraternal gathering, like brothers.”
There was a silence. The fire was dead, only the light from the great square lantern fell straight onto the spilled gold in the exact place where the old bones had rested earlier. The faces were in shadow. Suddenly from the other side of the wall in the Saint Nicolas church an invisible horse snorted violently and reared, its hooves could be heard falling back like hammers on the empty paving stones of the empty vessel; then it let out a tremendous trumpet blast. It seemed to be laughing. All four of them laughed as well. Still laughing, Corentin rose and calmly put the gold pieces back into the sack, tied the laces, took it. He said that his answer was yes.