FullReads

“That’s your portrait?” he asked, with a toss of his head.

I assented with dignity.

“It’s bad, bad, bad!” he cried. “Excuse my frankness, but it’s really too bad. it’s a waste of colours, of money, of time. ”

His frankness certainly was extreme; but his words had an accent of ardent conviction which doesn’t belong to commonplace impertinence. “I don’t know who you are, that I should value your opinion,” I said.

“Who I am? I’m an artist, mademoiselle. If I had money to buy visiting-cards, I would present you with one. But I haven’t even money to buy colours——hardly to buy bread. I’ve talent——I’ve imagination—too much!——I’ve ideas——I’ve promise——I’ve a future; and yet the machine won’t work——for want of fuel! I have to roam about with my hands in my pockets——to keep them warm——for want of the very tools of my trade. I’ve been a fool——an ignoble fool; I’ve thrown precious hours to the dogs and made enemies of precious friends. Six months ago I quarrelled with the père Martinet, who believed in me and would have been glad to keep me. Il faut que jeunesse se passé! Mine has passed at a rattling pace, ill-mounted though it was; we have parted company forever. Now I only ask to do a man’s work with a man’s will. Meanwhile the père Martinet, justly provoked, has used his tongue so well that not a colourman in Paris will trust me. There’s a situation! And yet what could I do with ten francs worth of paint? I want a room and light and a model, and a dozen yards of satin tumbling about her feet. Bah! I shall have to want! There are things I want more. Behold the force of circumstances. I’ve come back with my pride in my pocket to make it up with the venerable author of the ‘Apotheosis of Moliére’, and ask him to lend me a louis. ”

I arrested this vehement effusion by informing him that M. Martinet was out of town, and that for the present the studio was private. But he seemed too much irritated to take my hint. “That’s not his work?” he went on, turning to the portrait. “Martinet is bad, but is not as bad as that. Quel genre! You deserve, mademoiselle, to be better treated; you’re an excellent model. Excuse me, once for all; I know I’m atrociously impudent. But I’m an artist,. and I find it pitiful to see a fine great canvas besmeared in such a fashion as that! There ought to be a society for the protection of such things. ”

I was at loss what to reply to this extraordinary explosion of contempt. Strange to say——it’s the literal truth——I was neither annoyed nor disgusted; I simply felt myself growing extremely curious. This impudent little Bohemian was forcing me somehow to respect his opinion; he spoke with penetrating authority. Don’t say that I was willing to be convinced; if you had been there, you would have let. him speak. It would have been, of course, the part of propriety to request him in a chilling voice to leave the room, or to ring for the concierge, or to flee in horror. I did none of these things: I went back to the picture, and tried hard to see something in it which would make me passionately contradict him. But it seemed to exhale a mortal chill, and all I could say was: “Bad——bad? How bad?”

“Ridiculously bad; impossibly bad! You’re an angel of charity, mademoiselle, not to see it!”

“Is it weak——cold——ignorant?”

“Weak, cold, ignorant, stiff, empty, hopeless! And, on top of all, pretentious——oh, pretentious as the façade of the Madeleine!”