In the Days of My Youth Part 49

"I do."

"Good--don't look at him again, for fear of attracting his attention. I have been trying for the last half hour to get a sketch of his head, but I think he suspected me. Anyhow he moved so often, and so hid his face with his hands and the newspaper, that I was completely baffled. Now it is a remarkable head--just the head I have been wanting for my Marshal Romero--and if, with your rapid pencil and your skill in seizing expression, you could manage this for me...."

"I will do my best," said Muller.

"A thousand thanks. I will go now; for when I am gone he will be off his guard. You will find me in the den up to three o'clock. Adieu."

Saying which, the stranger pa.s.sed on, and went out.

"That's Flandrin!" said Muller.

"Really?" I said. "Flandrin! And you know him?"

But in truth I only answered thus to cover my own ignorance; for I knew little at that time of modern French art, and I had never even heard the name of Flandrin before.

"Know him!" echoed Muller. "I should think so. Why, I worked in his studio for nearly two years."

And then he explained to me that this great painter (great even then, though as yet appreciated only in certain choice Parisian circles, and not known out of France) was at work upon a grand historical subject connected with the Spanish persecutions in the Netherlands--the execution of Egmont and Horn, in short, in the great square before the Hotel de Ville in Brussels.

"But the main point now," said Muller, "is to get the sketch--and how?

Confound the fellow! while he keeps his back to the light and his head down like that, the thing is impossible. Anyhow I can't do it without an accomplice. You must help me."

"I! What can I do?"

"Go and sit near him--speak to him--make him look up--keep him, if possible, for a few minutes in conversation--nothing easier."

"Nothing easier, perhaps, if I were you; but, being only myself, few things more difficult!"

"Nevertheless, my dear boy, you must try, and at once. Hey --presto!--away!"

Placed where we were, the stranger was not likely to have observed us; for we had come into the room from behind the corner in which he was sitting, and had taken our places at a table which he could not have seen without s.h.i.+fting his own position. So, thus peremptorily commanded, I rose; slipped quietly back into the inner salon, made a pretext of looking at the clock over the door; and came out again, as if alone and looking for a vacant seat.

The table at which he had placed himself was very small--only just big enough to stand in a corner and hold a plate and a coffee-cup; but it was supposed to be large enough for two, and there were evidently two chairs belonging to it. On one of these, being alone, the stranger had placed his overcoat and a small black bag. I at once saw and seized my opportunity.

"Pardon, Monsieur," I said, very civilly, "will you permit me to hang these things up?"

He looked up, frowned, and said abruptly:--

"Why, Monsieur?"

"That I may occupy this chair."

He glanced round; saw that there was really no other vacant; swept off the bag and coat with his own hands; hung them on a peg overhead; dropped back into his former att.i.tude, and went on reading.

"I regret to have given you the trouble, Monsieur," I said, hoping to pave the way to a conversation.

But a little quick, impatient movement of the hand was his only reply.

He did not even raise his head. He did not even lift his eyes from the paper.

I called for a demi-ta.s.se and a cigar; then took out a note-book and pencil, a.s.sumed an air of profound abstraction, and affected to become absorbed in calculations.

In the meanwhile, I could not resist furtively observing the appearance of this man whom a great artist had selected as his model for one of the darkest characters of mediaeval history.

He was rather below than above the middle height; spare and sinewy; square in the shoulders and deep in the chest; with close-clipped hair and beard; grizzled moustache; high cheek-bones; stern impa.s.sive features, sharply cut; and deep-set restless eyes, quick and glancing as the eyes of a monkey. His face, throat, and hands were sunburnt to a deep copper-color, as if cast in bronze. His age might have been from forty-five to fifty. He wore a thread-bare frock-coat b.u.t.toned to the chin; a stiff black stock revealing no glimpse of s.h.i.+rt-collar; a well-worn hat pulled low over his eyes; and trousers of dark blue cloth, worn very white and s.h.i.+ny at the knees, and strapped tightly down over a pair of much-mended boots.

The more I looked at him, the less I was surprised that Flandrin should have been struck by his appearance. There was an air of stern poverty and iron resolution about the man that arrested one's attention at first sight. The words "_ancien militaire"_ were written in every furrow of his face; in every seam and on every b.u.t.ton of his shabby clothing. That he had seen service, missed promotion, suffered unmerited neglect (or, it might be, merited disgrace), seemed also not unlikely.

Watching him as he sat, half turned away, half hidden by the newspaper he was reading, one elbow resting on the table, one brown, sinewy hand supporting his chin and partly concealing his mouth, I told myself that here, at all events, was a man with a history--perhaps with a very dark history. What were the secrets of his past? What had he done? What had he endured? I would give much to know.

My coffee and cigar being brought, I asked for the _Figaro_, and holding the paper somewhat between the stranger and myself, watched him with increasing interest.

I now began to suspect that he was less interested in his own newspaper than he appeared to be, and that his profound abstraction, like my own, was a.s.sumed. An indefinable something in the turn of his head seemed to tell me that his attention was divided between whatever might be going forward in the room and what he was reading. I cannot describe what that something was; but it gave me the impression that he was always listening. When the outer door opened or shut, he stirred uneasily, and once or twice looked sharply round to see what new-comer entered the cafe. Was he anxiously expecting some one who did not come? Or was he dreading the appearance of some one whom he wished to avoid? Might he not be a political refugee? Might he not be a spy?

"There is nothing of interest in the papers to-day, Monsieur," said, making another effort to force him into conversation.

He affected not to hear me.

I drew my chair a little nearer, and repeated the observation.

He frowned impatiently, and without looking up, replied:--

"_Eh, mon Dieu_, Monsieur!--when there is a dearth of news!"

"There need not, even so, be a dearth of wit. _Figaro_ is as heavy to-day as a government leader in the _Moniteur_."

He shrugged his shoulders and moved slightly round, apparently to get a better light upon what he was reading, but in reality to turn still more away from me. The gesture of avoidance was so marked, that with the best will in the world, it would have been impossible for me to address him again. I therefore relapsed into silence.

Presently I saw a sudden change flash over him.

Now, in turning away from myself, he had faced round towards a narrow looking-gla.s.s panel which reflected part of the opposite side of the room; and chancing, I suppose, to lift his eyes from the paper, he had seen something that arrested his attention. His head was still bent; but I could see that his eyes were riveted upon the mirror. There was alertness in the tightening of his hand before his mouth--in the suspension of his breathing.

Then he rose abruptly, brushed past me as if I were not there, and crossed to where Muller, sketch-book in hand, was in the very act of taking his portrait.

I jumped up, almost involuntarily, and followed him. Muller, with an unsuccessful effort to conceal his confusion, thrust the book into his pocket.

"Monsieur," said the stranger, in a low, resolute voice, "I protest against what you have been doing. You have no right to take my likeness without my permission."

"Pardon, Monsieur, I--I beg to a.s.sure you--" stammered Muller.

"That you intended no offence? I am willing to suppose so. Give me up the sketch, and I am content."

"Give up the sketch!" echoed Muller.

"Precisely, Monsieur."

"Nay--but if, as an artist, I have observed that which leads me to desire a--a memorandum--let us say of the pose and contour of a certain head," replied Muller, recovering his self-possession, "it is not likely that I shall be disposed to part from my memorandum."

"How, Monsieur! you refuse?"