His Masterpiece Part 34

Ah, life! a second span of life, who shall give it to me, that work may rob me of it again--that I may die of it once more?'

It had now become quite dark; the mother's rigid silhouette was no longer visible; the hoa.r.s.e breathing of the child sounded amidst the obscurity like a terrible and distant signal of distress, uprising from the streets. In the whole studio, which had become lugubriously black, the big canvas only showed a glimpse of pallidity, a last vestige of the waning daylight. The nude figure, similar to an agonising vision, seemed to be floating about, without definite shape, the legs having already vanished, one arm being already submerged, and the only part at all distinct being the trunk, which shone like a silvery moon.

After a protracted pause, Sandoz inquired:

'Shall I go with you when you take your picture?'

Getting no answer from Claude, he fancied he could hear him crying. Was it with the same infinite sadness, the despair by which he himself had been stirred just now? He waited for a moment, then repeated his question, and at last the painter, after choking down a sob, stammered:

'Thanks, the picture will remain here; I sha'n't send it.'

'What? Why, you had made up your mind?'

'Yes, yes, I had made up my mind; but I had not seen it as I saw it just now in the waning daylight. I have failed with it, failed with it again--it struck my eyes like a blow, it went to my very heart.'

His tears now flowed slow and scalding in the gloom that hid him from sight. He had been restraining himself, and now the silent anguish which had consumed him burst forth despite all his efforts.

'My poor friend,' said Sandoz, quite upset; 'it is hard to tell you so, but all the same you are right, perhaps, in delaying matters to finish certain parts rather more. Still I am angry with myself, for I shall imagine that it was I who discouraged you by my everlasting stupid discontent with things.'

Claude simply answered:

'You! what an idea! I was not even listening to you. No; I was looking, and I saw everything go helter-skelter in that confounded canvas. The light was dying away, and all at once, in the greyish dusk, the scales suddenly dropped from my eyes. The background alone is pretty; the nude woman is altogether too loud; what's more, she's out of the perpendicular, and her legs are badly drawn. When I noticed that, ah!

it was enough to kill me there and then; I felt life departing from me.

Then the gloom kept rising and rising, bringing a whirling sensation, a foundering of everything, the earth rolling into chaos, the end of the world. And soon I only saw the trunk waning like a sickly moon. And look, look! there now remains nothing of her, not a glimpse; she is dead, quite black!'

In fact, the picture had at last entirely disappeared. But the painter had risen and could be heard swearing in the dense obscurity.

'D--n it all, it doesn't matter, I'll set to work at it again--'

Then Christine, who had also risen from her chair, against which he stumbled, interrupted him, saying: 'Take care, I'll light the lamp.'

She lighted it and came back looking very pale, casting a glance of hatred and fear at the picture. It was not to go then? The abomination was to begin once more!

'I'll set to work at it again,' repeated Claude, 'and it shall kill me, it shall kill my wife, my child, the whole lot; but, by heaven, it shall be a masterpiece!'

Christine sat down again; they approached Jacques, who had thrown the clothes off once more with his feverish little hands. He was still breathing heavily, lying quite inert, his head buried in the pillow like a weight, with which the bed seemed to creak. When Sandoz was on the point of going, he expressed his uneasiness. The mother appeared stupefied; while the father was already returning to his picture, the masterpiece which awaited creation, and the thought of which filled him with such pa.s.sionate illusions that he gave less heed to the painful reality of the sufferings of his child, the true living flesh of his flesh.

On the following morning, Claude had just finished dressing, when he heard Christine calling in a frightened voice. She also had just woke with a start from the heavy sleep which had benumbed her while she sat watching the sick child.

'Claude! Claude! Oh, look! He is dead.'

The painter rushed forward, with heavy eyes, stumbling, and apparently failing to understand, for he repeated with an air of profound amazement, 'What do you mean by saying he is dead?'

For a moment they remained staring wildly at the bed. The poor little fellow, with his disproportionate head--the head of the progeny of genius, exaggerated as to verge upon cretinism--did not appear to have stirred since the previous night; but no breath came from his mouth, which had widened and become discoloured, and his gla.s.sy eyes were open.

His father laid his hands upon him and found him icy cold.

'It is true, he is dead.'

And their stupor was such that for yet another moment they remained with their eyes dry, simply thunderstruck, as it were, by the abruptness of that death which they considered incredible.

Then, her knees bending under her, Christine dropped down in front of the bed, bursting into violent sobs which shook her from head to foot, and wringing her hands, whilst her forehead remained pressed against the mattress. In that first moment of horror her despair was aggravated above all by poignant remorse--the remorse of not having sufficiently cared for the poor child. Former days started up before her in a rapid vision, each bringing with it regretfulness for unkind words, deferred caresses, rough treatment even. And now it was all over; she would never be able to compensate the lad for the affection she had withheld from him. He whom she thought so disobedient had obeyed but too well at last.

She had so often told him when at play to be still, and not to disturb his father at his work, that he was quiet at last, and for ever. The idea suffocated her; each sob drew from her a dull moan.

Claude had begun walking up and down the studio, unable to remain still.

With his features convulsed, he shed a few big tears, which he brushed away with the back of his hand. And whenever he pa.s.sed in front of the little corpse he could not help glancing at it. The gla.s.sy eyes, wide open, seemed to exercise a spell over him. At first he resisted, but a confused idea a.s.sumed shape within him, and would not be shaken off. He yielded to it at last, took a small canvas, and began to paint a study of the dead child. For the first few minutes his tears dimmed his sight, wrapping everything in a mist; but he kept wiping them away, and persevered with his work, even though his brush shook. Then the pa.s.sion for art dried his tears and steadied his hand, and in a little while it was no longer his icy son that lay there, but merely a model, a subject, the strange interest of which stirred him. That huge head, that waxy flesh, those eyes which looked like holes staring into s.p.a.ce--all excited and thrilled him. He stepped back, seemed to take pleasure in his work, and vaguely smiled at it.

When Christine rose from her knees, she found him thus occupied. Then, bursting into tears again, she merely said:

'Ah! you can paint him now, he'll never stir again.'

For five hours Claude kept at it, and on the second day, when Sandoz came back with him from the cemetery, after the funeral, he shuddered with pity and admiration at the sight of the small canvas. It was one of the fine bits of former days, a masterpiece of limpidity and power, to which was added a note of boundless melancholy, the end of everything--all life ebbing away with the death of that child.

But Sandoz, who had burst out into exclamations fall of praise, was quite taken aback on hearing Claude say to him:

'You are sure you like it? In that case, as the other machine isn't ready, I'll send this to the Salon.'

X

ONE morning, as Claude, who had taken 'The Dead Child' to the Palais de l'Industrie the previous day, was roaming round about the Parc Monceau, he suddenly came upon f.a.gerolles.

'What!' said the latter, cordially, 'is it you, old fellow? What's becoming of you? What are you doing? We see so little of each other now.'

Then, Claude having mentioned what he had sent to the Salon--that little canvas which his mind was full of--f.a.gerolles added:

'Ah! you've sent something; then I'll get it "hung" for you. You know that I'm a candidate for the hanging committee this year.'

Indeed, amid the tumult and everlasting discontent of the artists, after attempts at reform, repeated a score of times and then abandoned, the authorities had just invested the exhibitors with the privilege of electing the members of the hanging committee; and this had quite upset the world of painters and sculptors, a perfect electoral fever had set in, with all sorts of ambitious cabals and intrigues--all the low jobbery, indeed, by which politics are dishonoured.

'I'm going to take you with me,' continued f.a.gerolles; you must come and see how I'm settled in my little house, in which you haven't yet set foot, in spite of all your promises. It's there, hard by, at the corner of the Avenue de Villiers.'

Claude, whose arm he had gaily taken, was obliged to follow him. He was seized with a fit of cowardice; the idea that his old chum might get his picture 'hung' for him filled him with mingled shame and desire.

On reaching the avenue, he stopped in front of the house to look at its frontage, a bit of coquettish, _precioso_ architectural tracery--the exact copy of a Renaissance house at Bourges, with lattice windows, a staircase tower, and a roof decked with leaden ornaments. It looked like the abode of a harlot; and Claude was struck with surprise when, on turning round, he recognised Irma Becot's regal mansion just over the way. Huge, substantial, almost severe of aspect, it had all the importance of a palace compared to its neighbour, the dwelling of the artist, who was obliged to limit himself to a fanciful nick-nack.

'Ah! that Irma, eh?' said f.a.gerolles with just a shade of respect in his tone. 'She has got a cathedral and no mistake! But come in.'

The interior of f.a.gerolles' house was strangely and magnificently luxurious. Old tapestry, old weapons, a heap of old furniture, Chinese and j.a.panese curios were displayed even in the very hall. On the left there was a dining-room, panelled with lacquer work and having its ceiling draped with a design of a red dragon. Then there was a staircase of carved wood above which banners drooped, whilst tropical plants rose up like plumes. Overhead, the studio was a marvel, though rather small and without a picture visible. The walls, indeed, were entirely covered with Oriental hangings, while at one end rose up a huge chimney-piece with chimerical monsters supporting the tablet, and at the other extremity appeared a vast couch under a tent--the latter quite a monument, with lances upholding the sumptuous drapery, above a collection of carpets, furs and cus.h.i.+ons heaped together almost on a level with the flooring.

Claude looked at it all, and there came to his lips a question which he held back--Was all this paid for? f.a.gerolles, who had been decorated with the Legion of Honour the previous year, now asked, it was said, ten thousand francs for painting a mere portrait. Naudet, who, after launching him, duly turned his success to profit in a methodical fas.h.i.+on, never let one of his pictures go for less than twenty, thirty, forty thousand francs. Orders would have fallen on the painter's shoulders as thick as hail, if he had not affected the disdain, the weariness of the man whose slightest sketches are fought for. And yet all this display of luxury smacked of indebtedness, there was only so much paid on account to the upholsterers; all the money--the money won by lucky strokes as on 'Change--slipped through the artist's fingers, and was spent without trace of it remaining. Moreover, f.a.gerolles, still in the full flush of his sudden good fortune, did not calculate or worry, being confident that he would always sell his works at higher and higher prices, and feeling glorious at the high position he was acquiring in contemporary art.

Eventually, Claude espied a little canvas on an ebony easel, draped with red plush. Excepting a rosewood tube case and box of crayons, forgotten on an article of furniture, nothing reminding one of the artistic profession could be seen lying about.

'Very finely treated,' said Claude, wis.h.i.+ng to be amiable, as he stood in front of the little canvas. 'And is your picture for the Salon sent?'

'Ah! yes, thank heavens! What a number of people I had here! A perfect procession which kept me on my legs from morning till evening during a week. I didn't want to exhibit it, as it lowers one to do so, and Naudet also opposed it. But what would you have done? I was so begged and prayed; all the young fellows want to set me on the committee, so that I may defend them. Oh! my picture is simple enough--I call it "A Picnic." There are a couple of gentlemen and three ladies under some trees--guests at some chateau, who have brought a collation with them and are eating it in a glade. You'll see, it's rather original.'