The Patient Observer Part 7

XIX

THE COMPLETE COLLECTOR--II

"The idea of this exquisite little collection of frauds and forgeries,"

said Cooper, "--and I don't believe I am boasting when I speak of my few treasures as exquisite--came to me in a natural enough way. One of the bitterest trials the connoisseur has to contend with, is the consciousness that no amount of care and expense can guarantee him an absolutely flawless collection. The suspicion of the experts has fallen upon not a single picture, bra.s.s, marble or iron in his galleries; and yet as he walks those galleries the unhappy owner groans under the moral conviction that there are spurious pictures on his walls, spurious marbles in his halls, spurious carvings and coins under his gla.s.s cases, and that there they must stay until discovered and exposed.

"A perfect collection, therefore, in the sense of a collection in which every object can be traced back with absolute certainty to its author and its place of origin, is impossible. Unless, and that is how the inspiration came," said Cooper, "unless one set to collecting objects of art which have been proved to be fraudulent. Then and only then, could one be sure that one's treasures were just what one believed them to be.

And that is just what I set out to do. I began buying objects of art, which, after masquerading under a great name, had been exposed and given up to scorn. I have kept at it for twenty years, and I can now point to what no American multi-millionaire can ever boast of, a collection made up _entirely_ of 'fakes.' When I stroll through _my_ little museum I am obsessed by no doubts. I am as certain as I am of being alive that no genuine Leonardo or Holbein or Manet or Cellini has found its way under my roof.

"I must admit," Cooper went on, "that the question of economy has been an important factor in the case. When we first set up housekeeping, a year after our marriage, our means were not unlimited and our tastes were of the very highest. Buying the best work or even the second-best work of the best painters was out of the question. But buying cheap copies of the masters, replicas, casts, photogravures, was equally impossible. The idea of owning anything that some one else may own at the same time is abhorrent to the true collector. On the other hand, if we went in for spurious masterpieces, we were sure of securing unique specimens at very small expense. And I will not deny that the bargain element appealed very strongly to Mrs. Cooper. Most of our things we got at really fabulous reductions. There was the crown of an a.s.syrian princess of the twenty-fourth century B.C., for which one of the leading European museums paid $75,000, and which, after it was shown that it had been made by a Copenhagen jeweller in 1907, I purchased from the museum for something like fifty-five dollars, plus the freight. This charming little landscape with sheep and a shepherd boy brought $23,000 in a Fifth Avenue auction room two years ago. Three months after it was sold, a certain Mrs. Smith on Staten Island sued her husband for desertion and non-support, and in the course of the proceedings it was brought out that Smith made $10,000 a year painting Corots and Daubignys, and that the $23,000 picture was one of his latest achievements. I got it for a little over one hundred dollars. I am really proud of the picture, because Smith has put into it enough of the Corot quality to deceive many an expert observer. If I were not in possession of the doc.u.mentary proof that Smith painted the picture in 1908, I should myself be tempted at times to believe that Smith and his wife lied in court and that the picture is really a Corot.

"But these are the chances," said Cooper, "that every art-lover must take. I have said that at present I feel perfectly sure that not a single genuine work has crept in to vitiate my collection. And that is true. But only a few weeks ago I had a very bad quarter of an hour indeed over this spurious Tanagra figurine. It had been bought for a museum not one hundred miles from here by a patron who was a good friend of mine, and who had paid several thousand dollars for the statuette. I was in the room with Hawley when Stimson, our very greatest Greek archaeologist and art-expert, entered, and, catching sight of the little figure, picked it up, studied it for a few moments, smelt it, licked it with his tongue, pressed it to his cheek, and handed it back to my friend with a single, blasting comment--'fake.' We two were incredulous, but within fifteen minutes Stimson had convinced us that the thing was a palpable fraud. Quite beside himself with vexation, Hawley lifted up the statuette and was about to dash it into fragments on the ground, when I caught his arm. 'Let me have it,' I said; and I carried it home in great glee.

"Well, a few weeks later I was showing my collection to Dr. Friedheimer of Berlin, who is a much greater man even than Stimson. The German savant stopped in fascination before the Tanagra figurine. 'A pretty good imitation,' I said. He seized the statuette with trembling fingers.

'Imidation!' he shouted. 'Chenuine, chenuine as de hairs on your het.

Himmel, wat a find!' And he proceeded to do what Stimson had done, and he smelt it and licked it, and rubbed it against his beard, and I am not sure but that he knocked it against his forehead to test its texture.

And then in his agitation he let the figure fall, and it broke in two on the floor, and inside we found a bit of newspaper dated Naples, January 27, 1903. Dr. Friedheimer could only say, 'Unerhort!' but I was nearly frantic with delight. I repaired the statuette, and it now holds, as you see, the place of honour in my collection."

As we sat over our coffee and cigars, Cooper grew reflective. "After all," he said, "is not the fabricator of frauds fully as great an artist as the man whose work he imitates? Take the famous marble Aphrodite of a few years ago, which was attributed by some critics to Praxiteles, and by some critics to Scopas, until proof came that it had been made in Hoboken. Consider the labour that went into the fraud. For years, probably, the dishonest sculptor was engaged in preliminary studies for the work. He spent months in libraries, museums, and the lecture-rooms of learned professors. He impregnated himself with the spirit of Greek art. He devoted months to searching for a suitable piece of antique marble. How long he was in carving it, I can only guess. When it was completed, he boiled it in oil; then he boiled it in milk; then he boiled it in soap; then he boiled it in a concoction of mola.s.ses and wine; then he buried it in moist soil, and let it age for three years.

"Now, suppose the statue had been really carved by Praxiteles. That joyous master and genius might have put two weeks' work, three weeks'

work, a month's work, upon it, and there you were. What was the labour of a lifetime to the other man was to Praxiteles just an easy bit of routine. If art is a man's soul and hopes and brain and sweat and blood put into concrete form, who produced the truer work of art, Praxiteles or the unknown sculptor of Hoboken? I speak only of the comparative expenditure of effort. So far as the artistic result is concerned, it is evident, from the ease with which we were taken in, that there is no great difference between the school of Hoboken and the school of Praxiteles."

XX

WHEN A FRIEND MARRIES

Taking dinner with an old friend who has just been married is an experience I regard with apprehension. In the first place, it is always awkward to be introduced to a woman who begins by being jealous of you because you knew her husband long before she did. She may be a nice woman; in fact, from the air of almost imbecile happiness that invests young Hobson, you are sure she is. But since it is natural to hate those whom we have injured, it is natural for young wives to dislike their husband's friends.

People say that a woman begins to prepare for marriage at the age of five. Judging from the absolutely spontaneous way in which the Hobsons have taken to it, marriage is a career that calls for no preparation whatever. I am not referring, of course, to the outward aspects of early housekeeping. The little difficulties that beset the newly married are there. I can see that my hostess is more anxious about the creamed potatoes than she will be five years hence. Her att.i.tude to the maid who waits on us is by turns excessively severe and excessively timid. I learn that the dining-room table has been sent back twice to the store, and is still not the one originally ordered. But these are trifles. It is with the Hobsons' souls I am concerned; and their souls are perfectly at ease in their new estate.

The first few minutes, like all introductions, go stiffly. The bride smiles and says that Jack has often spoken to her about you. Whereupon you remember that there are not many secrets a young husband keeps from his wife. Jack is no sieve, but he would be more than human if he has failed to dissect your little weaknesses and humours for his new wife.

He has probably emphasized the two or three particular little failings of character which have prevented you from realising the brilliant promise you showed at college. At bottom, Jack thinks, you have the capacity for being almost as happy as he, Jack, is. But then, again, if Mrs. Hobson does know you thoroughly well, it strikes you that there is that much trouble saved, and you sit down to chat with a fair sense of intimacy.

Toward such conversation you and the man of the house are the princ.i.p.al contributors. You speak of college days and contemporary politics, and other things that the wife is not interested in, but she smiles graciously, and now and then takes sides with you against her husband.

At one point in the conversation you look up and find her quietly scrutinising you. And you recall what you have heard concerning the match-making propensities of young wives, and you wonder uneasily if to herself she is running over a list of girl friends and trying to decide which one will suit you best. You even suspect that she inclined toward a Marjorie or an Edith, who is plain, but clever, a good manager, and of an affectionate disposition. Happily, at that moment the bride thanks you for your handsome wedding gift.

At table the visitor begins to be more at ease. For one thing, there is the traditional hazing process to which the bride must be subjected.

Jack takes the lead. Admitting that to-night's repast is an unqualified success, he hints that there have been occasions when, if he only would, there might be a different tale to tell. The visitor protests; yet in the extravagant praise he resorts to there is a suggestion of mild banter which is considered the proper thing. The wife professes to enter into the joke; but in her heart she laughs to see the two men go solemnly through the stupid and outworn ceremonial. Young wives nowadays are excellent cooks. This one has secretly pursued a three months'

course in domestic science and has a diploma hidden away somewhere. But she pretends to be properly outraged by our foolish satire, and insists on both being helped a second time to the custard. Jack, in fact, eats all that remains. It makes dish-was.h.i.+ng easier, he says.

And as the visitor steers his way pleasantly through the meal, he makes the acquaintance of an extraordinary number of relatives. The spoons, he finds, are from Aunt Amy. Aunt Amy lives in Syracuse and at first objected to the match. The salt cellar is from a male cousin who (you learn this from Jack), it was thought at one time, would be the fortunate man himself--that is, until Jack appeared on the scene. Poor fellow, he sought consolation by marrying, only two months later, a nice girl from Alexandria, Va. The cut-gla.s.s salad dish is from the bride's dearest friend at boarding-school, a charming girl, who paints and sings and is now studying music in Berlin.

When the coffee is brought in, Jack asks if you will smoke. This is, in a way, the most dangerous situation of the entire evening. If you say yes, Jack is apt to pa.s.s the cigars and and say, "Go right ahead. _I_ have given it up, you know, and I feel all the better for it." But if you are expert in reading faces, and decide that the bride probably has conscientious scruples against the habit, and you reply "No," Jack is likely to say, "Sorry, but Alice allows _me_ one cigar a day after dinner," and you are left to suffer the torments of the lost, and have lied into the bargain. Nor is it possible to lay down any rule for arriving at the correct reply under such circ.u.mstances. A hurried glance about the house will not help one. A handsome bronze ash-tray may be only a paperweight. Young wives are in the habit of buying their husbands the most ornate smoking apparatus, with the understanding that it shall never be used.

It is after dinner that reflection comes; and with it comes a touch of sorrowful wonder. Jack bears himself with great equanimity in his new condition; but it is apparent, nevertheless, that he has changed from what you knew him. In the first place, he has built up a comprehensive system of domestic serfdom to which he cheerfully submits. He glories in his enslavement; he rattles his chains. He actually boasts of the habit he has acquired of dropping in at the grocer's every morning on his way to the office. When it is the maid's day out, Jack insists on helping with the dishes and he tells you with pride that, given plenty of hot water, there is nothing in that line which he would hesitate to undertake. He makes it a point to visit Was.h.i.+ngton Market at least twice a week, and he comes home with cuts, joints, steaks, rounds, poultry, fish, game, and fruits in dazzling variety. He carries these things conspicuously in the Subway. And Jack's wife is appreciative of his kind intentions, and lets him bring, from long distances, meats which she can purchase at several cents a pound less from her butcher two blocks away.

The pa.s.sion for acquiring food commodities is only one phase of Jack's new character. You begin to see now that all these years you have never suspected what capacities for home-building he had in him. In the presence of any kind of article offered for sale his overmastering pa.s.sion is to buy the thing and take it home. Instinct apparently impels him to store up quite useless supplies against a future emergency. He haunts hardware stores, he rummages in antique furniture shops, and you may see him any day during the lunch hour flattening his nose against windowfuls of copper and bra.s.s ware. He buys patent hammers by the quarter dozen, as well as nails, tacks, screws, bolts, casters, brackets, and curtain poles. He brings home j.a.panese vases from the auction rooms. One day he acquired a step-ladder; it came by wagon because they refused to let him take it into the Subway.

And Jack's wife acquiesces in his self-imposed servitude. She does not demand it; she is even a good deal incommoded by it. But her woman's instinct tells her that the thing is a disease, which a man must catch, like the measles. Until the husband's pa.s.sion for home-building quiets down, she is content to accept the unnatural situation; she is even proud to have inspired it.

But as Jack prattles on, and Jack's wife smiles over her embroidery frame, it comes over you that, despite all the kindly communion of the evening, you are an outsider there. You ask yourself bitterly whether there is such a thing as constancy in man, whether there is such a thing as true comrades.h.i.+p or affection. For fifteen years, from your freshman year at high school, you and Jack have been what the world calls friends. What are you now? Jack still calls you friend; apparently that is the reason why you have just dined with him and his wife. But in reality you are not there as his friend. You are there as the guest of this newly-const.i.tuted social unit, this new family. You are there not as a person, but as part of an inst.i.tution.

And just when you are ready to accept the new situation you are swept away by the unreality of the entire arrangement. It is inconceivable that Jack should have thrown you over for this alien person whom he calls wife. Your habits and Jack's are so much alike; your tastes, your outlook upon life. You used to play the same games at college, sing the same songs, smoke the same tobacco, wear each other's clothes, and now Jack has thrown you over for one with whom in the nature of things he can have none of those habits in common. It is not merely puzzling; it grows almost absurd. You shake your head over it some time after you have said good-night, and the bride has told you that as a dear friend of Jack's, they always will be pleased to have you call.

XXI

THE PERFECT UNION OF THE ARTS

I have never had the slightest reason to doubt Harding's truthfulness.

The following episode, I remember, was told with more than Harding's usual gravity. I can do nothing better than to give it here in Harding's own words so far as I can recall them:

On the third day after his arrival, my guest, Muhammad Abu Nozeyr, said to me, "O Harding Effendi, I desire greatly to witness a presentation of what you and the wife of your bosom, on whom both be peace, have often referred to as Grand Opera."

I replied, with involuntary astonishment. "Son of a hundred sheiks, forgive my seemingly derelict hospitality. But I should have asked you before this to go to the opera with us, if I had not thought that the principles of your faith were opposed thereto. For you must know, O Father of the Defenceless, that our women go there unveiled even as the women of the people that you see on our streets, and that on the stage, singers of both s.e.xes indulge in open exaltation of that thing called love, which your prophet has confined within the walls of the _haremlik_."

Abu Nozeyr laughed. "Your knowledge of our customs, Harding Effendi, is fifty years behind the times. True, I come from the desert, and have never heard your singing women of the stage. But did not one of the learned muftis at yesterday's evening repast declare that 'Ada' was written for the Khedewi Ismail Pasha, may his soul rest in peace?"

"Yes," I said; "but you will understand, Dispenser of a Thousand Mercies, why at first blush Islam and the lyric stage should strike me as somewhat incompatible."

"Not modern Islam," he replied. "Take us not too literally. I am told that your people, like others of the Feringhi, have succeeded in building battles.h.i.+ps which are really instruments of peace; that you have trust companies in which you place no confidence, and Open Doors which you close against people from my part of the world; you have legislators who speak but do not legislate, and a Speaker who legislates but does not speak; you have had men in your White House who always saw red, and you have red-emblazoned newspapers which are yellow; you call your politicians public servants who are your masters, and you call your women the masters, but will not let them vote. Why, then, should you be so surprised at any seeming incongruity in others?"

"I am convinced, Abu Nozeyr," I said, "and to-morrow we will go to see 'Tristan und Isolde.' But shall I attempt to describe for you, in a few words, just what Grand Opera is?"

"My ear is open to your words, Harding Effendi."

"Know, then, Protector of the Fatherless, that the music-drama is a perfect blending of all the arts. It calls to its aid the resources of sculpture, painting, dancing, together with numerous mechanical agencies, and to a minor extent, music and the drama. For observe, O Abu Nozeyr, that each art aims to awake its own specific emotion. Sculpture appeals to our sense of form, painting to our delight in colour, dancing to the pleasure of rhythmic motion, the mechanic arts to our liking for sudden action, while music and the uttered word represent the union of the clearest and vaguest modes of expressing thought. It follows therefore that the highest phase of human emotion can only be expressed by that art which gives us simultaneously the living form of a Venus de Milo with the colouring of a t.i.tian, the grace of a Nautch girl, the miracle-working powers of a Hindu fakir, the elocution of a Demosthenes, and the voice of a Malibran."

"By the beard of the Prophet," exclaimed Abu Nozeyr, "I thought such bliss was to be had only in the Paradise of the Faithful; and that is Grand Opera, Harding Effendi?"

"With certain modifications," I replied. "Nothing human is perfect, Abu Nozeyr. It is a regrettable circ.u.mstance that the human voice attains its perfect development many years after the human form. Hence our heroes on the lyric stage are all middle-aged and our heroines somewhat heavy in movement. I have seen a pair of starving lovers in an operatic garret, who would surely not have pa.s.sed the scrutiny of a United Charities investigator. It is also to be regretted that adequate voice-production leaves no breath for dancing or other forms of active effort. Hence the dance with which Carmen fascinates poor Don Jose, argues an intense readiness to be pleased on the part of the latter, and Telramund's defeat at the hands of Lohengrin is never quite free from a certain degree of contributory negligence."

"But tell me this, Harding Effendi, are there composers who have carried the union of the arts to a higher point than others?"

"There are, O Grandson of the Wild a.s.s. There are operas in which at certain moments the libretto speaks of a leaping fire, the music plays leaping fire, and the fire actually leaps and blazes on the stage. But unfortunately it always happens that the words cannot be heard because of the orchestra, and the fire sinks when the orchestral swell rises, and rises when the orchestral surge subsides. I have caught the orchestral sound of hammer on anvil long before the two have come into contact, and have heard Spring described as entering through a door which persists in staying closed. I have seen boats being pushed by human hands, Rhine maidens suspended on a wire, and harvest moons moving in orbits unknown to Herschel and Pickering."

"And are there people who still persist in taking their sculpture, painting, drama, and music separately, Harding Effendi?"