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- <head>
- <title>
- The Unknown Masterpiece, by Honoré de Balzac
- </title>
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-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Unknown Masterpiece, by Honoré De Balzac
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-Title: The Unknown Masterpiece
- 1845
-
-Author: Honoré De Balzac
-
-Release Date: October 17, 2007 [EBook #23060]
-Last Updated: November 23, 2016
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNKNOWN MASTERPIECE ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by David Widger
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
- <div style="height: 8em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h1>
- THE UNKNOWN MASTERPIECE
- </h1>
- <h2>
- By Honoré De Balzac
- </h2>
- <h3>
- TO A LORD
- </h3>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <h4>
- 1845
- </h4>
- <p>
- <br /> <br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /> <br />
- </p>
- <h2>
- Contents
- </h2>
- <h3>
- </h3>
- <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto">
- <tr>
- <td>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> I—GILLETTE </a>
- </p>
- <p class="toc">
- <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> II—CATHERINE LESCAULT </a>
- </p>
- </td>
- </tr>
- </table>
- <p>
- <br /> <br />
- </p>
- <hr />
- <p>
- <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
- <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- I—GILLETTE
- </h2>
- <p>
- On a cold December morning in the year 1612, a young man, whose clothing
- was somewhat of the thinnest, was walking to and fro before a gateway in
- the Rue des Grands-Augustins in Paris. He went up and down the street
- before this house with the irresolution of a gallant who dares not venture
- into the presence of the mistress whom he loves for the first time, easy
- of access though she may be; but after a sufficiently long interval of
- hesitation, he at last crossed the threshold and inquired of an old woman,
- who was sweeping out a large room on the ground floor, whether Master
- Porbus was within. Receiving a reply in the affirmative, the young man
- went slowly up the staircase, like a gentleman but newly come to court,
- and doubtful as to his reception by the king. He came to a stand once more
- on the landing at the head of the stairs, and again he hesitated before
- raising his hand to the grotesque knocker on the door of the studio, where
- doubtless the painter was at work—Master Porbus, sometime painter in
- ordinary to Henri IV till Mary de’ Medici took Rubens into favor.
- </p>
- <p>
- The young man felt deeply stirred by an emotion that must thrill the
- hearts of all great artists when, in the pride of their youth and their
- first love of art, they come into the presence of a master or stand before
- a masterpiece. For all human sentiments there is a time of early
- blossoming, a day of generous enthusiasm that gradually fades until
- nothing is left of happiness but a memory, and glory is known for a
- delusion. Of all these delicate and short-lived emotions, none so resemble
- love as the passion of a young artist for his art, as he is about to enter
- on the blissful martyrdom of his career of glory and disaster, of vague
- expectations and real disappointments.
- </p>
- <p>
- Those who have missed this experience in the early days of light purses;
- who have not, in the dawn of their genius, stood in the presence of a
- master and felt the throbbing of their hearts, will always carry in their
- inmost souls a chord that has never been touched, and in their work an
- indefinable quality will be lacking, a something in the stroke of the
- brush, a mysterious element that we call poetry. The swaggerers, so puffed
- up by self-conceit that they are confident over-soon of their success, can
- never be taken for men of talent save by fools. From this point of view,
- if youthful modesty is the measure of youthful genius, the stranger on the
- staircase might be allowed to have something in him; for he seemed to
- possess the indescribable diffidence, the early timidity that artists are
- bound to lose in the course of a great career, even as pretty women lose
- it as they make progress in the arts of coquetry. Self-distrust vanishes
- as triumph succeeds to triumph, and modesty is, perhaps, distrust of
- itself.
- </p>
- <p>
- The poor neophyte was so overcome by the consciousness of his own
- presumption and insignificance, that it began to look as if he was hardly
- likely to penetrate into the studio of the painter, to whom we owe the
- wonderful portrait of Henri IV. But fate was propitious; an old man came
- up the staircase. From the quaint costume of this newcomer, his collar of
- magnificent lace, and a certain serene gravity in his bearing, the first
- arrival thought that this personage must be either a patron or a friend of
- the court painter. He stood aside therefore upon the landing to allow the
- visitor to pass, scrutinizing him curiously the while. Perhaps he might
- hope to find the good nature of an artist or to receive the good offices
- of an amateur not unfriendly to the arts; but besides an almost diabolical
- expression in the face that met his gaze, there was that indescribable
- something which has an irresistible attraction for artists.
- </p>
- <p>
- Picture that face. A bald high forehead and rugged jutting brows above a
- small flat nose turned up at the end, as in the portraits of Socrates and
- Rabelais; deep lines about the mocking mouth; a short chin, carried
- proudly, covered with a grizzled pointed beard; sea-green eyes that age
- might seem to have dimmed were it not for the contrast between the iris
- and the surrounding mother-of-pearl tints, so that it seemed as if under
- the stress of anger or enthusiasm there would be a magnetic power to quell
- or kindle in their glances. The face was withered beyond wont by the
- fatigue of years, yet it seemed aged still more by the thoughts that had
- worn away both soul and body. There were no lashes to the deep-set eyes,
- and scarcely a trace of the arching lines of the eyebrows above them. Set
- this head on a spare and feeble frame, place it in a frame of lace wrought
- like an engraved silver fish-slice, imagine a heavy gold chain over the
- old man’s black doublet, and you will have some dim idea of this strange
- personage, who seemed still more fantastic in the sombre twilight of the
- staircase. One of Rembrandt’s portraits might have stepped down from its
- frame to walk in an appropriate atmosphere of gloom, such as the great
- painter loved. The older man gave the younger a shrewd glance, and knocked
- thrice at the door. It was opened by a man of forty or thereabout, who
- seemed to be an invalid.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Good day, Master.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Porbus bowed respectfully, and held the door open for the younger man to
- enter, thinking that the latter accompanied his visitor; and when he saw
- that the neophyte stood a while as if spellbound, feeling, as every
- artist-nature must feel, the fascinating influence of the first sight of a
- studio in which the material processes of art are revealed, Porbus
- troubled himself no more about this second comer.
- </p>
- <p>
- All the light in the studio came from a window in the roof, and was
- concentrated upon an easel, where a canvas stood untouched as yet save for
- three or four outlines in chalk. The daylight scarcely reached the remoter
- angles and corners of the vast room; they were as dark as night, but the
- silver ornamented breastplate of a Reiter’s corselet, that hung upon the
- wall, attracted a stray gleam to its dim abiding-place among the brown
- shadows; or a shaft of light shot across the carved and glistening surface
- of an antique sideboard covered with curious silver-plate, or struck out a
- line of glittering dots among the raised threads of the golden warp of
- some old brocaded curtains, where the lines of the stiff, heavy folds were
- broken, as the stuff had been flung carelessly down to serve as a model.
- </p>
- <p>
- Plaster <i>écorchés</i> stood about the room; and here and there, on
- shelves and tables, lay fragments of classical sculpture-torsos of antique
- goddesses, worn smooth as though all the years of the centuries that had
- passed over them had been lovers’ kisses. The walls were covered, from
- floor to ceiling, with countless sketches in charcoal, red chalk, or pen
- and ink. Amid the litter and confusion of color boxes, overturned stools,
- flasks of oil, and essences, there was just room to move so as to reach
- the illuminated circular space where the easel stood. The light from the
- window in the roof fell full upon Por-bus’s pale face and on the
- ivory-tinted forehead of his strange visitor. But in another moment the
- younger man heeded nothing but a picture that had already become famous
- even in those stormy days of political and religious revolution, a picture
- that a few of the zealous worshipers, who have so often kept the sacred
- fire of art alive in evil days, were wont to go on pilgrimage to see. The
- beautiful panel represented a Saint Mary of Egypt about to pay her passage
- across the seas. It was a masterpiece destined for Mary de’ Medici, who
- sold it in later years of poverty.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I like your saint,” the old man remarked, addressing Porbus. “I would
- give you ten golden crowns for her over and above the price the Queen is
- paying; but as for putting a spoke in that wheel,—the devil take
- it!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “It is good then?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Hey! hey!” said the old man; “good, say you?—Yes and no. Your good
- woman is not badly done, but she is not alive. You artists fancy that when
- a figure is correctly drawn, and everything in its place according to the
- rules of anatomy, there is nothing more to be done. You make up the flesh
- tints beforehand on your palettes according to your formulae, and fill in
- the outlines with due care that one side of the face shall be darker than
- the other; and because you look from time to time at a naked woman who
- stands on the platform before you, you fondly imagine that you have copied
- nature, think yourselves to be painters, believe that you have wrested His
- secret from God. Pshaw! You may know your syntax thoroughly and make no
- blunders in your grammar, but it takes that and something more to make a
- great poet. Look at your saint, Porbus! At a first glance she is
- admirable; look at her again, and you see at once that she is glued to the
- background, and that you could not walk round her. She is a silhouette
- that turns but one side of her face to all beholders, a figure cut out of
- canvas, an image with no power to move nor change her position. I feel as
- if there were no air between that arm and the background, no space, no
- sense of distance in your canvas. The perspective is perfectly correct,
- the strength of the coloring is accurately diminished with the distance;
- but, in spite of these praiseworthy efforts, I could never bring myself to
- believe that the warm breath of life comes and goes in that beautiful
- body. It seems to me that if I laid my hand on the firm, rounded throat,
- it would be cold as marble to the touch. No, my friend, the blood does not
- flow beneath that ivory skin, the tide of life does not flush those
- delicate fibres, the purple veins that trace a network beneath the
- transparent amber of her brow and breast. Here the pulse seems to beat,
- there it is motionless, life and death are at strife in every detail; here
- you see a woman, there a statue, there again a corpse. Your creation is
- incomplete. You had only power to breathe a portion of your soul into your
- beloved work. The fire of Prometheus died out again and again in your
- hands; many a spot in your picture has not been touched by the divine
- flame.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “But how is it, dear master?” Porbus asked respectfully, while the young
- man with difficulty repressed his strong desire to beat the critic.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah!” said the old man, “it is this! You have halted between two manners.
- You have hesitated between drawing and color, between the dogged attention
- to detail, the stiff precision of the German masters and the dazzling
- glow, the joyous exuberance of Italian painters. You have set yourself to
- imitate Hans Holbein and Titian, Albrecht Durer and Paul Veronese in a
- single picture. A magnificent ambition truly, but what has come of it?
- Your work has neither the severe charm of a dry execution nor the magical
- illusion of Italian <i>chiaroscuro</i>. Titian’s rich golden coloring
- poured into Albrecht Dureras austere outlines has shattered them, like
- molten bronze bursting through the mold that is not strong enough to hold
- it. In other places the outlines have held firm, imprisoning and obscuring
- the magnificent, glowing flood of Venetian color. The drawing of the face
- is not perfect, the coloring is not perfect; traces of that unlucky
- indecision are to be seen everywhere. Unless you felt strong enough to
- fuse the two opposed manners in the fire of your own genius, you should
- have cast in your lot boldly with the one or the other, and so have
- obtained the unity which simulates one of the conditions of life itself.
- Your work is only true in the centres; your outlines are false, they
- project nothing, there is no hint of anything behind them. There is truth
- here,” said the old man, pointing to the breast of the Saint, “and again
- here,” he went on, indicating the rounded shoulder. “But there,” once more
- returning to the column of the throat, “everything is false. Let us go no
- further into detail, you would be disheartened.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The old man sat down on a stool, and remained a while without speaking,
- with his face buried in his hands.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yet I studied that throat from the life, dear master,” Porbus began; “it
- happens sometimes, for our misfortune, that real effects in nature look
- improbable when transferred to canvas—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “The aim of art is not to copy nature, but to express it. You are not a
- servile copyist, but a poet!” cried the old man sharply, cutting Porbus
- short with an imperious gesture. “Otherwise a sculptor might make a
- plaster cast of a living woman and save himself all further trouble. Well,
- try to make a cast of your mistress’s hand, and set up the thing before
- you. You will see a monstrosity, a dead mass, bearing no resemblance to
- the living hand; you would be compelled to have recourse to the chisel of
- a sculptor who, without making an exact copy, would represent for you its
- movement and its life. We must detect the spirit, the informing soul in
- the appearances of things and beings. Effects! What are effects but the
- accidents of life, not life itself? A hand, since I have taken that
- example, is not only a part of a body, it is the expression and extension
- of a thought that must be grasped and rendered. Neither painter nor poet
- nor sculptor may separate the effect from the cause, which are inevitably
- contained the one in the other. There begins the real struggle! Many a
- painter achieves success instinctively, unconscious of the task that is
- set before art. You draw a woman, yet you do not see her! Not so do you
- succeed in wresting Nature’s secrets from her! You are reproducing
- mechanically the model that you copied in your master’s studio. You do not
- penetrate far enough into the inmost secrets of the mystery of form; you
- do not seek with love enough and perseverance enough after the form that
- baffles and eludes you. Beauty is a thing severe and unapproachable, never
- to be won by a languid lover. You must lie in wait for her coming and take
- her unawares, press her hard and clasp her in a tight embrace, and force
- her to yield. Form is a Proteus more intangible and more manifold than the
- Proteus of the legend; compelled, only after long wrestling, to stand
- forth manifest in his true aspect. Some of you are satisfied with the
- first shape, or at most by the second or the third that appears. Not thus
- wrestle the victors, the unvanquished painters who never suffer themselves
- to be deluded by all those treacherous shadow-shapes; they persevere till
- Nature at the last stands bare to their gaze, and her very soul is
- revealed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “In this manner worked Rafael,” said the old man, taking off his cap to
- express his reverence for the King of Art. “His transcendent greatness
- came of the intimate sense that, in him, seems as if it would shatter
- external form. Form in his figures (as with us) is a symbol, a means of
- communicating sensations, ideas, the vast imaginings of a poet. Every face
- is a whole world. The subject of the portrait appeared for him bathed in
- the light of a divine vision; it was revealed by an inner voice, the
- finger of God laid bare the sources of expression in the past of a whole
- life.
- </p>
- <p>
- “You clothe your women in fair raiment of flesh, in gracious veiling of
- hair; but where is the blood, the source of passion and of calm, the cause
- of the particular effect? Why, this brown Egyptian of yours, my good
- Porbus, is a colorless creature! These figures that you set before us are
- painted bloodless fantoms; and you call that painting, you call that art!
- </p>
- <p>
- “Because you have made something more like a woman than a house, you think
- that you have set your fingers on the goal; you are quite proud that you
- need not to write <i>currus venustus</i> or <i>pulcher homo</i> beside
- your figures, as early painters were wont to do and you fancy that you
- have done wonders. Ah! my good friend, there is still something more to
- learn, and you will use up a great deal of chalk and cover many a canvas
- before you will learn it. Yes, truly, a woman carries her head in just
- such a way, so she holds her garments gathered into her hand; her eyes
- grow dreamy and soft with that expression of meek sweetness, and even so
- the quivering shadow of the lashes hovers upon her cheeks. It is all
- there, and yet it is not there. What is lacking? A nothing, but that
- nothing is everything.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There you have the semblance of life, but you do not express its fulness
- and effluence, that indescribable something, perhaps the soul itself, that
- envelopes the outlines of the body like a haze; that flower of life, in
- short, that Titian and Rafael caught. Your utmost achievement hitherto has
- only brought you to the starting-point. You might now perhaps begin to do
- excellent work, but you grow weary all too soon; and the crowd admires,
- and those who know smile.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh, Mabuse! oh, my master!” cried the strange speaker, “thou art a thief!
- Thou hast carried away the secret of life with thee!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nevertheless,” he began again, “this picture of yours is worth more than
- all the paintings of that rascal Rubens, with his mountains of Flemish
- flesh raddled with vermilion, his torrents of red hair, his riot of color.
- You, at least have color there, and feeling and drawing—the three
- essentials in art.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The young man roused himself from his deep musings.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Why, my good man, the Saint is sublime!” he cried. “There is a subtlety
- of imagination about those two figures, the Saint Mary and the Shipman,
- that can not be found among Italian masters; I do not know a single one of
- them capable of imagining the Shipman’s hesitation.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Did that little malapert come with you?” asked Porbus of the older man.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Alas! master, pardon my boldness,” cried the neophyte, and the color
- mounted to his face. “I am unknown—a dauber by instinct, and but
- lately come to this city—the fountain-head of all learning.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Set to work,” said Porbus, handing him a bit of red chalk and a sheet of
- paper.
- </p>
- <p>
- The new-comer quickly sketched the Saint Mary line for line.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Aha!” exclaimed the old man. “Your name?” he added.
- </p>
- <p>
- The young man wrote “Nicolas Poussin” below the sketch.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Not bad that for a beginning,” said the strange speaker, who had
- discoursed so wildly. “I see that we can talk of art in your presence. I
- do not blame you for admiring Porbus’s saint. In the eyes of the world she
- is a masterpiece, and those alone who have been initiated into the inmost
- mysteries of art can discover her shortcomings. But it is worth while to
- give you the lesson, for you are able to understand it, so I will show you
- how little it needs to complete this picture. You must be all eyes, all
- attention, for it may be that such a chance of learning will never come in
- your way again—Porbus! your palette.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Porbus went in search of palette and brushes. The little old man turned
- back his sleeves with impatient energy, seized the palette, covered with
- many hues, that Porbus handed to him, and snatched rather than took a
- handful of brushes of various sizes from the hands of his acquaintance.
- His pointed beard suddenly bristled—a menacing movement that
- expressed the prick of a lover’s fancy. As he loaded his brush, he
- muttered between his teeth, “These paints are only fit to fling out of the
- window, together with the fellow who ground them, their crudeness and
- falseness are disgusting! How can one paint with this?”
- </p>
- <p>
- He dipped the tip of the brush with feverish eagerness in the different
- pigments, making the circuit of the palette several times more quickly
- than the organist of a cathedral sweeps the octaves on the keyboard of his
- clavier for the “O Filii” at Easter.
- </p>
- <p>
- Porbus and Poussin, on either side of the easel, stood stock-still,
- watching with intense interest.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Look, young man,” he began again, “see how three or four strokes of the
- brush and a thin glaze of blue let in the free air to play about the head
- of the poor Saint, who must have felt stifled and oppressed by the close
- atmosphere! See how the drapery begins to flutter; you feel that it is
- lifted by the breeze! A moment ago it hung as heavily and stiffly as if it
- were held out by pins. Do you see how the satin sheen that I have just
- given to the breast rends the pliant, silken softness of a young girl’s
- skin, and how the brown-red, blended with burnt ochre, brings warmth into
- the cold gray of the deep shadow where the blood lay congealed instead of
- coursing through the veins? Young man, young man, no master could teach
- you how to do this that I am doing before your eyes. Mabuse alone
- possessed the secret of giving life to his figures; Mabuse had but one
- pupil—that was I. I have had none, and I am old. You have sufficient
- intelligence to imagine the rest from the glimpses that I am giving you.”
- </p>
- <p>
- While the old man was speaking, he gave a touch here and there; sometimes
- two strokes of the brush, sometimes a single one; but every stroke told so
- well, that the whole picture seemed transfigured—the painting was
- flooded with light. He worked with such passionate fervor that beads of
- sweat gathered upon his bare forehead; he worked so quickly, in brief,
- impatient jerks, that it seemed to young Poussin as if some familiar
- spirit inhabiting the body of this strange being took a grotesque pleasure
- in making use of the man’s hands against his own will. The unearthly
- glitter of his eyes, the convulsive movements that seemed like struggles,
- gave to this fancy a semblance of truth which could not but stir a young
- imagination. The old man continued, saying as he did so—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Paf! paf! that is how to lay it on, young man!—Little touches! come
- and bring a glow into those icy cold tones for me! Just so! Pon! pon!
- pon!” and those parts of the picture that he had pointed out as cold and
- lifeless flushed with warmer hues, a few bold strokes of color brought all
- the tones of the picture into the required harmony with the glowing tints
- of the Egyptian, and the differences in temperament vanished.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Look you, youngster, the last touches make the picture. Porbus has given
- it a hundred strokes for every one of mine. No one thanks us for what lies
- beneath. Bear that in mind.”
- </p>
- <p>
- At last the restless spirit stopped, and turning to Porbus and Poussin,
- who were speechless with admiration, he spoke—
- </p>
- <p>
- “This is not as good as my ‘Belle Noiseuse’; still one might put one’s
- name to such a thing as this.—Yes, I would put my name to it,” he
- added, rising to reach for a mirror, in which he looked at the picture.—“And
- now,” he said, “will you both come and breakfast with me? I have a smoked
- ham and some very fair wine!... Eh! eh! the times may be bad, but we can
- still have some talk about art! We can talk like equals.... Here is a
- little fellow who has aptitude,” he added, laying a hand on Nicolas
- Poussin’s shoulder.
- </p>
- <p>
- In this way the stranger became aware of the threadbare condition of the
- Norman’s doublet. He drew a leather purse from his girdle, felt in it,
- found two gold coins, and held them out.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I will buy your sketch,” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Take it,” said Porbus, as he saw the other start and flush with
- embarrassment, for Poussin had the pride of poverty. “Pray, take it; he
- has a couple of king’s ransoms in his pouch!”
- </p>
- <p>
- The three came down together from the studio, and, talking of art by the
- way, reached a picturesque wooden house hard by the Pont Saint-Michel.
- Poussin wondered a moment at its ornament, at the knocker, at the frames
- of the casements, at the scroll-work designs, and in the next he stood in
- a vast low-ceiled room. A table, covered with tempting dishes, stood near
- the blazing fire, and (luck unhoped for) he was in the company of two
- great artists full of genial good humor.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do not look too long at that canvas, young man,” said Porbus, when he saw
- that Poussin was standing, struck with wonder, before a painting. “You
- would fall a victim to despair.”
- </p>
- <p>
- It was the “Adam” painted by Mabuse to purchase his release from the
- prison, where his creditors had so long kept him. And, as a matter of
- fact, the figure stood out so boldly and convincingly, that Nicolas
- Poussin began to understand the real meaning of the words poured out by
- the old artist, who was himself looking at the picture with apparent
- satisfaction, but without enthusiasm. “I have done better than that!” he
- seemed to be saying to himself.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is life in it,” he said aloud; “in that respect my poor master here
- surpassed himself, but there is some lack of truth in the background. The
- man lives indeed; he is rising, and will come toward us; but the
- atmosphere, the sky, the air, the breath of the breeze—you look and
- feel for them, but they are not there. And then the man himself is, after
- all, only a man! Ah! but the one man in the world who came direct from the
- hands of God must have had a something divine about him that is wanting
- here. Mabuse himself would grind his teeth and say so when he was not
- drunk.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Poussin looked from the speaker to Porbus, and from Porbus to the speaker,
- with restless curiosity. He went up to the latter to ask for the name of
- their host; but the painter laid a finger on his lips with an air of
- mystery. The young man’s interest was excited; he kept silence, but hoped
- that sooner or later some word might be let fall that would reveal the
- name of his entertainer. It was evident that he was a man of talent and
- very wealthy, for Porbus listened to him respectfully, and the vast room
- was crowded with marvels of art.
- </p>
- <p>
- A magnificent portrait of a woman, hung against the dark oak panels of the
- wall, next caught Poussin’s attention.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What a glorious Giorgione!” he cried.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No,” said his host, “it is an early daub of mine—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gramercy! I am in the abode of the god of painting, it seems!” cried
- Poussin ingenuously.
- </p>
- <p>
- The old man smiled as if he had long grown familiar with such praise.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Master Frenhofer!” said Porbus, “do you think you could spare me a little
- of your capital Rhine wine?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A couple of pipes!” answered his host; “one to discharge a debt, for the
- pleasure of seeing your pretty sinner, the other as a present from a
- friend.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah! if I had my health,” returned Porbus, “and if you would but let me
- see your ‘Belle Noiseuse,’ I would paint some great picture, with breadth
- in it and depth; the figures should be life-size.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let you see my work!” cried the painter in agitation. “No, no! it is not
- perfect yet; something still remains for me to do. Yesterday, in the
- dusk,” he said, “I thought I had reached the end. Her eyes seemed moist,
- the flesh quivered, something stirred the tresses of her hair. She
- breathed! But though I have succeeded in reproducing Nature’s roundness
- and relief on the flat surface of the canvas, this morning, by daylight, I
- found out my mistake. Ah! to achieve that glorious result I have studied
- the works of the great masters of color, stripping off coat after coat of
- color from Titian’s canvas, analyzing the pigments of the king of light.
- Like that sovereign painter, I began the face in a slight tone with a
- supple and fat paste—for shadow is but an accident; bear that in
- mind, youngster!—Then I began afresh, and by half-tones and thin
- glazes of color less and less transparent, I gradually deepened the tints
- to the deepest black of the strongest shadows. An ordinary painter makes
- his shadows something entirely different in nature from the high lights;
- they are wood or brass, or what you will, anything but flesh in shadow.
- You feel that even if those figures were to alter their position, those
- shadow stains would never be cleansed away, those parts of the picture
- would never glow with light.
- </p>
- <p>
- “I have escaped one mistake, into which the most famous painters have
- sometimes fallen; in my canvas the whiteness shines through the densest
- and most persistent shadow. I have not marked out the limits of my figure
- in hard, dry outlines, and brought every least anatomical detail into
- prominence (like a host of dunces, who fancy that they can draw because
- they can trace a line elaborately smooth and clean), for the human body is
- not contained within the limits of line. In this the sculptor can approach
- the truth more nearly than we painters. Nature’s way is a complicated
- succession of curve within curve. Strictly speaking, there is no such
- thing as drawing.—Do not laugh, young man; strange as that speech
- may seem to you, you will understand the truth in it some day.—A
- line is a method of expressing the effect of light upon an object; but
- there are no lines in Nature, everything is solid. We draw by modeling,
- that is to say, that we disengage an object from its setting; the
- distribution of the light alone gives to a body the appearance by which we
- know it. So I have not defined the outlines; I have suffused them with a
- haze of half-tints warm or golden, in such a sort that you can not lay
- your finger on the exact spot where background and contours meet. Seen
- from near, the picture looks a blur; it seems to lack definition; but step
- back two paces, and the whole thing becomes clear, distinct, and solid;
- the body stands out; the rounded form comes into relief; you feel that the
- air plays round it. And yet—I am not satisfied; I have misgivings.
- Perhaps one ought not to draw a single line; perhaps it would be better to
- attack the face from the centre, taking the highest prominences first,
- proceeding from them through the whole range of shadows to the heaviest of
- all. Is not this the method of the sun, the divine painter of the world?
- Oh, Nature, Nature! who has surprised thee, fugitive? But, after all, too
- much knowledge, like ignorance, brings you to a negation. I have doubts
- about my work.”
- </p>
- <p>
- There was a pause. Then the old man spoke again. “I have been at work upon
- it for ten years, young man; but what are ten short years in a struggle
- with Nature? Do we know how long Sir Pygmalion wrought at the one statue
- that came to life?” The old man fell into deep musings, and gazed before
- him with unseeing eyes, while he played unheedingly with his knife.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Look, he is in conversation with his <i>domon!</i>” murmured Porbus.
- </p>
- <p>
- At the word, Nicolas Poussin felt himself carried away by an unaccountable
- accession of artist’s curiosity. For him the old man, at once intent and
- inert, the seer with the unseeing eyes, became something more than a man—a
- fantastic spirit living in a mysterious world, and countless vague
- thoughts awoke within his soul. The effect of this species of fascination
- upon his mind can no more be described in words than the passionate
- longing awakened in an exile’s heart by the song that recalls his home. He
- thought of the scorn that the old man affected to display for the noblest
- efforts of art, of his wealth, his manners, of the deference paid to him
- by Porbus. The mysterious picture, the work of patience on which he had
- wrought so long in secret, was doubtless a work of genius, for the head of
- the Virgin which young Poussin had admired so frankly was beautiful even
- beside Mabuse’s “Adam”—there was no mistaking the imperial manner of
- one of the princes of art. Everything combined to set the old man beyond
- the limits of human nature.
- </p>
- <p>
- Out of the wealth of fancies in Nicolas Poussin’s brain an idea grew, and
- gathered shape and clearness. He saw in this supernatural being a complete
- type of the artist nature, a nature mocking and kindly, barren and
- prolific, an erratic spirit intrusted with great and manifold powers which
- she too often abuses, leading sober reason, the Philistine, and sometimes
- even the amateur forth into a stony wilderness where they see nothing; but
- the white-winged maiden herself, wild as her fancies may be, finds epics
- there and castles and works of art. For Poussin, the enthusiast, the old
- man, was suddenly transfigured, and became Art incarnate, Art with its
- mysteries, its vehement passion and its dreams.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, my dear Porbus,” Frenhofer continued, “hitherto I have never found a
- flawless model, a body with outlines of perfect beauty, the carnations—Ah!
- where does she live?” he cried, breaking in upon himself, “the
- undiscoverable Venus of the older time, for whom we have sought so often,
- only to find the scattered gleams of her beauty here and there? Oh! to
- behold once and for one moment, Nature grown perfect and divine, the Ideal
- at last, I would give all that I possess.... Nay, Beauty divine, I would
- go to seek thee in the dim land of the dead; like Orpheus, I would go down
- into the Hades of Art to bring back the life of art from among the shadows
- of death.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We can go now,” said Porbus to Poussin. “He neither hears nor sees us any
- longer.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let us go to his studio,” said young Poussin, wondering greatly.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh! the old fox takes care that no one shall enter it. His treasures are
- so carefully guarded that it is impossible for us to come at them. I have
- not waited for your suggestion and your fancy to attempt to lay hands on
- this mystery by force.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “So there is a mystery?” “Yes,” answered Porbus. “Old Frenhofer is the
- only pupil Mabuse would take. Frenhofer became the painter’s friend,
- deliverer, and father; he sacrificed the greater part of his fortune to
- enable Mabuse to indulge in riotous extravagance, and in return Mabuse
- bequeathed to him the secret of relief, the power of giving to his figures
- the wonderful life, the flower of Nature, the eternal despair of art, the
- secret which Ma-buse knew so well that one day when he had sold the
- flowered brocade suit in which he should have appeared at the Entry of
- Charles V, he accompanied his master in a suit of paper painted to
- resemble the brocade. The peculiar richness and splendor of the stuff
- struck the Emperor; he complimented the old drunkard’s patron on the
- artist’s appearance, and so the trick was brought to light. Frenhofer is a
- passionate enthusiast, who sees above and beyond other painters. He has
- meditated profoundly on color, and the absolute truth of line; but by the
- way of much research he has come to doubt the very existence of the
- objects of his search. He says, in moments of despondency, that there is
- no such thing as drawing, and that by means of lines we can only reproduce
- geometrical figures; but that is overshooting the mark, for by outline and
- shadow you can reproduce form without any color at all, which shows that
- our art, like Nature, is composed of an infinite number of elements.
- Drawing gives you the skeleton, the anatomical frame-’ work, and color
- puts the life into it; but life without the skeleton is even more
- incomplete than a skeleton without life. But there is something else truer
- still, and it is this—f or painters, practise and observation are
- everything; and when theories and poetical ideas begin to quarrel with the
- brushes, the end is doubt, as has happened with our good friend, who is
- half crack-brained enthusiast, half painter. A sublime painter! but
- unlucky for him, he was born to riches, and so he has leisure to follow
- his fancies. Do not you follow his example! Work! painters have no
- business to think, except brush in hand.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We will find a way into his studio!” cried Poussin confidently. He had
- ceased to heed Porbus’s remarks. The other smiled at the young painter’s
- enthusiasm, asked him to come to see him again, and they parted. Nicolas
- Poussin went slowly back to the Rue de la Harpe, and passed the modest
- hostelry where he was lodging without noticing it. A feeling of uneasiness
- prompted him to hurry up the crazy staircase till he reached a room at the
- top, a quaint, airy recess under the steep, high-pitched roof common among
- houses in old Paris. In the one dingy window of the place sat a young
- girl, who sprang up at once when she heard some one at the door; it was
- the prompting of love; she had recognized the painter’s touch on the
- latch.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is the matter with you?” she asked.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The matter is... is... Oh! I have felt that I am a painter! Until to-day
- I have had doubts, but now I believe in myself! There is the making of a
- great man in me! Never mind, Gillette, we shall be rich and happy! There
- is gold at the tips of those brushes—”
- </p>
- <p>
- He broke off suddenly. The joy faded from his powerful and earnest face as
- he compared his vast hopes with his slender resources. The walls were
- covered with sketches in chalk on sheets of common paper. There were but
- four canvases in the room. Colors were very costly, and the young
- painter’s palette was almost bare. Yet in the midst of his poverty he
- possessed and was conscious of the possession of inexhaustible treasures
- of the heart, of a devouring genius equal to all the tasks that lay before
- him.
- </p>
- <p>
- He had been brought to Paris by a nobleman among his friends, or perchance
- by the consciousness of his powers; and in Paris he had found a mistress,
- one of those noble and generous souls who choose to suffer by a great
- man’s side, who share his struggles and strive to understand his fancies,
- accepting their lot of poverty and love as bravely and dauntlessly as
- other women will set themselves to bear the burden of riches and make a
- parade of their insensibility. The smile that stole over Gillette’s lips
- filled the garret with golden light, and rivaled the brightness of the sun
- in heaven. The sun, moreover, does not always shine in heaven, whereas
- Gillette was always in the garret, absorbed in her passion, occupied by
- Poussin’s happiness and sorrow, consoling the genius which found an outlet
- in love before art engrossed it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Listen, Gillette. Come here.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The girl obeyed joyously, and sprang upon the painter’s knee. Hers was
- perfect grace and beauty, and the loveliness of spring; she was adorned
- with all luxuriant fairness of outward form, lighted up by the glow of a
- fair soul within.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh! God,” he cried; “I shall never dare to tell her—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “A secret?” she cried; “I must know it!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Poussin was absorbed in his dreams.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do tell it me!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gillette... poor beloved heart!...”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh! do you want something of me?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “If you wish me to sit once more for you as I did the other day,” she
- continued with playful petulance, “I will never consent to do such a thing
- again, for your eyes say nothing all the while. You do not think of me at
- all, and yet you look at me—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Would you rather have me draw another woman?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Perhaps—if she were very ugly,” she said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well,” said Poussin gravely, “and if, for the sake of my fame to come, if
- to make me a great painter, you must sit to some one else?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “You may try me,” she said; “you know quite well that I would not.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Poussin’s head sank on her breast; he seemed to be overpowered by some
- intolerable joy or sorrow.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Listen,” she cried, plucking at the sleeve of Poussin’s threadbare
- doublet, “I told you, Nick, that I would lay down my life for you; but I
- never promised you that I in my lifetime would lay down my love.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Your love?” cried the young artist.
- </p>
- <p>
- “If I showed myself thus to another, you would love me no longer, and I
- should feel myself unworthy of you. Obedience to your fancies was a
- natural and simple thing, was it not? Even against my own will, I am glad
- and even proud to do thy dear will. But for another, out upon it!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Forgive me, my Gillette,” said the painter, falling upon his knees; “I
- would rather be beloved than famous. You are fairer than success and
- honors. There, fling the pencils away, and burn these sketches! I have
- made a mistake. I was meant to love and not to paint. Perish art and all
- its secrets!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Gillette looked admiringly at him, in an ecstasy of happiness! She was
- triumphant; she felt instinctively that art was laid aside for her sake,
- and flung like a grain of incense at her feet.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yet he is only an old man,” Poussin continued; “for him you would be a
- woman, and nothing more. You—so perfect!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I must love you indeed!” she cried, ready to sacrifice even love’s
- scruples to the lover who had given up so much for her sake; “but I should
- bring about my own ruin. Ah! to ruin myself, to lose everything for
- you!... It is a very glorious thought! Ah! but you will forget me. Oh I
- what evil thought is this that has come to you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I love you, and yet I thought of it,” he said, with something like
- remorse, “Am I so base a wretch?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Let us consult Père Hardouin,” she said.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No, no! Let it be a secret between us.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Very well; I will do it. But you must not be there,” she said. “Stay at
- the door with your dagger in your hand; and if I call, rush in and kill
- the painter.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Poussin forgot everything but art. He held Gillette tightly in his arms.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He loves me no longer!” thought Gillette when she was alone. She repented
- of her resolution already.
- </p>
- <p>
- But to these misgivings there soon succeeded a sharper pain, and she
- strove to banish a hideous thought that arose in her own heart. It seemed
- to her that her own love had grown less already, with a vague suspicion
- that the painter had fallen somewhat in her eyes.
- </p>
- <p>
- <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
- <!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
- </p>
- <div style="height: 4em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
- <h2>
- II—CATHERINE LESCAULT
- </h2>
- <p>
- Three months after Poussin and Porbus met, the latter went to see Master
- Frenhofer. The old man had fallen a victim to one of those profound and
- spontaneous fits of discouragement that are caused, according to medical
- logicians, by indigestion, flatulence, fever, or enlargement of the
- spleen; or, if you take the opinion of the Spiritualists, by the
- imperfections of our mortal nature. The good man had simply overworked
- himself in putting the finishing touches to his mysterious picture. He was
- lounging in a huge carved oak chair, covered with black leather, and did
- not change his listless attitude, but glanced at Porbus like a man who has
- settled down into low spirits.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, master,” said Porbus, “was the ultramarine bad that you sent for to
- Bruges? Is the new white difficult to grind? Is the oil poor, or are the
- brushes recalcitrant?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Alas!” cried the old man, “for a moment I thought that my work was
- finished, but I am sure that I am mistaken in certain details, and I can
- not rest until I have cleared my doubts. I am thinking of traveling. I am
- going to Turkey, to Greece, to Asia, in quest of a model, so as to compare
- my picture with the different living forms of Nature. Perhaps,” and a
- smile of contentment stole over his face, “perhaps I have Nature herself
- up there. At times I am half afraid that a breath may waken her, and that
- she will escape me.”
- </p>
- <p>
- He rose to his feet as if to set out at once.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Aha!” said Porbus, “I have come just in time to save you the trouble and
- expense of a journey.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What?” asked Frenhofer in amazement.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Young Poussin is loved by a woman of incomparable and flawless beauty.
- But, dear master, if he consents to lend her to you, at the least you
- ought to let us see your work.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The old man stood motionless and completely dazed.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What!” he cried piteously at last, “show you my creation, my bride? Rend
- the veil that has kept my happiness sacred? It would be an infamous
- profanation. For ten years I have lived with her; she is mine, mine alone;
- she loves me. Has she not smiled at me, at each stroke of the brush upon
- the canvas? She has a soul—the soul that I have given her. She would
- blush if any eyes but mine should rest on her. To exhibit her! Where is
- the husband, the lover so vile as to bring the woman he loves to dishonor?
- When you paint a picture for the court, you do not put your whole soul
- into it; to courtiers you sell lay figures duly colored. My painting is no
- painting, it is a sentiment, a passion. She was born in my studio, there
- she must dwell in maiden solitude, and only when clad can she issue
- thence. Poetry and women only lay the last veil aside for their lovers
- Have we Rafael’s model, Ariosto’s Angelica, Dante’s Beatrice? Nay, only
- their form and semblance. But this picture, locked away above in my
- studio, is an exception in our art. It is not a canvas, it is a woman—a
- woman with whom I talk. I share her thoughts, her tears, her laughter.
- Would you have me fling aside these ten years of happiness like a cloak?
- Would you have me cease at once to be father, lover, and creator? She is
- not a creature, but a creation.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Bring your young painter here. I will give him my treasures; I will give
- him pictures by Correggio and Michelangelo and Titian; I will kiss his
- footprints in the dust; but make him my rival! Shame on me. Ah! ah! I am a
- lover first, and then a painter. Yes, with my latest sigh I could find
- strength to burn my ‘Belle Noiseuse’; but—compel her to endure the
- gaze of a stranger, a young man and a painter!—Ah! no, no! I would
- kill him on the morrow who should sully her with a glance! Nay, you, my
- friend, I would kill you with my own hands in a moment if you did not
- kneel in reverence before her! Now, will you have me submit my idol to the
- careless eyes and senseless criticisms of fools? Ah! love is a mystery; it
- can only live hidden in the depths of the heart. You say, even to your
- friend, ‘Behold her whom I love,’ and there is an end of love.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The old man seemed to have grown young again; there was light and life in
- his eyes, and a faint flush of red in his pale face. His hands shook.
- Porbus was so amazed by the passionate vehemence of Frenhofer’s words that
- he knew not what to reply to this utterance of an emotion as strange as it
- was profound. Was Frenhofer sane or mad? Had he fallen a victim to some
- freak of the artist’s fancy? or were these ideas of his produced by the
- strange lightheadedness which comes over us during the long travail of a
- work of art. Would it be possible to come to terms with this singular
- passion?
- </p>
- <p>
- Harassed by all these doubts, Porbus spoke—“Is it not woman for
- woman?” he said. “Does not Poussin submit his mistress to your gaze?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “What is she?” retorted the other. “A mistress who will be false to him
- sooner or later. Mine will be faithful to me forever.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Well, well,” said Porbus, “let us say no more about it. But you may die
- before you will find such a flawless beauty as hers, even in Asia, and
- then your picture will be left unfinished.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh! it is finished,” said Frenhof er. “Standing before it you would think
- that it was a living woman lying on the velvet couch beneath the shadow of
- the curtains. Perfumes are burning on a golden tripod by her side. You
- would be tempted to lay your hand upon the tassel of the cord that holds
- back the curtains; it would seem to you that you saw her breast rise and
- fall as she breathed; that you beheld the living Catherine Lescault, the
- beautiful courtezan whom men called ‘La Belle Noiseuse.’ And yet—if
- I could but be sure—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then go to Asia,” returned Porbus, noticing a certain indecision in
- Frenhofer’s face. And with that Porbus made a few steps toward the door.
- By that time Gillette and Nicolas Poussin had reached Frenhofer’s house.
- The girl drew away her arm from her lover’s as she stood on the threshold,
- and shrank back as if some presentiment flashed through her mind.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh! what have I come to do here?” she asked of her lover in low vibrating
- tones, with her eyes fixed on his.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gillette, I have left you to decide; I am ready to obey you in
- everything. You are my conscience and my glory. Go home again; I shall be
- happier, perhaps, if you do not—”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Am I my own when you speak to me like that? No, no; I am a child.—Come,”
- she added, seemingly with a violent effort; “if our love dies, if I plant
- a long regret in my heart, your fame will be the reward of my obedience to
- your wishes, will it not? Let us go in. I shall still live on as a memory
- on your palette; that shall be life for me afterward.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The door opened, and the two lovers encountered Porbus, who was surprised
- by the beauty of Gillette, whose eyes were full of tears. He hurried her,
- trembling from head to foot, into the presence of the old painter.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Here!” he cried, “is she not worth all the masterpieces in the world!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Frenhofer trembled. There stood Gillette in the artless and childlike
- attitude of some timid and innocent Georgian, carried off by brigands, and
- confronted with a slave merchant. A shamefaced red flushed her face, her
- eyes drooped, her hands hung by her side, her strength seemed to have
- failed her, her tears protested against this outrage. Poussin cursed
- himself in despair that he should have brought his fair treasure from its
- hiding-place. The lover overcame the artist, and countless doubts assailed
- Poussin’s heart when he saw youth dawn in the old man’s eyes, as, like a
- painter, he discerned every line of the form hidden beneath the young
- girl’s vesture. Then the lover’s savage jealousy awoke.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Gillette!” he cried, “let us go.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The girl turned joyously at the cry and the tone in which it was uttered,
- raised her eyes to his, looked at him, and fled to his arms.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah! then you love me,” she cried; “you love me!” and she burst into
- tears.
- </p>
- <p>
- She had spirit enough to suffer in silence, but she had no strength to
- hide her joy.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh! leave her with me for one moment,” said the old painter, “and you
- shall compare her with my Catherine... yes—I consent.”
- </p>
- <p>
- Frenhofer’s words likewise came from him like a lover’s cry. His vanity
- seemed to be engaged for his semblance of womanhood; he anticipated the
- triumph of the beauty of his own creation over the beauty of the living
- girl.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do not give him time to change his mind!” cried Porbus, striking Poussin
- on the shoulder. “The flower of love soon fades, but the flower of art is
- immortal.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Then am I only a woman now for him?” said Gillette. She was watching
- Poussin and Porbus closely.
- </p>
- <p>
- She raised her head proudly; she glanced at Frenhofer, and her eyes
- flashed; then as she saw how her lover had fallen again to gazing at the
- portrait which he had taken at first for a Giorgione—
- </p>
- <p>
- “Ah!” she cried; “let us go up to the studio. He never gave me such a
- look.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The sound of her voice recalled Poussin from his dreams.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Old man,” he said, “do you see this blade? I will plunge it into your
- heart at the first cry from this young girl; I will set fire to your
- house, and no one shall leave it alive. Do you understand?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Nicolas Poussin scowled; every word was a menace. Gillette took comfort
- from the young painter’s bearing, and yet more from that gesture, and
- almost forgave him for sacrificing her to his art and his glorious future.
- </p>
- <p>
- Porbus and Poussin stood at the door of the studio and looked at each
- other in silence. At first the painter of the Saint Mary of Egypt hazarded
- some exclamations: “Ah! she has taken off her clothes; he told her to come
- into the light—he is comparing the two!” but the sight of the deep
- distress in Poussin’s face suddenly silenced him; and though old painters
- no longer feel these scruples, so petty in the presence of art, he admired
- them because they were so natural and gracious in the lover. The young man
- kept his hand on the hilt of his dagger, and his ear was almost glued to
- the door. The two men standing in the shadow might have been conspirators
- waiting for the hour when they might strike down a tyrant.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Come in, come in,” cried the old man. He was radiant with delight. “My
- work is perfect. I can show her now with pride. Never shall painter,
- brushes, colors, light, and canvas produce a rival for ‘Catherine
- Lescault,’ the beautiful courtezan!”
- </p>
- <p>
- Porbus and Poussin, burning with eager curiosity, hurried into a vast
- studio. Everything was in disorder and covered with dust, but they saw a
- few pictures here and there upon the wall. They stopped first of all in
- admiration before the life-size figure of a woman partially draped.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Oh! never mind that,” said Frenhofer; “that is a rough daub that I made,
- a study, a pose, it is nothing. These are my failures,” he went on,
- indicating the enchanting compositions upon the walls of the studio.
- </p>
- <p>
- This scorn for such works of art struck Porbus and Poussin dumb with
- amazement. They looked round for the picture of which he had spoken, and
- could not discover it.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Look here!” said the old man. His hair was disordered, his face aglow
- with a more than human exaltation, his eyes glittered, he breathed hard
- like a young lover frenzied by love.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Aha!” he cried, “you did not expect to see such perfection! You are
- looking for a picture, and you see a woman before you. There is such depth
- in that canvas, the atmosphere is so true that you can not distinguish it
- from the air that surrounds us. Where is art? Art has vanished, it is
- invisible! It is the form of a living girl that you see before you. Have I
- not caught the very hues of life, the spirit of the living line that
- defines the figure? Is there not the effect produced there like that which
- all natural objects present in the atmosphere about them, or fishes in the
- water? Do you see how the figure stands out against the background? Does
- it not seem to you that you pass your hand along the back? But then for
- seven years I studied and watched how the daylight blends with the objects
- on which it falls. And the hair, the light pours over it like a flood,
- does it not?... Ah! she breathed, I am sure that she breathed! Her breast—ah,
- see! Who would not fall on his knees before her? Her pulses throb. She
- will rise to her feet. Wait!”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Do you see anything?” Poussin asked of Porbus.
- </p>
- <p>
- “No... do you?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “I see nothing.”
- </p>
- <p>
- The two painters left the old man to his ecstasy, and tried to ascertain
- whether the light that fell full upon the canvas had in some way
- neutralized all the effect for them. They moved to the right and left of
- the picture; they came in front, bending down and standing upright by
- turns.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, yes, it is really canvas,” said Frenhofer, who mistook the nature of
- this minute investigation.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Look! the canvas is on a stretcher, here is the easel; indeed, here are
- my colors, my brushes,” and he took up a brush and held it out to them,
- all unsuspicious of their thought.
- </p>
- <p>
- “The old <i>lansquenet</i> is laughing at us,” said Poussin, coming once
- more toward the supposed picture. “I can see nothing there but confused
- masses of color and a multitude of fantastical lines that go to make a
- dead wall of paint.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “We are mistaken, look!” said Porbus.
- </p>
- <p>
- In a corner of the canvas, as they came nearer, they distinguished a bare
- foot emerging from the chaos of color, half-tints and vague shadows that
- made up a dim, formless fog. Its living delicate beauty held them
- spellbound. This fragment that had escaped an incomprehensible, slow, and
- gradual destruction seemed to them like the Parian marble torso of some
- Venus emerging from the ashes of a ruined town.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There is a woman beneath,” exclaimed Porbus, calling Poussin’s attention
- to the coats of paint with which the old artist had overlaid and concealed
- his work in the quest of perfection.
- </p>
- <p>
- Both artists turned involuntarily to Frenhofer. They began to have some
- understanding, vague though it was, of the ecstasy in which he lived.
- </p>
- <p>
- “He believes it in all good faith,” said Porbus.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Yes, my friend,” said the old man, rousing himself from his dreams, “it
- needs faith, faith in art, and you must live for long with your work to
- produce such a creation. What toil some of those shadows have cost me.
- Look! there is a faint shadow there upon the cheek beneath the eyes—if
- you saw that on a human face, it would seem to you that you could never
- render it with paint. Do you think that that effect has not cost unheard
- of toil?
- </p>
- <p>
- “But not only so, dear Porbus. Look closely at my work, and you will
- understand more clearly what I was saying as to methods of modeling and
- outline. Look at the high lights on the bosom, and see how by touch on
- touch, thickly laid on, I have raised the surface so that it catches the
- light itself and blends it with the lustrous whiteness of the high lights,
- and how by an opposite process, by flattening the surface of the paint,
- and leaving no trace of the passage of the brush, I have succeeded in
- softening the contours of my figures and enveloping them in half-tints
- until the very idea of drawing, of the means by which the effect is
- produced, fades away, and the picture has the roundness and relief of
- nature. Come closer. You will see the manner of working better; at a
- little distance it can not be seen. There I Just there, it is, I think,
- very plainly to be seen,” and with the tip of his brush he pointed out a
- patch of transparent color to the two painters.
- </p>
- <p>
- Porbus, laying a hand on the old artist’s shoulder, turned to Poussin with
- a “Do you know that in him we see a very great painter?”
- </p>
- <p>
- “He is even more of a poet than a painter,” Poussin answered gravely.
- </p>
- <p>
- “There,” Porbus continued, as he touched the canvas, “Use the utmost limit
- of our art on earth.”
- </p>
- <p>
- “Beyond that point it loses itself in the skies,” said Poussin.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What joys lie there on this piece of canvas!” exclaimed Porbus.
- </p>
- <p>
- The old man, deep in his own musings, smiled at the woman he alone beheld,
- and did not hear.
- </p>
- <p>
- “But sooner or later he will find out that there is nothing there!” cried
- Poussin.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing on my canvas!” said Frenhofer, looking in turn at either painter
- and at his picture.
- </p>
- <p>
- “What have you done?” muttered Porbus, turning to Poussin.
- </p>
- <p>
- The old man clutched the young painter’s arm and said, “Do you see
- nothing? clodpatel Huguenot! varlet! cullion! What brought you here into
- my studio?—My good Porbus,” he went on, as he turned to the painter,
- “are you also making a fool of me? Answer! I am your friend. Tell me, have
- I ruined my picture after all?”
- </p>
- <p>
- Porbus hesitated and said nothing, but there was such intolerable anxiety
- in the old man’s white face that he pointed to the easel.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Look!” he said.
- </p>
- <p>
- Frenhofer looked for a moment at his picture, and staggered back.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Nothing! nothing! After ten years of work...” He sat down and wept.
- </p>
- <p>
- “So I am a dotard, a madman, I have neither talent nor power! I am only a
- rich man, who works for his own pleasure, and makes no progress, I have
- done nothing after all!”
- </p>
- <p>
- He looked through his tears at his picture. Suddenly he rose and stood
- proudly before the two painters.
- </p>
- <p>
- “By the body and blood of Christ,” he cried with flashing eyes, “you are
- jealous! You would have me think that my picture is a failure because you
- want to steal her from me! Ah! I see her, I see her,” he cried “she is
- marvelously beautiful...”
- </p>
- <p>
- At that moment Poussin heard the sound of weeping; Gillette was crouching
- forgotten in a corner. All at once the painter once more became the lover.
- “What is it, my angel?” he asked her.
- </p>
- <p>
- “Kill me!” she sobbed. “I must be a vile thing if I love you still, for I
- despise you.... I admire you, and I hate you! I love you, and I feel that
- I hate you even now!”
- </p>
- <p>
- While Gillette’s words sounded in Poussin’s ears, Frenhof er drew a green
- serge covering over his “Catherine” with the sober deliberation of a
- jeweler who locks his drawers when he suspects his visitors to be expert
- thieves. He gave the two painters a profoundly astute glance that
- expressed to the full his suspicions, and his contempt for them, saw them
- out of his studio with impetuous haste and in silence, until from the
- threshold of his house he bade them “Good-by, my young friends!”
- </p>
- <p>
- That farewell struck a chill of dread into the two painters. Porbus, in
- anxiety, went again on the morrow to see Frenhofer, and learned that he
- had died in the night after burning his canvases.
- </p>
- <p>
- <br />
- </p>
- <p>
- Paris, February, 1832.
- </p>
- <div style="height: 6em;">
- <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
- </div>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-
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diff --git a/old/old-2025-02-19/23060-0.txt b/old/old-2025-02-19/23060-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index f23f725..0000000 --- a/old/old-2025-02-19/23060-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1505 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Unknown Masterpiece, by Honoré De Balzac - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 - -Author: Honoré De Balzac - -Release Date: October 17, 2007 [EBook #23060] -Last Updated: November 23, 2016 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNKNOWN MASTERPIECE *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger - - - - - -THE UNKNOWN MASTERPIECE - -By Honoré De Balzac - -TO A LORD - -1845 - - - - -I--GILLETTE - -On a cold December morning in the year 1612, a young man, whose clothing -was somewhat of the thinnest, was walking to and fro before a gateway -in the Rue des Grands-Augustins in Paris. He went up and down the street -before this house with the irresolution of a gallant who dares not -venture into the presence of the mistress whom he loves for the first -time, easy of access though she may be; but after a sufficiently long -interval of hesitation, he at last crossed the threshold and inquired -of an old woman, who was sweeping out a large room on the ground floor, -whether Master Porbus was within. Receiving a reply in the affirmative, -the young man went slowly up the staircase, like a gentleman but newly -come to court, and doubtful as to his reception by the king. He came to -a stand once more on the landing at the head of the stairs, and again he -hesitated before raising his hand to the grotesque knocker on the door -of the studio, where doubtless the painter was at work--Master Porbus, -sometime painter in ordinary to Henri IV till Mary de’ Medici took -Rubens into favor. - -The young man felt deeply stirred by an emotion that must thrill the -hearts of all great artists when, in the pride of their youth and their -first love of art, they come into the presence of a master or stand -before a masterpiece. For all human sentiments there is a time of early -blossoming, a day of generous enthusiasm that gradually fades until -nothing is left of happiness but a memory, and glory is known for -a delusion. Of all these delicate and short-lived emotions, none so -resemble love as the passion of a young artist for his art, as he is -about to enter on the blissful martyrdom of his career of glory and -disaster, of vague expectations and real disappointments. - -Those who have missed this experience in the early days of light purses; -who have not, in the dawn of their genius, stood in the presence of -a master and felt the throbbing of their hearts, will always carry in -their inmost souls a chord that has never been touched, and in their -work an indefinable quality will be lacking, a something in the stroke -of the brush, a mysterious element that we call poetry. The swaggerers, -so puffed up by self-conceit that they are confident over-soon of their -success, can never be taken for men of talent save by fools. From this -point of view, if youthful modesty is the measure of youthful genius, -the stranger on the staircase might be allowed to have something in -him; for he seemed to possess the indescribable diffidence, the early -timidity that artists are bound to lose in the course of a great career, -even as pretty women lose it as they make progress in the arts of -coquetry. Self-distrust vanishes as triumph succeeds to triumph, and -modesty is, perhaps, distrust of itself. - -The poor neophyte was so overcome by the consciousness of his own -presumption and insignificance, that it began to look as if he was -hardly likely to penetrate into the studio of the painter, to whom we -owe the wonderful portrait of Henri IV. But fate was propitious; an old -man came up the staircase. From the quaint costume of this newcomer, his -collar of magnificent lace, and a certain serene gravity in his bearing, -the first arrival thought that this personage must be either a patron or -a friend of the court painter. He stood aside therefore upon the landing -to allow the visitor to pass, scrutinizing him curiously the while. -Perhaps he might hope to find the good nature of an artist or to receive -the good offices of an amateur not unfriendly to the arts; but besides -an almost diabolical expression in the face that met his gaze, there was -that indescribable something which has an irresistible attraction for -artists. - -Picture that face. A bald high forehead and rugged jutting brows above -a small flat nose turned up at the end, as in the portraits of Socrates -and Rabelais; deep lines about the mocking mouth; a short chin, carried -proudly, covered with a grizzled pointed beard; sea-green eyes that age -might seem to have dimmed were it not for the contrast between the iris -and the surrounding mother-of-pearl tints, so that it seemed as if under -the stress of anger or enthusiasm there would be a magnetic power to -quell or kindle in their glances. The face was withered beyond wont by -the fatigue of years, yet it seemed aged still more by the thoughts that -had worn away both soul and body. There were no lashes to the deep-set -eyes, and scarcely a trace of the arching lines of the eyebrows above -them. Set this head on a spare and feeble frame, place it in a frame of -lace wrought like an engraved silver fish-slice, imagine a heavy gold -chain over the old man’s black doublet, and you will have some dim idea -of this strange personage, who seemed still more fantastic in the sombre -twilight of the staircase. One of Rembrandt’s portraits might have -stepped down from its frame to walk in an appropriate atmosphere of -gloom, such as the great painter loved. The older man gave the younger a -shrewd glance, and knocked thrice at the door. It was opened by a man of -forty or thereabout, who seemed to be an invalid. - -“Good day, Master.” - -Porbus bowed respectfully, and held the door open for the younger man to -enter, thinking that the latter accompanied his visitor; and when he -saw that the neophyte stood a while as if spellbound, feeling, as every -artist-nature must feel, the fascinating influence of the first sight -of a studio in which the material processes of art are revealed, Porbus -troubled himself no more about this second comer. - -All the light in the studio came from a window in the roof, and was -concentrated upon an easel, where a canvas stood untouched as yet save -for three or four outlines in chalk. The daylight scarcely reached the -remoter angles and corners of the vast room; they were as dark as night, -but the silver ornamented breastplate of a Reiter’s corselet, that hung -upon the wall, attracted a stray gleam to its dim abiding-place among -the brown shadows; or a shaft of light shot across the carved and -glistening surface of an antique sideboard covered with curious -silver-plate, or struck out a line of glittering dots among the raised -threads of the golden warp of some old brocaded curtains, where the -lines of the stiff, heavy folds were broken, as the stuff had been flung -carelessly down to serve as a model. - -Plaster _écorchés_ stood about the room; and here and there, on shelves -and tables, lay fragments of classical sculpture-torsos of antique -goddesses, worn smooth as though all the years of the centuries that had -passed over them had been lovers’ kisses. The walls were covered, from -floor to ceiling, with countless sketches in charcoal, red chalk, or -pen and ink. Amid the litter and confusion of color boxes, overturned -stools, flasks of oil, and essences, there was just room to move so as -to reach the illuminated circular space where the easel stood. The light -from the window in the roof fell full upon Por-bus’s pale face and on -the ivory-tinted forehead of his strange visitor. But in another moment -the younger man heeded nothing but a picture that had already become -famous even in those stormy days of political and religious revolution, -a picture that a few of the zealous worshipers, who have so often kept -the sacred fire of art alive in evil days, were wont to go on pilgrimage -to see. The beautiful panel represented a Saint Mary of Egypt about to -pay her passage across the seas. It was a masterpiece destined for Mary -de’ Medici, who sold it in later years of poverty. - -“I like your saint,” the old man remarked, addressing Porbus. “I would -give you ten golden crowns for her over and above the price the Queen is -paying; but as for putting a spoke in that wheel,--the devil take it!” - -“It is good then?” - -“Hey! hey!” said the old man; “good, say you?--Yes and no. Your good -woman is not badly done, but she is not alive. You artists fancy that -when a figure is correctly drawn, and everything in its place according -to the rules of anatomy, there is nothing more to be done. You make up -the flesh tints beforehand on your palettes according to your formulae, -and fill in the outlines with due care that one side of the face shall -be darker than the other; and because you look from time to time at a -naked woman who stands on the platform before you, you fondly imagine -that you have copied nature, think yourselves to be painters, believe -that you have wrested His secret from God. Pshaw! You may know your -syntax thoroughly and make no blunders in your grammar, but it takes -that and something more to make a great poet. Look at your saint, -Porbus! At a first glance she is admirable; look at her again, and you -see at once that she is glued to the background, and that you could not -walk round her. She is a silhouette that turns but one side of her face -to all beholders, a figure cut out of canvas, an image with no power -to move nor change her position. I feel as if there were no air between -that arm and the background, no space, no sense of distance in your -canvas. The perspective is perfectly correct, the strength of the -coloring is accurately diminished with the distance; but, in spite of -these praiseworthy efforts, I could never bring myself to believe that -the warm breath of life comes and goes in that beautiful body. It seems -to me that if I laid my hand on the firm, rounded throat, it would be -cold as marble to the touch. No, my friend, the blood does not flow -beneath that ivory skin, the tide of life does not flush those delicate -fibres, the purple veins that trace a network beneath the transparent -amber of her brow and breast. Here the pulse seems to beat, there it is -motionless, life and death are at strife in every detail; here you see -a woman, there a statue, there again a corpse. Your creation is -incomplete. You had only power to breathe a portion of your soul into -your beloved work. The fire of Prometheus died out again and again in -your hands; many a spot in your picture has not been touched by the -divine flame.” - -“But how is it, dear master?” Porbus asked respectfully, while the young -man with difficulty repressed his strong desire to beat the critic. - -“Ah!” said the old man, “it is this! You have halted between two -manners. You have hesitated between drawing and color, between the -dogged attention to detail, the stiff precision of the German masters -and the dazzling glow, the joyous exuberance of Italian painters. You -have set yourself to imitate Hans Holbein and Titian, Albrecht Durer -and Paul Veronese in a single picture. A magnificent ambition truly, -but what has come of it? Your work has neither the severe charm of a dry -execution nor the magical illusion of Italian _chiaroscuro_. Titian’s -rich golden coloring poured into Albrecht Dureras austere outlines has -shattered them, like molten bronze bursting through the mold that is not -strong enough to hold it. In other places the outlines have held firm, -imprisoning and obscuring the magnificent, glowing flood of Venetian -color. The drawing of the face is not perfect, the coloring is not -perfect; traces of that unlucky indecision are to be seen everywhere. -Unless you felt strong enough to fuse the two opposed manners in the -fire of your own genius, you should have cast in your lot boldly with -the one or the other, and so have obtained the unity which simulates one -of the conditions of life itself. Your work is only true in the centres; -your outlines are false, they project nothing, there is no hint of -anything behind them. There is truth here,” said the old man, pointing -to the breast of the Saint, “and again here,” he went on, indicating the -rounded shoulder. “But there,” once more returning to the column of -the throat, “everything is false. Let us go no further into detail, you -would be disheartened.” - -The old man sat down on a stool, and remained a while without speaking, -with his face buried in his hands. - -“Yet I studied that throat from the life, dear master,” Porbus began; -“it happens sometimes, for our misfortune, that real effects in nature -look improbable when transferred to canvas--” - -“The aim of art is not to copy nature, but to express it. You are not a -servile copyist, but a poet!” cried the old man sharply, cutting Porbus -short with an imperious gesture. “Otherwise a sculptor might make a -plaster cast of a living woman and save himself all further trouble. -Well, try to make a cast of your mistress’s hand, and set up the -thing before you. You will see a monstrosity, a dead mass, bearing no -resemblance to the living hand; you would be compelled to have recourse -to the chisel of a sculptor who, without making an exact copy, would -represent for you its movement and its life. We must detect the spirit, -the informing soul in the appearances of things and beings. Effects! -What are effects but the accidents of life, not life itself? A hand, -since I have taken that example, is not only a part of a body, it is the -expression and extension of a thought that must be grasped and rendered. -Neither painter nor poet nor sculptor may separate the effect from the -cause, which are inevitably contained the one in the other. There -begins the real struggle! Many a painter achieves success instinctively, -unconscious of the task that is set before art. You draw a woman, yet -you do not see her! Not so do you succeed in wresting Nature’s secrets -from her! You are reproducing mechanically the model that you copied in -your master’s studio. You do not penetrate far enough into the inmost -secrets of the mystery of form; you do not seek with love enough and -perseverance enough after the form that baffles and eludes you. Beauty -is a thing severe and unapproachable, never to be won by a languid -lover. You must lie in wait for her coming and take her unawares, press -her hard and clasp her in a tight embrace, and force her to yield. Form -is a Proteus more intangible and more manifold than the Proteus of the -legend; compelled, only after long wrestling, to stand forth manifest in -his true aspect. Some of you are satisfied with the first shape, or -at most by the second or the third that appears. Not thus wrestle the -victors, the unvanquished painters who never suffer themselves to be -deluded by all those treacherous shadow-shapes; they persevere till -Nature at the last stands bare to their gaze, and her very soul is -revealed. - -“In this manner worked Rafael,” said the old man, taking off his cap to -express his reverence for the King of Art. “His transcendent greatness -came of the intimate sense that, in him, seems as if it would shatter -external form. Form in his figures (as with us) is a symbol, a means of -communicating sensations, ideas, the vast imaginings of a poet. Every -face is a whole world. The subject of the portrait appeared for him -bathed in the light of a divine vision; it was revealed by an inner -voice, the finger of God laid bare the sources of expression in the past -of a whole life. - -“You clothe your women in fair raiment of flesh, in gracious veiling -of hair; but where is the blood, the source of passion and of calm, the -cause of the particular effect? Why, this brown Egyptian of yours, my -good Porbus, is a colorless creature! These figures that you set before -us are painted bloodless fantoms; and you call that painting, you call -that art! - -“Because you have made something more like a woman than a house, you -think that you have set your fingers on the goal; you are quite proud -that you need not to write _currus venustus_ or _pulcher homo_ beside -your figures, as early painters were wont to do and you fancy that you -have done wonders. Ah! my good friend, there is still something more to -learn, and you will use up a great deal of chalk and cover many a canvas -before you will learn it. Yes, truly, a woman carries her head in just -such a way, so she holds her garments gathered into her hand; her eyes -grow dreamy and soft with that expression of meek sweetness, and even -so the quivering shadow of the lashes hovers upon her cheeks. It is all -there, and yet it is not there. What is lacking? A nothing, but that -nothing is everything. - -“There you have the semblance of life, but you do not express its -fulness and effluence, that indescribable something, perhaps the soul -itself, that envelopes the outlines of the body like a haze; that -flower of life, in short, that Titian and Rafael caught. Your utmost -achievement hitherto has only brought you to the starting-point. You -might now perhaps begin to do excellent work, but you grow weary all too -soon; and the crowd admires, and those who know smile. - -“Oh, Mabuse! oh, my master!” cried the strange speaker, “thou art a -thief! Thou hast carried away the secret of life with thee!” - -“Nevertheless,” he began again, “this picture of yours is worth more -than all the paintings of that rascal Rubens, with his mountains of -Flemish flesh raddled with vermilion, his torrents of red hair, his riot -of color. You, at least have color there, and feeling and drawing--the -three essentials in art.” - -The young man roused himself from his deep musings. - -“Why, my good man, the Saint is sublime!” he cried. “There is a subtlety -of imagination about those two figures, the Saint Mary and the Shipman, -that can not be found among Italian masters; I do not know a single one -of them capable of imagining the Shipman’s hesitation.” - -“Did that little malapert come with you?” asked Porbus of the older man. - -“Alas! master, pardon my boldness,” cried the neophyte, and the color -mounted to his face. “I am unknown--a dauber by instinct, and but lately -come to this city--the fountain-head of all learning.” - -“Set to work,” said Porbus, handing him a bit of red chalk and a sheet -of paper. - -The new-comer quickly sketched the Saint Mary line for line. - -“Aha!” exclaimed the old man. “Your name?” he added. - -The young man wrote “Nicolas Poussin” below the sketch. - -“Not bad that for a beginning,” said the strange speaker, who had -discoursed so wildly. “I see that we can talk of art in your presence. -I do not blame you for admiring Porbus’s saint. In the eyes of the world -she is a masterpiece, and those alone who have been initiated into the -inmost mysteries of art can discover her shortcomings. But it is worth -while to give you the lesson, for you are able to understand it, so I -will show you how little it needs to complete this picture. You must be -all eyes, all attention, for it may be that such a chance of learning -will never come in your way again--Porbus! your palette.” - -Porbus went in search of palette and brushes. The little old man turned -back his sleeves with impatient energy, seized the palette, covered with -many hues, that Porbus handed to him, and snatched rather than took a -handful of brushes of various sizes from the hands of his acquaintance. -His pointed beard suddenly bristled--a menacing movement that expressed -the prick of a lover’s fancy. As he loaded his brush, he muttered -between his teeth, “These paints are only fit to fling out of the -window, together with the fellow who ground them, their crudeness and -falseness are disgusting! How can one paint with this?” - -He dipped the tip of the brush with feverish eagerness in the different -pigments, making the circuit of the palette several times more quickly -than the organist of a cathedral sweeps the octaves on the keyboard of -his clavier for the “O Filii” at Easter. - -Porbus and Poussin, on either side of the easel, stood stock-still, -watching with intense interest. - -“Look, young man,” he began again, “see how three or four strokes of -the brush and a thin glaze of blue let in the free air to play about the -head of the poor Saint, who must have felt stifled and oppressed by the -close atmosphere! See how the drapery begins to flutter; you feel that -it is lifted by the breeze! A moment ago it hung as heavily and stiffly -as if it were held out by pins. Do you see how the satin sheen that I -have just given to the breast rends the pliant, silken softness of a -young girl’s skin, and how the brown-red, blended with burnt ochre, -brings warmth into the cold gray of the deep shadow where the blood lay -congealed instead of coursing through the veins? Young man, young man, -no master could teach you how to do this that I am doing before your -eyes. Mabuse alone possessed the secret of giving life to his figures; -Mabuse had but one pupil--that was I. I have had none, and I am old. You -have sufficient intelligence to imagine the rest from the glimpses that -I am giving you.” - -While the old man was speaking, he gave a touch here and there; -sometimes two strokes of the brush, sometimes a single one; but every -stroke told so well, that the whole picture seemed transfigured--the -painting was flooded with light. He worked with such passionate fervor -that beads of sweat gathered upon his bare forehead; he worked so -quickly, in brief, impatient jerks, that it seemed to young Poussin as -if some familiar spirit inhabiting the body of this strange being took -a grotesque pleasure in making use of the man’s hands against his own -will. The unearthly glitter of his eyes, the convulsive movements -that seemed like struggles, gave to this fancy a semblance of truth -which could not but stir a young imagination. The old man continued, -saying as he did so-- - -“Paf! paf! that is how to lay it on, young man!--Little touches! come -and bring a glow into those icy cold tones for me! Just so! Pon! pon! -pon!” and those parts of the picture that he had pointed out as cold and -lifeless flushed with warmer hues, a few bold strokes of color brought -all the tones of the picture into the required harmony with the glowing -tints of the Egyptian, and the differences in temperament vanished. - -“Look you, youngster, the last touches make the picture. Porbus has -given it a hundred strokes for every one of mine. No one thanks us for -what lies beneath. Bear that in mind.” - -At last the restless spirit stopped, and turning to Porbus and Poussin, -who were speechless with admiration, he spoke-- - -“This is not as good as my ‘Belle Noiseuse’; still one might put one’s -name to such a thing as this.--Yes, I would put my name to it,” - he added, rising to reach for a mirror, in which he looked at the -picture.--“And now,” he said, “will you both come and breakfast with me? -I have a smoked ham and some very fair wine!... Eh! eh! the times may -be bad, but we can still have some talk about art! We can talk like -equals.... Here is a little fellow who has aptitude,” he added, laying a -hand on Nicolas Poussin’s shoulder. - -In this way the stranger became aware of the threadbare condition of the -Norman’s doublet. He drew a leather purse from his girdle, felt in it, -found two gold coins, and held them out. - -“I will buy your sketch,” he said. - -“Take it,” said Porbus, as he saw the other start and flush with -embarrassment, for Poussin had the pride of poverty. “Pray, take it; he -has a couple of king’s ransoms in his pouch!” - -The three came down together from the studio, and, talking of art by the -way, reached a picturesque wooden house hard by the Pont Saint-Michel. -Poussin wondered a moment at its ornament, at the knocker, at the frames -of the casements, at the scroll-work designs, and in the next he stood -in a vast low-ceiled room. A table, covered with tempting dishes, stood -near the blazing fire, and (luck unhoped for) he was in the company of -two great artists full of genial good humor. - -“Do not look too long at that canvas, young man,” said Porbus, when he -saw that Poussin was standing, struck with wonder, before a painting. -“You would fall a victim to despair.” - -It was the “Adam” painted by Mabuse to purchase his release from the -prison, where his creditors had so long kept him. And, as a matter of -fact, the figure stood out so boldly and convincingly, that Nicolas -Poussin began to understand the real meaning of the words poured out -by the old artist, who was himself looking at the picture with apparent -satisfaction, but without enthusiasm. “I have done better than that!” he -seemed to be saying to himself. - -“There is life in it,” he said aloud; “in that respect my poor -master here surpassed himself, but there is some lack of truth in the -background. The man lives indeed; he is rising, and will come toward us; -but the atmosphere, the sky, the air, the breath of the breeze--you look -and feel for them, but they are not there. And then the man himself is, -after all, only a man! Ah! but the one man in the world who came direct -from the hands of God must have had a something divine about him that -is wanting here. Mabuse himself would grind his teeth and say so when he -was not drunk.” - -Poussin looked from the speaker to Porbus, and from Porbus to the -speaker, with restless curiosity. He went up to the latter to ask for -the name of their host; but the painter laid a finger on his lips -with an air of mystery. The young man’s interest was excited; he kept -silence, but hoped that sooner or later some word might be let fall that -would reveal the name of his entertainer. It was evident that he was a -man of talent and very wealthy, for Porbus listened to him respectfully, -and the vast room was crowded with marvels of art. - -A magnificent portrait of a woman, hung against the dark oak panels of -the wall, next caught Poussin’s attention. - -“What a glorious Giorgione!” he cried. - -“No,” said his host, “it is an early daub of mine--” - -“Gramercy! I am in the abode of the god of painting, it seems!” cried -Poussin ingenuously. - -The old man smiled as if he had long grown familiar with such praise. - -“Master Frenhofer!” said Porbus, “do you think you could spare me a -little of your capital Rhine wine?” - -“A couple of pipes!” answered his host; “one to discharge a debt, for -the pleasure of seeing your pretty sinner, the other as a present from a -friend.” - -“Ah! if I had my health,” returned Porbus, “and if you would but let -me see your ‘Belle Noiseuse,’ I would paint some great picture, with -breadth in it and depth; the figures should be life-size.” - -“Let you see my work!” cried the painter in agitation. “No, no! it is -not perfect yet; something still remains for me to do. Yesterday, in the -dusk,” he said, “I thought I had reached the end. Her eyes seemed moist, -the flesh quivered, something stirred the tresses of her hair. She -breathed! But though I have succeeded in reproducing Nature’s roundness -and relief on the flat surface of the canvas, this morning, by daylight, -I found out my mistake. Ah! to achieve that glorious result I have -studied the works of the great masters of color, stripping off coat -after coat of color from Titian’s canvas, analyzing the pigments of the -king of light. Like that sovereign painter, I began the face in a slight -tone with a supple and fat paste--for shadow is but an accident; bear -that in mind, youngster!--Then I began afresh, and by half-tones and -thin glazes of color less and less transparent, I gradually deepened the -tints to the deepest black of the strongest shadows. An ordinary painter -makes his shadows something entirely different in nature from the high -lights; they are wood or brass, or what you will, anything but flesh -in shadow. You feel that even if those figures were to alter their -position, those shadow stains would never be cleansed away, those parts -of the picture would never glow with light. - -“I have escaped one mistake, into which the most famous painters have -sometimes fallen; in my canvas the whiteness shines through the densest -and most persistent shadow. I have not marked out the limits of my -figure in hard, dry outlines, and brought every least anatomical detail -into prominence (like a host of dunces, who fancy that they can draw -because they can trace a line elaborately smooth and clean), for the -human body is not contained within the limits of line. In this the -sculptor can approach the truth more nearly than we painters. Nature’s -way is a complicated succession of curve within curve. Strictly -speaking, there is no such thing as drawing.--Do not laugh, young man; -strange as that speech may seem to you, you will understand the truth in -it some day.--A line is a method of expressing the effect of light upon -an object; but there are no lines in Nature, everything is solid. We -draw by modeling, that is to say, that we disengage an object from -its setting; the distribution of the light alone gives to a body the -appearance by which we know it. So I have not defined the outlines; I -have suffused them with a haze of half-tints warm or golden, in such a -sort that you can not lay your finger on the exact spot where background -and contours meet. Seen from near, the picture looks a blur; it seems -to lack definition; but step back two paces, and the whole thing becomes -clear, distinct, and solid; the body stands out; the rounded form comes -into relief; you feel that the air plays round it. And yet--I am not -satisfied; I have misgivings. Perhaps one ought not to draw a single -line; perhaps it would be better to attack the face from the centre, -taking the highest prominences first, proceeding from them through the -whole range of shadows to the heaviest of all. Is not this the method -of the sun, the divine painter of the world? Oh, Nature, Nature! who -has surprised thee, fugitive? But, after all, too much knowledge, like -ignorance, brings you to a negation. I have doubts about my work.” - -There was a pause. Then the old man spoke again. “I have been at work -upon it for ten years, young man; but what are ten short years in a -struggle with Nature? Do we know how long Sir Pygmalion wrought at the -one statue that came to life?” The old man fell into deep musings, and -gazed before him with unseeing eyes, while he played unheedingly with -his knife. - -“Look, he is in conversation with his _domon!_” murmured Porbus. - -At the word, Nicolas Poussin felt himself carried away by an -unaccountable accession of artist’s curiosity. For him the old man, at -once intent and inert, the seer with the unseeing eyes, became something -more than a man--a fantastic spirit living in a mysterious world, and -countless vague thoughts awoke within his soul. The effect of this -species of fascination upon his mind can no more be described in words -than the passionate longing awakened in an exile’s heart by the song -that recalls his home. He thought of the scorn that the old man affected -to display for the noblest efforts of art, of his wealth, his manners, -of the deference paid to him by Porbus. The mysterious picture, the work -of patience on which he had wrought so long in secret, was doubtless -a work of genius, for the head of the Virgin which young Poussin had -admired so frankly was beautiful even beside Mabuse’s “Adam”--there -was no mistaking the imperial manner of one of the princes of art. -Everything combined to set the old man beyond the limits of human -nature. - -Out of the wealth of fancies in Nicolas Poussin’s brain an idea grew, -and gathered shape and clearness. He saw in this supernatural being a -complete type of the artist nature, a nature mocking and kindly, barren -and prolific, an erratic spirit intrusted with great and manifold powers -which she too often abuses, leading sober reason, the Philistine, and -sometimes even the amateur forth into a stony wilderness where they see -nothing; but the white-winged maiden herself, wild as her fancies may -be, finds epics there and castles and works of art. For Poussin, the -enthusiast, the old man, was suddenly transfigured, and became Art -incarnate, Art with its mysteries, its vehement passion and its dreams. - -“Yes, my dear Porbus,” Frenhofer continued, “hitherto I have never -found a flawless model, a body with outlines of perfect beauty, the -carnations--Ah! where does she live?” he cried, breaking in upon -himself, “the undiscoverable Venus of the older time, for whom we have -sought so often, only to find the scattered gleams of her beauty here -and there? Oh! to behold once and for one moment, Nature grown perfect -and divine, the Ideal at last, I would give all that I possess.... Nay, -Beauty divine, I would go to seek thee in the dim land of the dead; like -Orpheus, I would go down into the Hades of Art to bring back the life of -art from among the shadows of death.” - -“We can go now,” said Porbus to Poussin. “He neither hears nor sees us -any longer.” - -“Let us go to his studio,” said young Poussin, wondering greatly. - -“Oh! the old fox takes care that no one shall enter it. His treasures -are so carefully guarded that it is impossible for us to come at them. -I have not waited for your suggestion and your fancy to attempt to lay -hands on this mystery by force.” - -“So there is a mystery?” “Yes,” answered Porbus. “Old Frenhofer is the -only pupil Mabuse would take. Frenhofer became the painter’s friend, -deliverer, and father; he sacrificed the greater part of his fortune to -enable Mabuse to indulge in riotous extravagance, and in return Mabuse -bequeathed to him the secret of relief, the power of giving to his -figures the wonderful life, the flower of Nature, the eternal despair of -art, the secret which Ma-buse knew so well that one day when he had sold -the flowered brocade suit in which he should have appeared at the Entry -of Charles V, he accompanied his master in a suit of paper painted to -resemble the brocade. The peculiar richness and splendor of the stuff -struck the Emperor; he complimented the old drunkard’s patron on the -artist’s appearance, and so the trick was brought to light. Frenhofer -is a passionate enthusiast, who sees above and beyond other painters. He -has meditated profoundly on color, and the absolute truth of line; but -by the way of much research he has come to doubt the very existence -of the objects of his search. He says, in moments of despondency, that -there is no such thing as drawing, and that by means of lines we can -only reproduce geometrical figures; but that is overshooting the mark, -for by outline and shadow you can reproduce form without any color at -all, which shows that our art, like Nature, is composed of an infinite -number of elements. Drawing gives you the skeleton, the anatomical -frame-’ work, and color puts the life into it; but life without the -skeleton is even more incomplete than a skeleton without life. But there -is something else truer still, and it is this--f or painters, practise -and observation are everything; and when theories and poetical ideas -begin to quarrel with the brushes, the end is doubt, as has happened -with our good friend, who is half crack-brained enthusiast, half -painter. A sublime painter! but unlucky for him, he was born to riches, -and so he has leisure to follow his fancies. Do not you follow his -example! Work! painters have no business to think, except brush in -hand.” - -“We will find a way into his studio!” cried Poussin confidently. He had -ceased to heed Porbus’s remarks. The other smiled at the young painter’s -enthusiasm, asked him to come to see him again, and they parted. Nicolas -Poussin went slowly back to the Rue de la Harpe, and passed the -modest hostelry where he was lodging without noticing it. A feeling of -uneasiness prompted him to hurry up the crazy staircase till he reached -a room at the top, a quaint, airy recess under the steep, high-pitched -roof common among houses in old Paris. In the one dingy window of the -place sat a young girl, who sprang up at once when she heard some one at -the door; it was the prompting of love; she had recognized the painter’s -touch on the latch. - -“What is the matter with you?” she asked. - -“The matter is... is... Oh! I have felt that I am a painter! Until -to-day I have had doubts, but now I believe in myself! There is the -making of a great man in me! Never mind, Gillette, we shall be rich and -happy! There is gold at the tips of those brushes--” - -He broke off suddenly. The joy faded from his powerful and earnest face -as he compared his vast hopes with his slender resources. The walls were -covered with sketches in chalk on sheets of common paper. There were -but four canvases in the room. Colors were very costly, and the young -painter’s palette was almost bare. Yet in the midst of his poverty he -possessed and was conscious of the possession of inexhaustible treasures -of the heart, of a devouring genius equal to all the tasks that lay -before him. - -He had been brought to Paris by a nobleman among his friends, or -perchance by the consciousness of his powers; and in Paris he had found -a mistress, one of those noble and generous souls who choose to suffer -by a great man’s side, who share his struggles and strive to understand -his fancies, accepting their lot of poverty and love as bravely and -dauntlessly as other women will set themselves to bear the burden of -riches and make a parade of their insensibility. The smile that stole -over Gillette’s lips filled the garret with golden light, and rivaled -the brightness of the sun in heaven. The sun, moreover, does not always -shine in heaven, whereas Gillette was always in the garret, absorbed in -her passion, occupied by Poussin’s happiness and sorrow, consoling the -genius which found an outlet in love before art engrossed it. - -“Listen, Gillette. Come here.” - -The girl obeyed joyously, and sprang upon the painter’s knee. Hers was -perfect grace and beauty, and the loveliness of spring; she was adorned -with all luxuriant fairness of outward form, lighted up by the glow of a -fair soul within. - -“Oh! God,” he cried; “I shall never dare to tell her--” - -“A secret?” she cried; “I must know it!” - -Poussin was absorbed in his dreams. - -“Do tell it me!” - -“Gillette... poor beloved heart!...” - -“Oh! do you want something of me?” - -“Yes.” - -“If you wish me to sit once more for you as I did the other day,” she -continued with playful petulance, “I will never consent to do such a -thing again, for your eyes say nothing all the while. You do not think -of me at all, and yet you look at me--” - -“Would you rather have me draw another woman?” - -“Perhaps--if she were very ugly,” she said. - -“Well,” said Poussin gravely, “and if, for the sake of my fame to come, -if to make me a great painter, you must sit to some one else?” - -“You may try me,” she said; “you know quite well that I would not.” - -Poussin’s head sank on her breast; he seemed to be overpowered by some -intolerable joy or sorrow. - -“Listen,” she cried, plucking at the sleeve of Poussin’s threadbare -doublet, “I told you, Nick, that I would lay down my life for you; but I -never promised you that I in my lifetime would lay down my love.” - -“Your love?” cried the young artist. - -“If I showed myself thus to another, you would love me no longer, and -I should feel myself unworthy of you. Obedience to your fancies was a -natural and simple thing, was it not? Even against my own will, I am -glad and even proud to do thy dear will. But for another, out upon it!” - -“Forgive me, my Gillette,” said the painter, falling upon his knees; -“I would rather be beloved than famous. You are fairer than success and -honors. There, fling the pencils away, and burn these sketches! I have -made a mistake. I was meant to love and not to paint. Perish art and all -its secrets!” - -Gillette looked admiringly at him, in an ecstasy of happiness! She was -triumphant; she felt instinctively that art was laid aside for her sake, -and flung like a grain of incense at her feet. - -“Yet he is only an old man,” Poussin continued; “for him you would be a -woman, and nothing more. You--so perfect!” - -“I must love you indeed!” she cried, ready to sacrifice even love’s -scruples to the lover who had given up so much for her sake; “but I -should bring about my own ruin. Ah! to ruin myself, to lose everything -for you!... It is a very glorious thought! Ah! but you will forget me. -Oh I what evil thought is this that has come to you?” - -“I love you, and yet I thought of it,” he said, with something like -remorse, “Am I so base a wretch?” - -“Let us consult Père Hardouin,” she said. - -“No, no! Let it be a secret between us.” - -“Very well; I will do it. But you must not be there,” she said. “Stay at -the door with your dagger in your hand; and if I call, rush in and kill -the painter.” - -Poussin forgot everything but art. He held Gillette tightly in his arms. - -“He loves me no longer!” thought Gillette when she was alone. She -repented of her resolution already. - -But to these misgivings there soon succeeded a sharper pain, and she -strove to banish a hideous thought that arose in her own heart. It -seemed to her that her own love had grown less already, with a vague -suspicion that the painter had fallen somewhat in her eyes. - - - - -II--CATHERINE LESCAULT - -Three months after Poussin and Porbus met, the latter went to see Master -Frenhofer. The old man had fallen a victim to one of those profound and -spontaneous fits of discouragement that are caused, according to medical -logicians, by indigestion, flatulence, fever, or enlargement of the -spleen; or, if you take the opinion of the Spiritualists, by the -imperfections of our mortal nature. The good man had simply overworked -himself in putting the finishing touches to his mysterious picture. He -was lounging in a huge carved oak chair, covered with black leather, and -did not change his listless attitude, but glanced at Porbus like a man -who has settled down into low spirits. - -“Well, master,” said Porbus, “was the ultramarine bad that you sent for -to Bruges? Is the new white difficult to grind? Is the oil poor, or are -the brushes recalcitrant?” - -“Alas!” cried the old man, “for a moment I thought that my work was -finished, but I am sure that I am mistaken in certain details, and I can -not rest until I have cleared my doubts. I am thinking of traveling. I -am going to Turkey, to Greece, to Asia, in quest of a model, so as to -compare my picture with the different living forms of Nature. Perhaps,” - and a smile of contentment stole over his face, “perhaps I have Nature -herself up there. At times I am half afraid that a breath may waken her, -and that she will escape me.” - -He rose to his feet as if to set out at once. - -“Aha!” said Porbus, “I have come just in time to save you the trouble -and expense of a journey.” - -“What?” asked Frenhofer in amazement. - -“Young Poussin is loved by a woman of incomparable and flawless beauty. -But, dear master, if he consents to lend her to you, at the least you -ought to let us see your work.” - -The old man stood motionless and completely dazed. - -“What!” he cried piteously at last, “show you my creation, my bride? -Rend the veil that has kept my happiness sacred? It would be an infamous -profanation. For ten years I have lived with her; she is mine, mine -alone; she loves me. Has she not smiled at me, at each stroke of the -brush upon the canvas? She has a soul--the soul that I have given her. -She would blush if any eyes but mine should rest on her. To exhibit her! -Where is the husband, the lover so vile as to bring the woman he loves -to dishonor? When you paint a picture for the court, you do not put your -whole soul into it; to courtiers you sell lay figures duly colored. My -painting is no painting, it is a sentiment, a passion. She was born in -my studio, there she must dwell in maiden solitude, and only when clad -can she issue thence. Poetry and women only lay the last veil aside -for their lovers Have we Rafael’s model, Ariosto’s Angelica, Dante’s -Beatrice? Nay, only their form and semblance. But this picture, locked -away above in my studio, is an exception in our art. It is not a canvas, -it is a woman--a woman with whom I talk. I share her thoughts, her -tears, her laughter. Would you have me fling aside these ten years of -happiness like a cloak? Would you have me cease at once to be father, -lover, and creator? She is not a creature, but a creation. - -“Bring your young painter here. I will give him my treasures; I will -give him pictures by Correggio and Michelangelo and Titian; I will kiss -his footprints in the dust; but make him my rival! Shame on me. Ah! ah! -I am a lover first, and then a painter. Yes, with my latest sigh I could -find strength to burn my ‘Belle Noiseuse’; but--compel her to endure the -gaze of a stranger, a young man and a painter!--Ah! no, no! I would -kill him on the morrow who should sully her with a glance! Nay, you, my -friend, I would kill you with my own hands in a moment if you did not -kneel in reverence before her! Now, will you have me submit my idol -to the careless eyes and senseless criticisms of fools? Ah! love is a -mystery; it can only live hidden in the depths of the heart. You say, -even to your friend, ‘Behold her whom I love,’ and there is an end of -love.” - -The old man seemed to have grown young again; there was light and life -in his eyes, and a faint flush of red in his pale face. His hands shook. -Porbus was so amazed by the passionate vehemence of Frenhofer’s words -that he knew not what to reply to this utterance of an emotion as -strange as it was profound. Was Frenhofer sane or mad? Had he fallen a -victim to some freak of the artist’s fancy? or were these ideas of his -produced by the strange lightheadedness which comes over us during the -long travail of a work of art. Would it be possible to come to terms -with this singular passion? - -Harassed by all these doubts, Porbus spoke--“Is it not woman for woman?” - he said. “Does not Poussin submit his mistress to your gaze?” - -“What is she?” retorted the other. “A mistress who will be false to him -sooner or later. Mine will be faithful to me forever.” - -“Well, well,” said Porbus, “let us say no more about it. But you may die -before you will find such a flawless beauty as hers, even in Asia, and -then your picture will be left unfinished. - -“Oh! it is finished,” said Frenhof er. “Standing before it you would -think that it was a living woman lying on the velvet couch beneath the -shadow of the curtains. Perfumes are burning on a golden tripod by her -side. You would be tempted to lay your hand upon the tassel of the cord -that holds back the curtains; it would seem to you that you saw her -breast rise and fall as she breathed; that you beheld the living -Catherine Lescault, the beautiful courtezan whom men called ‘La Belle -Noiseuse.’ And yet--if I could but be sure--” - -“Then go to Asia,” returned Porbus, noticing a certain indecision in -Frenhofer’s face. And with that Porbus made a few steps toward the door. -By that time Gillette and Nicolas Poussin had reached Frenhofer’s -house. The girl drew away her arm from her lover’s as she stood on the -threshold, and shrank back as if some presentiment flashed through her -mind. - -“Oh! what have I come to do here?” she asked of her lover in low -vibrating tones, with her eyes fixed on his. - -“Gillette, I have left you to decide; I am ready to obey you in -everything. You are my conscience and my glory. Go home again; I shall -be happier, perhaps, if you do not--” - -“Am I my own when you speak to me like that? No, no; I am a -child.--Come,” she added, seemingly with a violent effort; “if our love -dies, if I plant a long regret in my heart, your fame will be the reward -of my obedience to your wishes, will it not? Let us go in. I shall -still live on as a memory on your palette; that shall be life for me -afterward.” - -The door opened, and the two lovers encountered Porbus, who was -surprised by the beauty of Gillette, whose eyes were full of tears. He -hurried her, trembling from head to foot, into the presence of the old -painter. - -“Here!” he cried, “is she not worth all the masterpieces in the world!” - -Frenhofer trembled. There stood Gillette in the artless and childlike -attitude of some timid and innocent Georgian, carried off by brigands, -and confronted with a slave merchant. A shamefaced red flushed her face, -her eyes drooped, her hands hung by her side, her strength seemed to -have failed her, her tears protested against this outrage. Poussin -cursed himself in despair that he should have brought his fair treasure -from its hiding-place. The lover overcame the artist, and countless -doubts assailed Poussin’s heart when he saw youth dawn in the old man’s -eyes, as, like a painter, he discerned every line of the form hidden -beneath the young girl’s vesture. Then the lover’s savage jealousy -awoke. - -“Gillette!” he cried, “let us go.” - -The girl turned joyously at the cry and the tone in which it was -uttered, raised her eyes to his, looked at him, and fled to his arms. - -“Ah! then you love me,” she cried; “you love me!” and she burst into -tears. - -She had spirit enough to suffer in silence, but she had no strength to -hide her joy. - -“Oh! leave her with me for one moment,” said the old painter, “and you -shall compare her with my Catherine... yes--I consent.” - -Frenhofer’s words likewise came from him like a lover’s cry. His vanity -seemed to be engaged for his semblance of womanhood; he anticipated the -triumph of the beauty of his own creation over the beauty of the living -girl. - -“Do not give him time to change his mind!” cried Porbus, striking -Poussin on the shoulder. “The flower of love soon fades, but the flower -of art is immortal.” - -“Then am I only a woman now for him?” said Gillette. She was watching -Poussin and Porbus closely. - -She raised her head proudly; she glanced at Frenhofer, and her eyes -flashed; then as she saw how her lover had fallen again to gazing at the -portrait which he had taken at first for a Giorgione-- - -“Ah!” she cried; “let us go up to the studio. He never gave me such a -look.” - -The sound of her voice recalled Poussin from his dreams. - -“Old man,” he said, “do you see this blade? I will plunge it into your -heart at the first cry from this young girl; I will set fire to your -house, and no one shall leave it alive. Do you understand?” - -Nicolas Poussin scowled; every word was a menace. Gillette took comfort -from the young painter’s bearing, and yet more from that gesture, and -almost forgave him for sacrificing her to his art and his glorious -future. - -Porbus and Poussin stood at the door of the studio and looked at each -other in silence. At first the painter of the Saint Mary of Egypt -hazarded some exclamations: “Ah! she has taken off her clothes; he told -her to come into the light--he is comparing the two!” but the sight of -the deep distress in Poussin’s face suddenly silenced him; and though -old painters no longer feel these scruples, so petty in the presence of -art, he admired them because they were so natural and gracious in the -lover. The young man kept his hand on the hilt of his dagger, and his -ear was almost glued to the door. The two men standing in the shadow -might have been conspirators waiting for the hour when they might strike -down a tyrant. - -“Come in, come in,” cried the old man. He was radiant with delight. “My -work is perfect. I can show her now with pride. Never shall painter, -brushes, colors, light, and canvas produce a rival for ‘Catherine -Lescault,’ the beautiful courtezan!” - -Porbus and Poussin, burning with eager curiosity, hurried into a vast -studio. Everything was in disorder and covered with dust, but they saw a -few pictures here and there upon the wall. They stopped first of all in -admiration before the life-size figure of a woman partially draped. - -“Oh! never mind that,” said Frenhofer; “that is a rough daub that I -made, a study, a pose, it is nothing. These are my failures,” he went -on, indicating the enchanting compositions upon the walls of the studio. - -This scorn for such works of art struck Porbus and Poussin dumb with -amazement. They looked round for the picture of which he had spoken, and -could not discover it. - -“Look here!” said the old man. His hair was disordered, his face aglow -with a more than human exaltation, his eyes glittered, he breathed hard -like a young lover frenzied by love. - -“Aha!” he cried, “you did not expect to see such perfection! You are -looking for a picture, and you see a woman before you. There is such -depth in that canvas, the atmosphere is so true that you can not -distinguish it from the air that surrounds us. Where is art? Art has -vanished, it is invisible! It is the form of a living girl that you see -before you. Have I not caught the very hues of life, the spirit of the -living line that defines the figure? Is there not the effect produced -there like that which all natural objects present in the atmosphere -about them, or fishes in the water? Do you see how the figure stands out -against the background? Does it not seem to you that you pass your hand -along the back? But then for seven years I studied and watched how the -daylight blends with the objects on which it falls. And the hair, the -light pours over it like a flood, does it not?... Ah! she breathed, I am -sure that she breathed! Her breast--ah, see! Who would not fall on his -knees before her? Her pulses throb. She will rise to her feet. Wait!” - -“Do you see anything?” Poussin asked of Porbus. - -“No... do you?” - -“I see nothing.” - -The two painters left the old man to his ecstasy, and tried to ascertain -whether the light that fell full upon the canvas had in some way -neutralized all the effect for them. They moved to the right and left -of the picture; they came in front, bending down and standing upright by -turns. - -“Yes, yes, it is really canvas,” said Frenhofer, who mistook the nature -of this minute investigation. - -“Look! the canvas is on a stretcher, here is the easel; indeed, here are -my colors, my brushes,” and he took up a brush and held it out to them, -all unsuspicious of their thought. - -“The old _lansquenet_ is laughing at us,” said Poussin, coming once -more toward the supposed picture. “I can see nothing there but confused -masses of color and a multitude of fantastical lines that go to make a -dead wall of paint.” - -“We are mistaken, look!” said Porbus. - -In a corner of the canvas, as they came nearer, they distinguished a -bare foot emerging from the chaos of color, half-tints and vague shadows -that made up a dim, formless fog. Its living delicate beauty held them -spellbound. This fragment that had escaped an incomprehensible, slow, -and gradual destruction seemed to them like the Parian marble torso of -some Venus emerging from the ashes of a ruined town. - -“There is a woman beneath,” exclaimed Porbus, calling Poussin’s -attention to the coats of paint with which the old artist had overlaid -and concealed his work in the quest of perfection. - -Both artists turned involuntarily to Frenhofer. They began to have some -understanding, vague though it was, of the ecstasy in which he lived. - -“He believes it in all good faith,” said Porbus. - -“Yes, my friend,” said the old man, rousing himself from his dreams, “it -needs faith, faith in art, and you must live for long with your work to -produce such a creation. What toil some of those shadows have cost me. -Look! there is a faint shadow there upon the cheek beneath the eyes--if -you saw that on a human face, it would seem to you that you could never -render it with paint. Do you think that that effect has not cost unheard -of toil? - -“But not only so, dear Porbus. Look closely at my work, and you will -understand more clearly what I was saying as to methods of modeling and -outline. Look at the high lights on the bosom, and see how by touch on -touch, thickly laid on, I have raised the surface so that it catches -the light itself and blends it with the lustrous whiteness of the high -lights, and how by an opposite process, by flattening the surface of -the paint, and leaving no trace of the passage of the brush, I have -succeeded in softening the contours of my figures and enveloping them -in half-tints until the very idea of drawing, of the means by which the -effect is produced, fades away, and the picture has the roundness -and relief of nature. Come closer. You will see the manner of working -better; at a little distance it can not be seen. There I Just there, it -is, I think, very plainly to be seen,” and with the tip of his brush he -pointed out a patch of transparent color to the two painters. - -Porbus, laying a hand on the old artist’s shoulder, turned to Poussin -with a “Do you know that in him we see a very great painter?” - -“He is even more of a poet than a painter,” Poussin answered gravely. - -“There,” Porbus continued, as he touched the canvas, “Use the utmost -limit of our art on earth.” - -“Beyond that point it loses itself in the skies,” said Poussin. - -“What joys lie there on this piece of canvas!” exclaimed Porbus. - -The old man, deep in his own musings, smiled at the woman he alone -beheld, and did not hear. - -“But sooner or later he will find out that there is nothing there!” - cried Poussin. - -“Nothing on my canvas!” said Frenhofer, looking in turn at either -painter and at his picture. - -“What have you done?” muttered Porbus, turning to Poussin. - -The old man clutched the young painter’s arm and said, “Do you see -nothing? clodpatel Huguenot! varlet! cullion! What brought you here into -my studio?--My good Porbus,” he went on, as he turned to the painter, -“are you also making a fool of me? Answer! I am your friend. Tell me, -have I ruined my picture after all?” - -Porbus hesitated and said nothing, but there was such intolerable -anxiety in the old man’s white face that he pointed to the easel. - -“Look!” he said. - -Frenhofer looked for a moment at his picture, and staggered back. - -“Nothing! nothing! After ten years of work...” He sat down and wept. - -“So I am a dotard, a madman, I have neither talent nor power! I am only -a rich man, who works for his own pleasure, and makes no progress, I -have done nothing after all!” - -He looked through his tears at his picture. Suddenly he rose and stood -proudly before the two painters. - -“By the body and blood of Christ,” he cried with flashing eyes, “you are -jealous! You would have me think that my picture is a failure because -you want to steal her from me! Ah! I see her, I see her,” he cried “she -is marvelously beautiful...” - -At that moment Poussin heard the sound of weeping; Gillette was -crouching forgotten in a corner. All at once the painter once more -became the lover. “What is it, my angel?” he asked her. - -“Kill me!” she sobbed. “I must be a vile thing if I love you still, for -I despise you.... I admire you, and I hate you! I love you, and I feel -that I hate you even now!” - -While Gillette’s words sounded in Poussin’s ears, Frenhof er drew a -green serge covering over his “Catherine” with the sober deliberation -of a jeweler who locks his drawers when he suspects his visitors to be -expert thieves. He gave the two painters a profoundly astute glance that -expressed to the full his suspicions, and his contempt for them, saw -them out of his studio with impetuous haste and in silence, until from -the threshold of his house he bade them “Good-by, my young friends!” - -That farewell struck a chill of dread into the two painters. Porbus, in -anxiety, went again on the morrow to see Frenhofer, and learned that he -had died in the night after burning his canvases. - -Paris, February, 1832. - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg’s The Unknown Masterpiece, by Honoré De Balzac - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNKNOWN MASTERPIECE *** - -***** This file should be named 23060-0.txt or 23060-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/0/6/23060/ - -Produced by David Widger - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 - -Author: Honoré De Balzac - -Release Date: October 17, 2007 [EBook #23060] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNKNOWN MASTERPIECE *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger - - - - - -THE UNKNOWN MASTERPIECE - -By Honoré De Balzac - -TO A LORD - -1845 - - - - -I--GILLETTE - -On a cold December morning in the year 1612, a young man, whose clothing -was somewhat of the thinnest, was walking to and fro before a gateway -in the Rue des Grands-Augustins in Paris. He went up and down the street -before this house with the irresolution of a gallant who dares not -venture into the presence of the mistress whom he loves for the first -time, easy of access though she may be; but after a sufficiently long -interval of hesitation, he at last crossed the threshold and inquired -of an old woman, who was sweeping out a large room on the ground floor, -whether Master Porbus was within. Receiving a reply in the affirmative, -the young man went slowly up the staircase, like a gentleman but newly -come to court, and doubtful as to his reception by the king. He came to -a stand once more on the landing at the head of the stairs, and again he -hesitated before raising his hand to the grotesque knocker on the door -of the studio, where doubtless the painter was at work--Master Porbus, -sometime painter in ordinary to Henri IV till Mary de' Medici took -Rubens into favor. - -The young man felt deeply stirred by an emotion that must thrill the -hearts of all great artists when, in the pride of their youth and their -first love of art, they come into the presence of a master or stand -before a masterpiece. For all human sentiments there is a time of early -blossoming, a day of generous enthusiasm that gradually fades until -nothing is left of happiness but a memory, and glory is known for -a delusion. Of all these delicate and short-lived emotions, none so -resemble love as the passion of a young artist for his art, as he is -about to enter on the blissful martyrdom of his career of glory and -disaster, of vague expectations and real disappointments. - -Those who have missed this experience in the early days of light purses; -who have not, in the dawn of their genius, stood in the presence of -a master and felt the throbbing of their hearts, will always carry in -their inmost souls a chord that has never been touched, and in their -work an indefinable quality will be lacking, a something in the stroke -of the brush, a mysterious element that we call poetry. The swaggerers, -so puffed up by self-conceit that they are confident over-soon of their -success, can never be taken for men of talent save by fools. From this -point of view, if youthful modesty is the measure of youthful genius, -the stranger on the staircase might be allowed to have something in -him; for he seemed to possess the indescribable diffidence, the early -timidity that artists are bound to lose in the course of a great career, -even as pretty women lose it as they make progress in the arts of -coquetry. Self-distrust vanishes as triumph succeeds to triumph, and -modesty is, perhaps, distrust of itself. - -The poor neophyte was so overcome by the consciousness of his own -presumption and insignificance, that it began to look as if he was -hardly likely to penetrate into the studio of the painter, to whom we -owe the wonderful portrait of Henri IV. But fate was propitious; an old -man came up the staircase. From the quaint costume of this newcomer, his -collar of magnificent lace, and a certain serene gravity in his bearing, -the first arrival thought that this personage must be either a patron or -a friend of the court painter. He stood aside therefore upon the landing -to allow the visitor to pass, scrutinizing him curiously the while. -Perhaps he might hope to find the good nature of an artist or to receive -the good offices of an amateur not unfriendly to the arts; but besides -an almost diabolical expression in the face that met his gaze, there was -that indescribable something which has an irresistible attraction for -artists. - -Picture that face. A bald high forehead and rugged jutting brows above -a small flat nose turned up at the end, as in the portraits of Socrates -and Rabelais; deep lines about the mocking mouth; a short chin, carried -proudly, covered with a grizzled pointed beard; sea-green eyes that age -might seem to have dimmed were it not for the contrast between the iris -and the surrounding mother-of-pearl tints, so that it seemed as if under -the stress of anger or enthusiasm there would be a magnetic power to -quell or kindle in their glances. The face was withered beyond wont by -the fatigue of years, yet it seemed aged still more by the thoughts that -had worn away both soul and body. There were no lashes to the deep-set -eyes, and scarcely a trace of the arching lines of the eyebrows above -them. Set this head on a spare and feeble frame, place it in a frame of -lace wrought like an engraved silver fish-slice, imagine a heavy gold -chain over the old man's black doublet, and you will have some dim idea -of this strange personage, who seemed still more fantastic in the sombre -twilight of the staircase. One of Rembrandt's portraits might have -stepped down from its frame to walk in an appropriate atmosphere of -gloom, such as the great painter loved. The older man gave the younger a -shrewd glance, and knocked thrice at the door. It was opened by a man of -forty or thereabout, who seemed to be an invalid. - -"Good day, Master." - -Porbus bowed respectfully, and held the door open for the younger man to -enter, thinking that the latter accompanied his visitor; and when he -saw that the neophyte stood a while as if spellbound, feeling, as every -artist-nature must feel, the fascinating influence of the first sight -of a studio in which the material processes of art are revealed, Porbus -troubled himself no more about this second comer. - -All the light in the studio came from a window in the roof, and was -concentrated upon an easel, where a canvas stood untouched as yet save -for three or four outlines in chalk. The daylight scarcely reached the -remoter angles and corners of the vast room; they were as dark as night, -but the silver ornamented breastplate of a Reiter's corselet, that hung -upon the wall, attracted a stray gleam to its dim abiding-place among -the brown shadows; or a shaft of light shot across the carved and -glistening surface of an antique sideboard covered with curious -silver-plate, or struck out a line of glittering dots among the raised -threads of the golden warp of some old brocaded curtains, where the -lines of the stiff, heavy folds were broken, as the stuff had been flung -carelessly down to serve as a model. - -Plaster _écorchés_ stood about the room; and here and there, on shelves -and tables, lay fragments of classical sculpture-torsos of antique -goddesses, worn smooth as though all the years of the centuries that had -passed over them had been lovers' kisses. The walls were covered, from -floor to ceiling, with countless sketches in charcoal, red chalk, or -pen and ink. Amid the litter and confusion of color boxes, overturned -stools, flasks of oil, and essences, there was just room to move so as -to reach the illuminated circular space where the easel stood. The light -from the window in the roof fell full upon Por-bus's pale face and on -the ivory-tinted forehead of his strange visitor. But in another moment -the younger man heeded nothing but a picture that had already become -famous even in those stormy days of political and religious revolution, -a picture that a few of the zealous worshipers, who have so often kept -the sacred fire of art alive in evil days, were wont to go on pilgrimage -to see. The beautiful panel represented a Saint Mary of Egypt about to -pay her passage across the seas. It was a masterpiece destined for Mary -de' Medici, who sold it in later years of poverty. - -"I like your saint," the old man remarked, addressing Porbus. "I would -give you ten golden crowns for her over and above the price the Queen is -paying; but as for putting a spoke in that wheel,--the devil take it!" - -"It is good then?" - -"Hey! hey!" said the old man; "good, say you?--Yes and no. Your good -woman is not badly done, but she is not alive. You artists fancy that -when a figure is correctly drawn, and everything in its place according -to the rules of anatomy, there is nothing more to be done. You make up -the flesh tints beforehand on your palettes according to your formulae, -and fill in the outlines with due care that one side of the face shall -be darker than the other; and because you look from time to time at a -naked woman who stands on the platform before you, you fondly imagine -that you have copied nature, think yourselves to be painters, believe -that you have wrested His secret from God. Pshaw! You may know your -syntax thoroughly and make no blunders in your grammar, but it takes -that and something more to make a great poet. Look at your saint, -Porbus! At a first glance she is admirable; look at her again, and you -see at once that she is glued to the background, and that you could not -walk round her. She is a silhouette that turns but one side of her face -to all beholders, a figure cut out of canvas, an image with no power -to move nor change her position. I feel as if there were no air between -that arm and the background, no space, no sense of distance in your -canvas. The perspective is perfectly correct, the strength of the -coloring is accurately diminished with the distance; but, in spite of -these praiseworthy efforts, I could never bring myself to believe that -the warm breath of life comes and goes in that beautiful body. It seems -to me that if I laid my hand on the firm, rounded throat, it would be -cold as marble to the touch. No, my friend, the blood does not flow -beneath that ivory skin, the tide of life does not flush those delicate -fibres, the purple veins that trace a network beneath the transparent -amber of her brow and breast. Here the pulse seems to beat, there it is -motionless, life and death are at strife in every detail; here you see -a woman, there a statue, there again a corpse. Your creation is -incomplete. You had only power to breathe a portion of your soul into -your beloved work. The fire of Prometheus died out again and again in -your hands; many a spot in your picture has not been touched by the -divine flame." - -"But how is it, dear master?" Porbus asked respectfully, while the young -man with difficulty repressed his strong desire to beat the critic. - -"Ah!" said the old man, "it is this! You have halted between two -manners. You have hesitated between drawing and color, between the -dogged attention to detail, the stiff precision of the German masters -and the dazzling glow, the joyous exuberance of Italian painters. You -have set yourself to imitate Hans Holbein and Titian, Albrecht Durer -and Paul Veronese in a single picture. A magnificent ambition truly, -but what has come of it? Your work has neither the severe charm of a dry -execution nor the magical illusion of Italian _chiaroscuro_. Titian's -rich golden coloring poured into Albrecht Dureras austere outlines has -shattered them, like molten bronze bursting through the mold that is not -strong enough to hold it. In other places the outlines have held firm, -imprisoning and obscuring the magnificent, glowing flood of Venetian -color. The drawing of the face is not perfect, the coloring is not -perfect; traces of that unlucky indecision are to be seen everywhere. -Unless you felt strong enough to fuse the two opposed manners in the -fire of your own genius, you should have cast in your lot boldly with -the one or the other, and so have obtained the unity which simulates one -of the conditions of life itself. Your work is only true in the centres; -your outlines are false, they project nothing, there is no hint of -anything behind them. There is truth here," said the old man, pointing -to the breast of the Saint, "and again here," he went on, indicating the -rounded shoulder. "But there," once more returning to the column of -the throat, "everything is false. Let us go no further into detail, you -would be disheartened." - -The old man sat down on a stool, and remained a while without speaking, -with his face buried in his hands. - -"Yet I studied that throat from the life, dear master," Porbus began; -"it happens sometimes, for our misfortune, that real effects in nature -look improbable when transferred to canvas--" - -"The aim of art is not to copy nature, but to express it. You are not a -servile copyist, but a poet!" cried the old man sharply, cutting Porbus -short with an imperious gesture. "Otherwise a sculptor might make a -plaster cast of a living woman and save himself all further trouble. -Well, try to make a cast of your mistress's hand, and set up the -thing before you. You will see a monstrosity, a dead mass, bearing no -resemblance to the living hand; you would be compelled to have recourse -to the chisel of a sculptor who, without making an exact copy, would -represent for you its movement and its life. We must detect the spirit, -the informing soul in the appearances of things and beings. Effects! -What are effects but the accidents of life, not life itself? A hand, -since I have taken that example, is not only a part of a body, it is the -expression and extension of a thought that must be grasped and rendered. -Neither painter nor poet nor sculptor may separate the effect from the -cause, which are inevitably contained the one in the other. There -begins the real struggle! Many a painter achieves success instinctively, -unconscious of the task that is set before art. You draw a woman, yet -you do not see her! Not so do you succeed in wresting Nature's secrets -from her! You are reproducing mechanically the model that you copied in -your master's studio. You do not penetrate far enough into the inmost -secrets of the mystery of form; you do not seek with love enough and -perseverance enough after the form that baffles and eludes you. Beauty -is a thing severe and unapproachable, never to be won by a languid -lover. You must lie in wait for her coming and take her unawares, press -her hard and clasp her in a tight embrace, and force her to yield. Form -is a Proteus more intangible and more manifold than the Proteus of the -legend; compelled, only after long wrestling, to stand forth manifest in -his true aspect. Some of you are satisfied with the first shape, or -at most by the second or the third that appears. Not thus wrestle the -victors, the unvanquished painters who never suffer themselves to be -deluded by all those treacherous shadow-shapes; they persevere till -Nature at the last stands bare to their gaze, and her very soul is -revealed. - -"In this manner worked Rafael," said the old man, taking off his cap to -express his reverence for the King of Art. "His transcendent greatness -came of the intimate sense that, in him, seems as if it would shatter -external form. Form in his figures (as with us) is a symbol, a means of -communicating sensations, ideas, the vast imaginings of a poet. Every -face is a whole world. The subject of the portrait appeared for him -bathed in the light of a divine vision; it was revealed by an inner -voice, the finger of God laid bare the sources of expression in the past -of a whole life. - -"You clothe your women in fair raiment of flesh, in gracious veiling -of hair; but where is the blood, the source of passion and of calm, the -cause of the particular effect? Why, this brown Egyptian of yours, my -good Porbus, is a colorless creature! These figures that you set before -us are painted bloodless fantoms; and you call that painting, you call -that art! - -"Because you have made something more like a woman than a house, you -think that you have set your fingers on the goal; you are quite proud -that you need not to write _currus venustus_ or _pulcher homo_ beside -your figures, as early painters were wont to do and you fancy that you -have done wonders. Ah! my good friend, there is still something more to -learn, and you will use up a great deal of chalk and cover many a canvas -before you will learn it. Yes, truly, a woman carries her head in just -such a way, so she holds her garments gathered into her hand; her eyes -grow dreamy and soft with that expression of meek sweetness, and even -so the quivering shadow of the lashes hovers upon her cheeks. It is all -there, and yet it is not there. What is lacking? A nothing, but that -nothing is everything. - -"There you have the semblance of life, but you do not express its -fulness and effluence, that indescribable something, perhaps the soul -itself, that envelopes the outlines of the body like a haze; that -flower of life, in short, that Titian and Rafael caught. Your utmost -achievement hitherto has only brought you to the starting-point. You -might now perhaps begin to do excellent work, but you grow weary all too -soon; and the crowd admires, and those who know smile. - -"Oh, Mabuse! oh, my master!" cried the strange speaker, "thou art a -thief! Thou hast carried away the secret of life with thee!" - -"Nevertheless," he began again, "this picture of yours is worth more -than all the paintings of that rascal Rubens, with his mountains of -Flemish flesh raddled with vermilion, his torrents of red hair, his riot -of color. You, at least have color there, and feeling and drawing--the -three essentials in art." - -The young man roused himself from his deep musings. - -"Why, my good man, the Saint is sublime!" he cried. "There is a subtlety -of imagination about those two figures, the Saint Mary and the Shipman, -that can not be found among Italian masters; I do not know a single one -of them capable of imagining the Shipman's hesitation." - -"Did that little malapert come with you?" asked Porbus of the older man. - -"Alas! master, pardon my boldness," cried the neophyte, and the color -mounted to his face. "I am unknown--a dauber by instinct, and but lately -come to this city--the fountain-head of all learning." - -"Set to work," said Porbus, handing him a bit of red chalk and a sheet -of paper. - -The new-comer quickly sketched the Saint Mary line for line. - -"Aha!" exclaimed the old man. "Your name?" he added. - -The young man wrote "Nicolas Poussin" below the sketch. - -"Not bad that for a beginning," said the strange speaker, who had -discoursed so wildly. "I see that we can talk of art in your presence. -I do not blame you for admiring Porbus's saint. In the eyes of the world -she is a masterpiece, and those alone who have been initiated into the -inmost mysteries of art can discover her shortcomings. But it is worth -while to give you the lesson, for you are able to understand it, so I -will show you how little it needs to complete this picture. You must be -all eyes, all attention, for it may be that such a chance of learning -will never come in your way again--Porbus! your palette." - -Porbus went in search of palette and brushes. The little old man turned -back his sleeves with impatient energy, seized the palette, covered with -many hues, that Porbus handed to him, and snatched rather than took a -handful of brushes of various sizes from the hands of his acquaintance. -His pointed beard suddenly bristled--a menacing movement that expressed -the prick of a lover's fancy. As he loaded his brush, he muttered -between his teeth, "These paints are only fit to fling out of the -window, together with the fellow who ground them, their crudeness and -falseness are disgusting! How can one paint with this?" - -He dipped the tip of the brush with feverish eagerness in the different -pigments, making the circuit of the palette several times more quickly -than the organist of a cathedral sweeps the octaves on the keyboard of -his clavier for the "O Filii" at Easter. - -Porbus and Poussin, on either side of the easel, stood stock-still, -watching with intense interest. - -"Look, young man," he began again, "see how three or four strokes of -the brush and a thin glaze of blue let in the free air to play about the -head of the poor Saint, who must have felt stifled and oppressed by the -close atmosphere! See how the drapery begins to flutter; you feel that -it is lifted by the breeze! A moment ago it hung as heavily and stiffly -as if it were held out by pins. Do you see how the satin sheen that I -have just given to the breast rends the pliant, silken softness of a -young girl's skin, and how the brown-red, blended with burnt ochre, -brings warmth into the cold gray of the deep shadow where the blood lay -congealed instead of coursing through the veins? Young man, young man, -no master could teach you how to do this that I am doing before your -eyes. Mabuse alone possessed the secret of giving life to his figures; -Mabuse had but one pupil--that was I. I have had none, and I am old. You -have sufficient intelligence to imagine the rest from the glimpses that -I am giving you." - -While the old man was speaking, he gave a touch here and there; -sometimes two strokes of the brush, sometimes a single one; but every -stroke told so well, that the whole picture seemed transfigured--the -painting was flooded with light. He worked with such passionate fervor -that beads of sweat gathered upon his bare forehead; he worked so -quickly, in brief, impatient jerks, that it seemed to young Poussin as -if some familiar spirit inhabiting the body of this strange being took -a grotesque pleasure in making use of the man's hands against his own -will. The unearthly glitter of his eyes, the convulsive movements -that seemed like struggles, gave to this fancy a semblance of truth -which could not but stir a young imagination. The old man continued, -saying as he did so-- - -"Paf! paf! that is how to lay it on, young man!--Little touches! come -and bring a glow into those icy cold tones for me! Just so! Pon! pon! -pon!" and those parts of the picture that he had pointed out as cold and -lifeless flushed with warmer hues, a few bold strokes of color brought -all the tones of the picture into the required harmony with the glowing -tints of the Egyptian, and the differences in temperament vanished. - -"Look you, youngster, the last touches make the picture. Porbus has -given it a hundred strokes for every one of mine. No one thanks us for -what lies beneath. Bear that in mind." - -At last the restless spirit stopped, and turning to Porbus and Poussin, -who were speechless with admiration, he spoke-- - -"This is not as good as my 'Belle Noiseuse'; still one might put one's -name to such a thing as this.--Yes, I would put my name to it," -he added, rising to reach for a mirror, in which he looked at the -picture.--"And now," he said, "will you both come and breakfast with me? -I have a smoked ham and some very fair wine!... Eh! eh! the times may -be bad, but we can still have some talk about art! We can talk like -equals.... Here is a little fellow who has aptitude," he added, laying a -hand on Nicolas Poussin's shoulder. - -In this way the stranger became aware of the threadbare condition of the -Norman's doublet. He drew a leather purse from his girdle, felt in it, -found two gold coins, and held them out. - -"I will buy your sketch," he said. - -"Take it," said Porbus, as he saw the other start and flush with -embarrassment, for Poussin had the pride of poverty. "Pray, take it; he -has a couple of king's ransoms in his pouch!" - -The three came down together from the studio, and, talking of art by the -way, reached a picturesque wooden house hard by the Pont Saint-Michel. -Poussin wondered a moment at its ornament, at the knocker, at the frames -of the casements, at the scroll-work designs, and in the next he stood -in a vast low-ceiled room. A table, covered with tempting dishes, stood -near the blazing fire, and (luck unhoped for) he was in the company of -two great artists full of genial good humor. - -"Do not look too long at that canvas, young man," said Porbus, when he -saw that Poussin was standing, struck with wonder, before a painting. -"You would fall a victim to despair." - -It was the "Adam" painted by Mabuse to purchase his release from the -prison, where his creditors had so long kept him. And, as a matter of -fact, the figure stood out so boldly and convincingly, that Nicolas -Poussin began to understand the real meaning of the words poured out -by the old artist, who was himself looking at the picture with apparent -satisfaction, but without enthusiasm. "I have done better than that!" he -seemed to be saying to himself. - -"There is life in it," he said aloud; "in that respect my poor -master here surpassed himself, but there is some lack of truth in the -background. The man lives indeed; he is rising, and will come toward us; -but the atmosphere, the sky, the air, the breath of the breeze--you look -and feel for them, but they are not there. And then the man himself is, -after all, only a man! Ah! but the one man in the world who came direct -from the hands of God must have had a something divine about him that -is wanting here. Mabuse himself would grind his teeth and say so when he -was not drunk." - -Poussin looked from the speaker to Porbus, and from Porbus to the -speaker, with restless curiosity. He went up to the latter to ask for -the name of their host; but the painter laid a finger on his lips -with an air of mystery. The young man's interest was excited; he kept -silence, but hoped that sooner or later some word might be let fall that -would reveal the name of his entertainer. It was evident that he was a -man of talent and very wealthy, for Porbus listened to him respectfully, -and the vast room was crowded with marvels of art. - -A magnificent portrait of a woman, hung against the dark oak panels of -the wall, next caught Poussin's attention. - -"What a glorious Giorgione!" he cried. - -"No," said his host, "it is an early daub of mine--" - -"Gramercy! I am in the abode of the god of painting, it seems!" cried -Poussin ingenuously. - -The old man smiled as if he had long grown familiar with such praise. - -"Master Frenhofer!" said Porbus, "do you think you could spare me a -little of your capital Rhine wine?" - -"A couple of pipes!" answered his host; "one to discharge a debt, for -the pleasure of seeing your pretty sinner, the other as a present from a -friend." - -"Ah! if I had my health," returned Porbus, "and if you would but let -me see your 'Belle Noiseuse,' I would paint some great picture, with -breadth in it and depth; the figures should be life-size." - -"Let you see my work!" cried the painter in agitation. "No, no! it is -not perfect yet; something still remains for me to do. Yesterday, in the -dusk," he said, "I thought I had reached the end. Her eyes seemed moist, -the flesh quivered, something stirred the tresses of her hair. She -breathed! But though I have succeeded in reproducing Nature's roundness -and relief on the flat surface of the canvas, this morning, by daylight, -I found out my mistake. Ah! to achieve that glorious result I have -studied the works of the great masters of color, stripping off coat -after coat of color from Titian's canvas, analyzing the pigments of the -king of light. Like that sovereign painter, I began the face in a slight -tone with a supple and fat paste--for shadow is but an accident; bear -that in mind, youngster!--Then I began afresh, and by half-tones and -thin glazes of color less and less transparent, I gradually deepened the -tints to the deepest black of the strongest shadows. An ordinary painter -makes his shadows something entirely different in nature from the high -lights; they are wood or brass, or what you will, anything but flesh -in shadow. You feel that even if those figures were to alter their -position, those shadow stains would never be cleansed away, those parts -of the picture would never glow with light. - -"I have escaped one mistake, into which the most famous painters have -sometimes fallen; in my canvas the whiteness shines through the densest -and most persistent shadow. I have not marked out the limits of my -figure in hard, dry outlines, and brought every least anatomical detail -into prominence (like a host of dunces, who fancy that they can draw -because they can trace a line elaborately smooth and clean), for the -human body is not contained within the limits of line. In this the -sculptor can approach the truth more nearly than we painters. Nature's -way is a complicated succession of curve within curve. Strictly -speaking, there is no such thing as drawing.--Do not laugh, young man; -strange as that speech may seem to you, you will understand the truth in -it some day.--A line is a method of expressing the effect of light upon -an object; but there are no lines in Nature, everything is solid. We -draw by modeling, that is to say, that we disengage an object from -its setting; the distribution of the light alone gives to a body the -appearance by which we know it. So I have not defined the outlines; I -have suffused them with a haze of half-tints warm or golden, in such a -sort that you can not lay your finger on the exact spot where background -and contours meet. Seen from near, the picture looks a blur; it seems -to lack definition; but step back two paces, and the whole thing becomes -clear, distinct, and solid; the body stands out; the rounded form comes -into relief; you feel that the air plays round it. And yet--I am not -satisfied; I have misgivings. Perhaps one ought not to draw a single -line; perhaps it would be better to attack the face from the centre, -taking the highest prominences first, proceeding from them through the -whole range of shadows to the heaviest of all. Is not this the method -of the sun, the divine painter of the world? Oh, Nature, Nature! who -has surprised thee, fugitive? But, after all, too much knowledge, like -ignorance, brings you to a negation. I have doubts about my work." - -There was a pause. Then the old man spoke again. "I have been at work -upon it for ten years, young man; but what are ten short years in a -struggle with Nature? Do we know how long Sir Pygmalion wrought at the -one statue that came to life?" The old man fell into deep musings, and -gazed before him with unseeing eyes, while he played unheedingly with -his knife. - -"Look, he is in conversation with his _domon!_" murmured Porbus. - -At the word, Nicolas Poussin felt himself carried away by an -unaccountable accession of artist's curiosity. For him the old man, at -once intent and inert, the seer with the unseeing eyes, became something -more than a man--a fantastic spirit living in a mysterious world, and -countless vague thoughts awoke within his soul. The effect of this -species of fascination upon his mind can no more be described in words -than the passionate longing awakened in an exile's heart by the song -that recalls his home. He thought of the scorn that the old man affected -to display for the noblest efforts of art, of his wealth, his manners, -of the deference paid to him by Porbus. The mysterious picture, the work -of patience on which he had wrought so long in secret, was doubtless -a work of genius, for the head of the Virgin which young Poussin had -admired so frankly was beautiful even beside Mabuse's "Adam"--there -was no mistaking the imperial manner of one of the princes of art. -Everything combined to set the old man beyond the limits of human -nature. - -Out of the wealth of fancies in Nicolas Poussin's brain an idea grew, -and gathered shape and clearness. He saw in this supernatural being a -complete type of the artist nature, a nature mocking and kindly, barren -and prolific, an erratic spirit intrusted with great and manifold powers -which she too often abuses, leading sober reason, the Philistine, and -sometimes even the amateur forth into a stony wilderness where they see -nothing; but the white-winged maiden herself, wild as her fancies may -be, finds epics there and castles and works of art. For Poussin, the -enthusiast, the old man, was suddenly transfigured, and became Art -incarnate, Art with its mysteries, its vehement passion and its dreams. - -"Yes, my dear Porbus," Frenhofer continued, "hitherto I have never -found a flawless model, a body with outlines of perfect beauty, the -carnations--Ah! where does she live?" he cried, breaking in upon -himself, "the undiscoverable Venus of the older time, for whom we have -sought so often, only to find the scattered gleams of her beauty here -and there? Oh! to behold once and for one moment, Nature grown perfect -and divine, the Ideal at last, I would give all that I possess.... Nay, -Beauty divine, I would go to seek thee in the dim land of the dead; like -Orpheus, I would go down into the Hades of Art to bring back the life of -art from among the shadows of death." - -"We can go now," said Porbus to Poussin. "He neither hears nor sees us -any longer." - -"Let us go to his studio," said young Poussin, wondering greatly. - -"Oh! the old fox takes care that no one shall enter it. His treasures -are so carefully guarded that it is impossible for us to come at them. -I have not waited for your suggestion and your fancy to attempt to lay -hands on this mystery by force." - -"So there is a mystery?" "Yes," answered Porbus. "Old Frenhofer is the -only pupil Mabuse would take. Frenhofer became the painter's friend, -deliverer, and father; he sacrificed the greater part of his fortune to -enable Mabuse to indulge in riotous extravagance, and in return Mabuse -bequeathed to him the secret of relief, the power of giving to his -figures the wonderful life, the flower of Nature, the eternal despair of -art, the secret which Ma-buse knew so well that one day when he had sold -the flowered brocade suit in which he should have appeared at the Entry -of Charles V, he accompanied his master in a suit of paper painted to -resemble the brocade. The peculiar richness and splendor of the stuff -struck the Emperor; he complimented the old drunkard's patron on the -artist's appearance, and so the trick was brought to light. Frenhofer -is a passionate enthusiast, who sees above and beyond other painters. He -has meditated profoundly on color, and the absolute truth of line; but -by the way of much research he has come to doubt the very existence -of the objects of his search. He says, in moments of despondency, that -there is no such thing as drawing, and that by means of lines we can -only reproduce geometrical figures; but that is overshooting the mark, -for by outline and shadow you can reproduce form without any color at -all, which shows that our art, like Nature, is composed of an infinite -number of elements. Drawing gives you the skeleton, the anatomical -frame-' work, and color puts the life into it; but life without the -skeleton is even more incomplete than a skeleton without life. But there -is something else truer still, and it is this--f or painters, practise -and observation are everything; and when theories and poetical ideas -begin to quarrel with the brushes, the end is doubt, as has happened -with our good friend, who is half crack-brained enthusiast, half -painter. A sublime painter! but unlucky for him, he was born to riches, -and so he has leisure to follow his fancies. Do not you follow his -example! Work! painters have no business to think, except brush in -hand." - -"We will find a way into his studio!" cried Poussin confidently. He had -ceased to heed Porbus's remarks. The other smiled at the young painter's -enthusiasm, asked him to come to see him again, and they parted. Nicolas -Poussin went slowly back to the Rue de la Harpe, and passed the -modest hostelry where he was lodging without noticing it. A feeling of -uneasiness prompted him to hurry up the crazy staircase till he reached -a room at the top, a quaint, airy recess under the steep, high-pitched -roof common among houses in old Paris. In the one dingy window of the -place sat a young girl, who sprang up at once when she heard some one at -the door; it was the prompting of love; she had recognized the painter's -touch on the latch. - -"What is the matter with you?" she asked. - -"The matter is... is... Oh! I have felt that I am a painter! Until -to-day I have had doubts, but now I believe in myself! There is the -making of a great man in me! Never mind, Gillette, we shall be rich and -happy! There is gold at the tips of those brushes--" - -He broke off suddenly. The joy faded from his powerful and earnest face -as he compared his vast hopes with his slender resources. The walls were -covered with sketches in chalk on sheets of common paper. There were -but four canvases in the room. Colors were very costly, and the young -painter's palette was almost bare. Yet in the midst of his poverty he -possessed and was conscious of the possession of inexhaustible treasures -of the heart, of a devouring genius equal to all the tasks that lay -before him. - -He had been brought to Paris by a nobleman among his friends, or -perchance by the consciousness of his powers; and in Paris he had found -a mistress, one of those noble and generous souls who choose to suffer -by a great man's side, who share his struggles and strive to understand -his fancies, accepting their lot of poverty and love as bravely and -dauntlessly as other women will set themselves to bear the burden of -riches and make a parade of their insensibility. The smile that stole -over Gillette's lips filled the garret with golden light, and rivaled -the brightness of the sun in heaven. The sun, moreover, does not always -shine in heaven, whereas Gillette was always in the garret, absorbed in -her passion, occupied by Poussin's happiness and sorrow, consoling the -genius which found an outlet in love before art engrossed it. - -"Listen, Gillette. Come here." - -The girl obeyed joyously, and sprang upon the painter's knee. Hers was -perfect grace and beauty, and the loveliness of spring; she was adorned -with all luxuriant fairness of outward form, lighted up by the glow of a -fair soul within. - -"Oh! God," he cried; "I shall never dare to tell her--" - -"A secret?" she cried; "I must know it!" - -Poussin was absorbed in his dreams. - -"Do tell it me!" - -"Gillette... poor beloved heart!..." - -"Oh! do you want something of me?" - -"Yes." - -"If you wish me to sit once more for you as I did the other day," she -continued with playful petulance, "I will never consent to do such a -thing again, for your eyes say nothing all the while. You do not think -of me at all, and yet you look at me--" - -"Would you rather have me draw another woman?" - -"Perhaps--if she were very ugly," she said. - -"Well," said Poussin gravely, "and if, for the sake of my fame to come, -if to make me a great painter, you must sit to some one else?" - -"You may try me," she said; "you know quite well that I would not." - -Poussin's head sank on her breast; he seemed to be overpowered by some -intolerable joy or sorrow. - -"Listen," she cried, plucking at the sleeve of Poussin's threadbare -doublet, "I told you, Nick, that I would lay down my life for you; but I -never promised you that I in my lifetime would lay down my love." - -"Your love?" cried the young artist. - -"If I showed myself thus to another, you would love me no longer, and -I should feel myself unworthy of you. Obedience to your fancies was a -natural and simple thing, was it not? Even against my own will, I am -glad and even proud to do thy dear will. But for another, out upon it!" - -"Forgive me, my Gillette," said the painter, falling upon his knees; -"I would rather be beloved than famous. You are fairer than success and -honors. There, fling the pencils away, and burn these sketches! I have -made a mistake. I was meant to love and not to paint. Perish art and all -its secrets!" - -Gillette looked admiringly at him, in an ecstasy of happiness! She was -triumphant; she felt instinctively that art was laid aside for her sake, -and flung like a grain of incense at her feet. - -"Yet he is only an old man," Poussin continued; "for him you would be a -woman, and nothing more. You--so perfect!" - -"I must love you indeed!" she cried, ready to sacrifice even love's -scruples to the lover who had given up so much for her sake; "but I -should bring about my own ruin. Ah! to ruin myself, to lose everything -for you!... It is a very glorious thought! Ah! but you will forget me. -Oh I what evil thought is this that has come to you?" - -"I love you, and yet I thought of it," he said, with something like -remorse, "Am I so base a wretch?" - -"Let us consult Père Hardouin," she said. - -"No, no! Let it be a secret between us." - -"Very well; I will do it. But you must not be there," she said. "Stay at -the door with your dagger in your hand; and if I call, rush in and kill -the painter." - -Poussin forgot everything but art. He held Gillette tightly in his arms. - -"He loves me no longer!" thought Gillette when she was alone. She -repented of her resolution already. - -But to these misgivings there soon succeeded a sharper pain, and she -strove to banish a hideous thought that arose in her own heart. It -seemed to her that her own love had grown less already, with a vague -suspicion that the painter had fallen somewhat in her eyes. - - - - -II--CATHERINE LESCAULT - -Three months after Poussin and Porbus met, the latter went to see Master -Frenhofer. The old man had fallen a victim to one of those profound and -spontaneous fits of discouragement that are caused, according to medical -logicians, by indigestion, flatulence, fever, or enlargement of the -spleen; or, if you take the opinion of the Spiritualists, by the -imperfections of our mortal nature. The good man had simply overworked -himself in putting the finishing touches to his mysterious picture. He -was lounging in a huge carved oak chair, covered with black leather, and -did not change his listless attitude, but glanced at Porbus like a man -who has settled down into low spirits. - -"Well, master," said Porbus, "was the ultramarine bad that you sent for -to Bruges? Is the new white difficult to grind? Is the oil poor, or are -the brushes recalcitrant?" - -"Alas!" cried the old man, "for a moment I thought that my work was -finished, but I am sure that I am mistaken in certain details, and I can -not rest until I have cleared my doubts. I am thinking of traveling. I -am going to Turkey, to Greece, to Asia, in quest of a model, so as to -compare my picture with the different living forms of Nature. Perhaps," -and a smile of contentment stole over his face, "perhaps I have Nature -herself up there. At times I am half afraid that a breath may waken her, -and that she will escape me." - -He rose to his feet as if to set out at once. - -"Aha!" said Porbus, "I have come just in time to save you the trouble -and expense of a journey." - -"What?" asked Frenhofer in amazement. - -"Young Poussin is loved by a woman of incomparable and flawless beauty. -But, dear master, if he consents to lend her to you, at the least you -ought to let us see your work." - -The old man stood motionless and completely dazed. - -"What!" he cried piteously at last, "show you my creation, my bride? -Rend the veil that has kept my happiness sacred? It would be an infamous -profanation. For ten years I have lived with her; she is mine, mine -alone; she loves me. Has she not smiled at me, at each stroke of the -brush upon the canvas? She has a soul--the soul that I have given her. -She would blush if any eyes but mine should rest on her. To exhibit her! -Where is the husband, the lover so vile as to bring the woman he loves -to dishonor? When you paint a picture for the court, you do not put your -whole soul into it; to courtiers you sell lay figures duly colored. My -painting is no painting, it is a sentiment, a passion. She was born in -my studio, there she must dwell in maiden solitude, and only when clad -can she issue thence. Poetry and women only lay the last veil aside -for their lovers Have we Rafael's model, Ariosto's Angelica, Dante's -Beatrice? Nay, only their form and semblance. But this picture, locked -away above in my studio, is an exception in our art. It is not a canvas, -it is a woman--a woman with whom I talk. I share her thoughts, her -tears, her laughter. Would you have me fling aside these ten years of -happiness like a cloak? Would you have me cease at once to be father, -lover, and creator? She is not a creature, but a creation. - -"Bring your young painter here. I will give him my treasures; I will -give him pictures by Correggio and Michelangelo and Titian; I will kiss -his footprints in the dust; but make him my rival! Shame on me. Ah! ah! -I am a lover first, and then a painter. Yes, with my latest sigh I could -find strength to burn my 'Belle Noiseuse'; but--compel her to endure the -gaze of a stranger, a young man and a painter!--Ah! no, no! I would -kill him on the morrow who should sully her with a glance! Nay, you, my -friend, I would kill you with my own hands in a moment if you did not -kneel in reverence before her! Now, will you have me submit my idol -to the careless eyes and senseless criticisms of fools? Ah! love is a -mystery; it can only live hidden in the depths of the heart. You say, -even to your friend, 'Behold her whom I love,' and there is an end of -love." - -The old man seemed to have grown young again; there was light and life -in his eyes, and a faint flush of red in his pale face. His hands shook. -Porbus was so amazed by the passionate vehemence of Frenhofer's words -that he knew not what to reply to this utterance of an emotion as -strange as it was profound. Was Frenhofer sane or mad? Had he fallen a -victim to some freak of the artist's fancy? or were these ideas of his -produced by the strange lightheadedness which comes over us during the -long travail of a work of art. Would it be possible to come to terms -with this singular passion? - -Harassed by all these doubts, Porbus spoke--"Is it not woman for woman?" -he said. "Does not Poussin submit his mistress to your gaze?" - -"What is she?" retorted the other. "A mistress who will be false to him -sooner or later. Mine will be faithful to me forever." - -"Well, well," said Porbus, "let us say no more about it. But you may die -before you will find such a flawless beauty as hers, even in Asia, and -then your picture will be left unfinished. - -"Oh! it is finished," said Frenhof er. "Standing before it you would -think that it was a living woman lying on the velvet couch beneath the -shadow of the curtains. Perfumes are burning on a golden tripod by her -side. You would be tempted to lay your hand upon the tassel of the cord -that holds back the curtains; it would seem to you that you saw her -breast rise and fall as she breathed; that you beheld the living -Catherine Lescault, the beautiful courtezan whom men called 'La Belle -Noiseuse.' And yet--if I could but be sure--" - -"Then go to Asia," returned Porbus, noticing a certain indecision in -Frenhofer's face. And with that Porbus made a few steps toward the door. -By that time Gillette and Nicolas Poussin had reached Frenhofer's -house. The girl drew away her arm from her lover's as she stood on the -threshold, and shrank back as if some presentiment flashed through her -mind. - -"Oh! what have I come to do here?" she asked of her lover in low -vibrating tones, with her eyes fixed on his. - -"Gillette, I have left you to decide; I am ready to obey you in -everything. You are my conscience and my glory. Go home again; I shall -be happier, perhaps, if you do not--" - -"Am I my own when you speak to me like that? No, no; I am a -child.--Come," she added, seemingly with a violent effort; "if our love -dies, if I plant a long regret in my heart, your fame will be the reward -of my obedience to your wishes, will it not? Let us go in. I shall -still live on as a memory on your palette; that shall be life for me -afterward." - -The door opened, and the two lovers encountered Porbus, who was -surprised by the beauty of Gillette, whose eyes were full of tears. He -hurried her, trembling from head to foot, into the presence of the old -painter. - -"Here!" he cried, "is she not worth all the masterpieces in the world!" - -Frenhofer trembled. There stood Gillette in the artless and childlike -attitude of some timid and innocent Georgian, carried off by brigands, -and confronted with a slave merchant. A shamefaced red flushed her face, -her eyes drooped, her hands hung by her side, her strength seemed to -have failed her, her tears protested against this outrage. Poussin -cursed himself in despair that he should have brought his fair treasure -from its hiding-place. The lover overcame the artist, and countless -doubts assailed Poussin's heart when he saw youth dawn in the old man's -eyes, as, like a painter, he discerned every line of the form hidden -beneath the young girl's vesture. Then the lover's savage jealousy -awoke. - -"Gillette!" he cried, "let us go." - -The girl turned joyously at the cry and the tone in which it was -uttered, raised her eyes to his, looked at him, and fled to his arms. - -"Ah! then you love me," she cried; "you love me!" and she burst into -tears. - -She had spirit enough to suffer in silence, but she had no strength to -hide her joy. - -"Oh! leave her with me for one moment," said the old painter, "and you -shall compare her with my Catherine... yes--I consent." - -Frenhofer's words likewise came from him like a lover's cry. His vanity -seemed to be engaged for his semblance of womanhood; he anticipated the -triumph of the beauty of his own creation over the beauty of the living -girl. - -"Do not give him time to change his mind!" cried Porbus, striking -Poussin on the shoulder. "The flower of love soon fades, but the flower -of art is immortal." - -"Then am I only a woman now for him?" said Gillette. She was watching -Poussin and Porbus closely. - -She raised her head proudly; she glanced at Frenhofer, and her eyes -flashed; then as she saw how her lover had fallen again to gazing at the -portrait which he had taken at first for a Giorgione-- - -"Ah!" she cried; "let us go up to the studio. He never gave me such a -look." - -The sound of her voice recalled Poussin from his dreams. - -"Old man," he said, "do you see this blade? I will plunge it into your -heart at the first cry from this young girl; I will set fire to your -house, and no one shall leave it alive. Do you understand?" - -Nicolas Poussin scowled; every word was a menace. Gillette took comfort -from the young painter's bearing, and yet more from that gesture, and -almost forgave him for sacrificing her to his art and his glorious -future. - -Porbus and Poussin stood at the door of the studio and looked at each -other in silence. At first the painter of the Saint Mary of Egypt -hazarded some exclamations: "Ah! she has taken off her clothes; he told -her to come into the light--he is comparing the two!" but the sight of -the deep distress in Poussin's face suddenly silenced him; and though -old painters no longer feel these scruples, so petty in the presence of -art, he admired them because they were so natural and gracious in the -lover. The young man kept his hand on the hilt of his dagger, and his -ear was almost glued to the door. The two men standing in the shadow -might have been conspirators waiting for the hour when they might strike -down a tyrant. - -"Come in, come in," cried the old man. He was radiant with delight. "My -work is perfect. I can show her now with pride. Never shall painter, -brushes, colors, light, and canvas produce a rival for 'Catherine -Lescault,' the beautiful courtezan!" - -Porbus and Poussin, burning with eager curiosity, hurried into a vast -studio. Everything was in disorder and covered with dust, but they saw a -few pictures here and there upon the wall. They stopped first of all in -admiration before the life-size figure of a woman partially draped. - -"Oh! never mind that," said Frenhofer; "that is a rough daub that I -made, a study, a pose, it is nothing. These are my failures," he went -on, indicating the enchanting compositions upon the walls of the studio. - -This scorn for such works of art struck Porbus and Poussin dumb with -amazement. They looked round for the picture of which he had spoken, and -could not discover it. - -"Look here!" said the old man. His hair was disordered, his face aglow -with a more than human exaltation, his eyes glittered, he breathed hard -like a young lover frenzied by love. - -"Aha!" he cried, "you did not expect to see such perfection! You are -looking for a picture, and you see a woman before you. There is such -depth in that canvas, the atmosphere is so true that you can not -distinguish it from the air that surrounds us. Where is art? Art has -vanished, it is invisible! It is the form of a living girl that you see -before you. Have I not caught the very hues of life, the spirit of the -living line that defines the figure? Is there not the effect produced -there like that which all natural objects present in the atmosphere -about them, or fishes in the water? Do you see how the figure stands out -against the background? Does it not seem to you that you pass your hand -along the back? But then for seven years I studied and watched how the -daylight blends with the objects on which it falls. And the hair, the -light pours over it like a flood, does it not?... Ah! she breathed, I am -sure that she breathed! Her breast--ah, see! Who would not fall on his -knees before her? Her pulses throb. She will rise to her feet. Wait!" - -"Do you see anything?" Poussin asked of Porbus. - -"No... do you?" - -"I see nothing." - -The two painters left the old man to his ecstasy, and tried to ascertain -whether the light that fell full upon the canvas had in some way -neutralized all the effect for them. They moved to the right and left -of the picture; they came in front, bending down and standing upright by -turns. - -"Yes, yes, it is really canvas," said Frenhofer, who mistook the nature -of this minute investigation. - -"Look! the canvas is on a stretcher, here is the easel; indeed, here are -my colors, my brushes," and he took up a brush and held it out to them, -all unsuspicious of their thought. - -"The old _lansquenet_ is laughing at us," said Poussin, coming once -more toward the supposed picture. "I can see nothing there but confused -masses of color and a multitude of fantastical lines that go to make a -dead wall of paint." - -"We are mistaken, look!" said Porbus. - -In a corner of the canvas, as they came nearer, they distinguished a -bare foot emerging from the chaos of color, half-tints and vague shadows -that made up a dim, formless fog. Its living delicate beauty held them -spellbound. This fragment that had escaped an incomprehensible, slow, -and gradual destruction seemed to them like the Parian marble torso of -some Venus emerging from the ashes of a ruined town. - -"There is a woman beneath," exclaimed Porbus, calling Poussin's -attention to the coats of paint with which the old artist had overlaid -and concealed his work in the quest of perfection. - -Both artists turned involuntarily to Frenhofer. They began to have some -understanding, vague though it was, of the ecstasy in which he lived. - -"He believes it in all good faith," said Porbus. - -"Yes, my friend," said the old man, rousing himself from his dreams, "it -needs faith, faith in art, and you must live for long with your work to -produce such a creation. What toil some of those shadows have cost me. -Look! there is a faint shadow there upon the cheek beneath the eyes--if -you saw that on a human face, it would seem to you that you could never -render it with paint. Do you think that that effect has not cost unheard -of toil? - -"But not only so, dear Porbus. Look closely at my work, and you will -understand more clearly what I was saying as to methods of modeling and -outline. Look at the high lights on the bosom, and see how by touch on -touch, thickly laid on, I have raised the surface so that it catches -the light itself and blends it with the lustrous whiteness of the high -lights, and how by an opposite process, by flattening the surface of -the paint, and leaving no trace of the passage of the brush, I have -succeeded in softening the contours of my figures and enveloping them -in half-tints until the very idea of drawing, of the means by which the -effect is produced, fades away, and the picture has the roundness -and relief of nature. Come closer. You will see the manner of working -better; at a little distance it can not be seen. There I Just there, it -is, I think, very plainly to be seen," and with the tip of his brush he -pointed out a patch of transparent color to the two painters. - -Porbus, laying a hand on the old artist's shoulder, turned to Poussin -with a "Do you know that in him we see a very great painter?" - -"He is even more of a poet than a painter," Poussin answered gravely. - -"There," Porbus continued, as he touched the canvas, "Use the utmost -limit of our art on earth." - -"Beyond that point it loses itself in the skies," said Poussin. - -"What joys lie there on this piece of canvas!" exclaimed Porbus. - -The old man, deep in his own musings, smiled at the woman he alone -beheld, and did not hear. - -"But sooner or later he will find out that there is nothing there!" -cried Poussin. - -"Nothing on my canvas!" said Frenhofer, looking in turn at either -painter and at his picture. - -"What have you done?" muttered Porbus, turning to Poussin. - -The old man clutched the young painter's arm and said, "Do you see -nothing? clodpatel Huguenot! varlet! cullion! What brought you here into -my studio?--My good Porbus," he went on, as he turned to the painter, -"are you also making a fool of me? Answer! I am your friend. Tell me, -have I ruined my picture after all?" - -Porbus hesitated and said nothing, but there was such intolerable -anxiety in the old man's white face that he pointed to the easel. - -"Look!" he said. - -Frenhofer looked for a moment at his picture, and staggered back. - -"Nothing! nothing! After ten years of work..." He sat down and wept. - -"So I am a dotard, a madman, I have neither talent nor power! I am only -a rich man, who works for his own pleasure, and makes no progress, I -have done nothing after all!" - -He looked through his tears at his picture. Suddenly he rose and stood -proudly before the two painters. - -"By the body and blood of Christ," he cried with flashing eyes, "you are -jealous! You would have me think that my picture is a failure because -you want to steal her from me! Ah! I see her, I see her," he cried "she -is marvelously beautiful..." - -At that moment Poussin heard the sound of weeping; Gillette was -crouching forgotten in a corner. All at once the painter once more -became the lover. "What is it, my angel?" he asked her. - -"Kill me!" she sobbed. "I must be a vile thing if I love you still, for -I despise you.... I admire you, and I hate you! I love you, and I feel -that I hate you even now!" - -While Gillette's words sounded in Poussin's ears, Frenhof er drew a -green serge covering over his "Catherine" with the sober deliberation -of a jeweler who locks his drawers when he suspects his visitors to be -expert thieves. He gave the two painters a profoundly astute glance that -expressed to the full his suspicions, and his contempt for them, saw -them out of his studio with impetuous haste and in silence, until from -the threshold of his house he bade them "Good-by, my young friends!" - -That farewell struck a chill of dread into the two painters. Porbus, in -anxiety, went again on the morrow to see Frenhofer, and learned that he -had died in the night after burning his canvases. - -Paris, February, 1832. - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Unknown Masterpiece, by Honoré De Balzac - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNKNOWN MASTERPIECE *** - -***** This file should be named 23060-8.txt or 23060-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/0/6/23060/ - -Produced by David Widger - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 - -Author: Honoré De Balzac - -Release Date: October 17, 2007 [EBook #23060] -Last Updated: November 23, 2016 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNKNOWN MASTERPIECE *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger - - - - - -</pre> - <div style="height: 8em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h1> - THE UNKNOWN MASTERPIECE - </h1> - <h2> - By Honoré De Balzac - </h2> - <h3> - TO A LORD - </h3> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <h4> - 1845 - </h4> - <p> - <br /> <br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /> <br /> - </p> - <h2> - Contents - </h2> - <h3> - </h3> - <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> - <tr> - <td> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> I—GILLETTE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> II—CATHERINE LESCAULT </a> - </p> - </td> - </tr> - </table> - <p> - <br /> <br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - I—GILLETTE - </h2> - <p> - On a cold December morning in the year 1612, a young man, whose clothing - was somewhat of the thinnest, was walking to and fro before a gateway in - the Rue des Grands-Augustins in Paris. He went up and down the street - before this house with the irresolution of a gallant who dares not venture - into the presence of the mistress whom he loves for the first time, easy - of access though she may be; but after a sufficiently long interval of - hesitation, he at last crossed the threshold and inquired of an old woman, - who was sweeping out a large room on the ground floor, whether Master - Porbus was within. Receiving a reply in the affirmative, the young man - went slowly up the staircase, like a gentleman but newly come to court, - and doubtful as to his reception by the king. He came to a stand once more - on the landing at the head of the stairs, and again he hesitated before - raising his hand to the grotesque knocker on the door of the studio, where - doubtless the painter was at work—Master Porbus, sometime painter in - ordinary to Henri IV till Mary de’ Medici took Rubens into favor. - </p> - <p> - The young man felt deeply stirred by an emotion that must thrill the - hearts of all great artists when, in the pride of their youth and their - first love of art, they come into the presence of a master or stand before - a masterpiece. For all human sentiments there is a time of early - blossoming, a day of generous enthusiasm that gradually fades until - nothing is left of happiness but a memory, and glory is known for a - delusion. Of all these delicate and short-lived emotions, none so resemble - love as the passion of a young artist for his art, as he is about to enter - on the blissful martyrdom of his career of glory and disaster, of vague - expectations and real disappointments. - </p> - <p> - Those who have missed this experience in the early days of light purses; - who have not, in the dawn of their genius, stood in the presence of a - master and felt the throbbing of their hearts, will always carry in their - inmost souls a chord that has never been touched, and in their work an - indefinable quality will be lacking, a something in the stroke of the - brush, a mysterious element that we call poetry. The swaggerers, so puffed - up by self-conceit that they are confident over-soon of their success, can - never be taken for men of talent save by fools. From this point of view, - if youthful modesty is the measure of youthful genius, the stranger on the - staircase might be allowed to have something in him; for he seemed to - possess the indescribable diffidence, the early timidity that artists are - bound to lose in the course of a great career, even as pretty women lose - it as they make progress in the arts of coquetry. Self-distrust vanishes - as triumph succeeds to triumph, and modesty is, perhaps, distrust of - itself. - </p> - <p> - The poor neophyte was so overcome by the consciousness of his own - presumption and insignificance, that it began to look as if he was hardly - likely to penetrate into the studio of the painter, to whom we owe the - wonderful portrait of Henri IV. But fate was propitious; an old man came - up the staircase. From the quaint costume of this newcomer, his collar of - magnificent lace, and a certain serene gravity in his bearing, the first - arrival thought that this personage must be either a patron or a friend of - the court painter. He stood aside therefore upon the landing to allow the - visitor to pass, scrutinizing him curiously the while. Perhaps he might - hope to find the good nature of an artist or to receive the good offices - of an amateur not unfriendly to the arts; but besides an almost diabolical - expression in the face that met his gaze, there was that indescribable - something which has an irresistible attraction for artists. - </p> - <p> - Picture that face. A bald high forehead and rugged jutting brows above a - small flat nose turned up at the end, as in the portraits of Socrates and - Rabelais; deep lines about the mocking mouth; a short chin, carried - proudly, covered with a grizzled pointed beard; sea-green eyes that age - might seem to have dimmed were it not for the contrast between the iris - and the surrounding mother-of-pearl tints, so that it seemed as if under - the stress of anger or enthusiasm there would be a magnetic power to quell - or kindle in their glances. The face was withered beyond wont by the - fatigue of years, yet it seemed aged still more by the thoughts that had - worn away both soul and body. There were no lashes to the deep-set eyes, - and scarcely a trace of the arching lines of the eyebrows above them. Set - this head on a spare and feeble frame, place it in a frame of lace wrought - like an engraved silver fish-slice, imagine a heavy gold chain over the - old man’s black doublet, and you will have some dim idea of this strange - personage, who seemed still more fantastic in the sombre twilight of the - staircase. One of Rembrandt’s portraits might have stepped down from its - frame to walk in an appropriate atmosphere of gloom, such as the great - painter loved. The older man gave the younger a shrewd glance, and knocked - thrice at the door. It was opened by a man of forty or thereabout, who - seemed to be an invalid. - </p> - <p> - “Good day, Master.” - </p> - <p> - Porbus bowed respectfully, and held the door open for the younger man to - enter, thinking that the latter accompanied his visitor; and when he saw - that the neophyte stood a while as if spellbound, feeling, as every - artist-nature must feel, the fascinating influence of the first sight of a - studio in which the material processes of art are revealed, Porbus - troubled himself no more about this second comer. - </p> - <p> - All the light in the studio came from a window in the roof, and was - concentrated upon an easel, where a canvas stood untouched as yet save for - three or four outlines in chalk. The daylight scarcely reached the remoter - angles and corners of the vast room; they were as dark as night, but the - silver ornamented breastplate of a Reiter’s corselet, that hung upon the - wall, attracted a stray gleam to its dim abiding-place among the brown - shadows; or a shaft of light shot across the carved and glistening surface - of an antique sideboard covered with curious silver-plate, or struck out a - line of glittering dots among the raised threads of the golden warp of - some old brocaded curtains, where the lines of the stiff, heavy folds were - broken, as the stuff had been flung carelessly down to serve as a model. - </p> - <p> - Plaster <i>écorchés</i> stood about the room; and here and there, on - shelves and tables, lay fragments of classical sculpture-torsos of antique - goddesses, worn smooth as though all the years of the centuries that had - passed over them had been lovers’ kisses. The walls were covered, from - floor to ceiling, with countless sketches in charcoal, red chalk, or pen - and ink. Amid the litter and confusion of color boxes, overturned stools, - flasks of oil, and essences, there was just room to move so as to reach - the illuminated circular space where the easel stood. The light from the - window in the roof fell full upon Por-bus’s pale face and on the - ivory-tinted forehead of his strange visitor. But in another moment the - younger man heeded nothing but a picture that had already become famous - even in those stormy days of political and religious revolution, a picture - that a few of the zealous worshipers, who have so often kept the sacred - fire of art alive in evil days, were wont to go on pilgrimage to see. The - beautiful panel represented a Saint Mary of Egypt about to pay her passage - across the seas. It was a masterpiece destined for Mary de’ Medici, who - sold it in later years of poverty. - </p> - <p> - “I like your saint,” the old man remarked, addressing Porbus. “I would - give you ten golden crowns for her over and above the price the Queen is - paying; but as for putting a spoke in that wheel,—the devil take - it!” - </p> - <p> - “It is good then?” - </p> - <p> - “Hey! hey!” said the old man; “good, say you?—Yes and no. Your good - woman is not badly done, but she is not alive. You artists fancy that when - a figure is correctly drawn, and everything in its place according to the - rules of anatomy, there is nothing more to be done. You make up the flesh - tints beforehand on your palettes according to your formulae, and fill in - the outlines with due care that one side of the face shall be darker than - the other; and because you look from time to time at a naked woman who - stands on the platform before you, you fondly imagine that you have copied - nature, think yourselves to be painters, believe that you have wrested His - secret from God. Pshaw! You may know your syntax thoroughly and make no - blunders in your grammar, but it takes that and something more to make a - great poet. Look at your saint, Porbus! At a first glance she is - admirable; look at her again, and you see at once that she is glued to the - background, and that you could not walk round her. She is a silhouette - that turns but one side of her face to all beholders, a figure cut out of - canvas, an image with no power to move nor change her position. I feel as - if there were no air between that arm and the background, no space, no - sense of distance in your canvas. The perspective is perfectly correct, - the strength of the coloring is accurately diminished with the distance; - but, in spite of these praiseworthy efforts, I could never bring myself to - believe that the warm breath of life comes and goes in that beautiful - body. It seems to me that if I laid my hand on the firm, rounded throat, - it would be cold as marble to the touch. No, my friend, the blood does not - flow beneath that ivory skin, the tide of life does not flush those - delicate fibres, the purple veins that trace a network beneath the - transparent amber of her brow and breast. Here the pulse seems to beat, - there it is motionless, life and death are at strife in every detail; here - you see a woman, there a statue, there again a corpse. Your creation is - incomplete. You had only power to breathe a portion of your soul into your - beloved work. The fire of Prometheus died out again and again in your - hands; many a spot in your picture has not been touched by the divine - flame.” - </p> - <p> - “But how is it, dear master?” Porbus asked respectfully, while the young - man with difficulty repressed his strong desire to beat the critic. - </p> - <p> - “Ah!” said the old man, “it is this! You have halted between two manners. - You have hesitated between drawing and color, between the dogged attention - to detail, the stiff precision of the German masters and the dazzling - glow, the joyous exuberance of Italian painters. You have set yourself to - imitate Hans Holbein and Titian, Albrecht Durer and Paul Veronese in a - single picture. A magnificent ambition truly, but what has come of it? - Your work has neither the severe charm of a dry execution nor the magical - illusion of Italian <i>chiaroscuro</i>. Titian’s rich golden coloring - poured into Albrecht Dureras austere outlines has shattered them, like - molten bronze bursting through the mold that is not strong enough to hold - it. In other places the outlines have held firm, imprisoning and obscuring - the magnificent, glowing flood of Venetian color. The drawing of the face - is not perfect, the coloring is not perfect; traces of that unlucky - indecision are to be seen everywhere. Unless you felt strong enough to - fuse the two opposed manners in the fire of your own genius, you should - have cast in your lot boldly with the one or the other, and so have - obtained the unity which simulates one of the conditions of life itself. - Your work is only true in the centres; your outlines are false, they - project nothing, there is no hint of anything behind them. There is truth - here,” said the old man, pointing to the breast of the Saint, “and again - here,” he went on, indicating the rounded shoulder. “But there,” once more - returning to the column of the throat, “everything is false. Let us go no - further into detail, you would be disheartened.” - </p> - <p> - The old man sat down on a stool, and remained a while without speaking, - with his face buried in his hands. - </p> - <p> - “Yet I studied that throat from the life, dear master,” Porbus began; “it - happens sometimes, for our misfortune, that real effects in nature look - improbable when transferred to canvas—” - </p> - <p> - “The aim of art is not to copy nature, but to express it. You are not a - servile copyist, but a poet!” cried the old man sharply, cutting Porbus - short with an imperious gesture. “Otherwise a sculptor might make a - plaster cast of a living woman and save himself all further trouble. Well, - try to make a cast of your mistress’s hand, and set up the thing before - you. You will see a monstrosity, a dead mass, bearing no resemblance to - the living hand; you would be compelled to have recourse to the chisel of - a sculptor who, without making an exact copy, would represent for you its - movement and its life. We must detect the spirit, the informing soul in - the appearances of things and beings. Effects! What are effects but the - accidents of life, not life itself? A hand, since I have taken that - example, is not only a part of a body, it is the expression and extension - of a thought that must be grasped and rendered. Neither painter nor poet - nor sculptor may separate the effect from the cause, which are inevitably - contained the one in the other. There begins the real struggle! Many a - painter achieves success instinctively, unconscious of the task that is - set before art. You draw a woman, yet you do not see her! Not so do you - succeed in wresting Nature’s secrets from her! You are reproducing - mechanically the model that you copied in your master’s studio. You do not - penetrate far enough into the inmost secrets of the mystery of form; you - do not seek with love enough and perseverance enough after the form that - baffles and eludes you. Beauty is a thing severe and unapproachable, never - to be won by a languid lover. You must lie in wait for her coming and take - her unawares, press her hard and clasp her in a tight embrace, and force - her to yield. Form is a Proteus more intangible and more manifold than the - Proteus of the legend; compelled, only after long wrestling, to stand - forth manifest in his true aspect. Some of you are satisfied with the - first shape, or at most by the second or the third that appears. Not thus - wrestle the victors, the unvanquished painters who never suffer themselves - to be deluded by all those treacherous shadow-shapes; they persevere till - Nature at the last stands bare to their gaze, and her very soul is - revealed. - </p> - <p> - “In this manner worked Rafael,” said the old man, taking off his cap to - express his reverence for the King of Art. “His transcendent greatness - came of the intimate sense that, in him, seems as if it would shatter - external form. Form in his figures (as with us) is a symbol, a means of - communicating sensations, ideas, the vast imaginings of a poet. Every face - is a whole world. The subject of the portrait appeared for him bathed in - the light of a divine vision; it was revealed by an inner voice, the - finger of God laid bare the sources of expression in the past of a whole - life. - </p> - <p> - “You clothe your women in fair raiment of flesh, in gracious veiling of - hair; but where is the blood, the source of passion and of calm, the cause - of the particular effect? Why, this brown Egyptian of yours, my good - Porbus, is a colorless creature! These figures that you set before us are - painted bloodless fantoms; and you call that painting, you call that art! - </p> - <p> - “Because you have made something more like a woman than a house, you think - that you have set your fingers on the goal; you are quite proud that you - need not to write <i>currus venustus</i> or <i>pulcher homo</i> beside - your figures, as early painters were wont to do and you fancy that you - have done wonders. Ah! my good friend, there is still something more to - learn, and you will use up a great deal of chalk and cover many a canvas - before you will learn it. Yes, truly, a woman carries her head in just - such a way, so she holds her garments gathered into her hand; her eyes - grow dreamy and soft with that expression of meek sweetness, and even so - the quivering shadow of the lashes hovers upon her cheeks. It is all - there, and yet it is not there. What is lacking? A nothing, but that - nothing is everything. - </p> - <p> - “There you have the semblance of life, but you do not express its fulness - and effluence, that indescribable something, perhaps the soul itself, that - envelopes the outlines of the body like a haze; that flower of life, in - short, that Titian and Rafael caught. Your utmost achievement hitherto has - only brought you to the starting-point. You might now perhaps begin to do - excellent work, but you grow weary all too soon; and the crowd admires, - and those who know smile. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, Mabuse! oh, my master!” cried the strange speaker, “thou art a thief! - Thou hast carried away the secret of life with thee!” - </p> - <p> - “Nevertheless,” he began again, “this picture of yours is worth more than - all the paintings of that rascal Rubens, with his mountains of Flemish - flesh raddled with vermilion, his torrents of red hair, his riot of color. - You, at least have color there, and feeling and drawing—the three - essentials in art.” - </p> - <p> - The young man roused himself from his deep musings. - </p> - <p> - “Why, my good man, the Saint is sublime!” he cried. “There is a subtlety - of imagination about those two figures, the Saint Mary and the Shipman, - that can not be found among Italian masters; I do not know a single one of - them capable of imagining the Shipman’s hesitation.” - </p> - <p> - “Did that little malapert come with you?” asked Porbus of the older man. - </p> - <p> - “Alas! master, pardon my boldness,” cried the neophyte, and the color - mounted to his face. “I am unknown—a dauber by instinct, and but - lately come to this city—the fountain-head of all learning.” - </p> - <p> - “Set to work,” said Porbus, handing him a bit of red chalk and a sheet of - paper. - </p> - <p> - The new-comer quickly sketched the Saint Mary line for line. - </p> - <p> - “Aha!” exclaimed the old man. “Your name?” he added. - </p> - <p> - The young man wrote “Nicolas Poussin” below the sketch. - </p> - <p> - “Not bad that for a beginning,” said the strange speaker, who had - discoursed so wildly. “I see that we can talk of art in your presence. I - do not blame you for admiring Porbus’s saint. In the eyes of the world she - is a masterpiece, and those alone who have been initiated into the inmost - mysteries of art can discover her shortcomings. But it is worth while to - give you the lesson, for you are able to understand it, so I will show you - how little it needs to complete this picture. You must be all eyes, all - attention, for it may be that such a chance of learning will never come in - your way again—Porbus! your palette.” - </p> - <p> - Porbus went in search of palette and brushes. The little old man turned - back his sleeves with impatient energy, seized the palette, covered with - many hues, that Porbus handed to him, and snatched rather than took a - handful of brushes of various sizes from the hands of his acquaintance. - His pointed beard suddenly bristled—a menacing movement that - expressed the prick of a lover’s fancy. As he loaded his brush, he - muttered between his teeth, “These paints are only fit to fling out of the - window, together with the fellow who ground them, their crudeness and - falseness are disgusting! How can one paint with this?” - </p> - <p> - He dipped the tip of the brush with feverish eagerness in the different - pigments, making the circuit of the palette several times more quickly - than the organist of a cathedral sweeps the octaves on the keyboard of his - clavier for the “O Filii” at Easter. - </p> - <p> - Porbus and Poussin, on either side of the easel, stood stock-still, - watching with intense interest. - </p> - <p> - “Look, young man,” he began again, “see how three or four strokes of the - brush and a thin glaze of blue let in the free air to play about the head - of the poor Saint, who must have felt stifled and oppressed by the close - atmosphere! See how the drapery begins to flutter; you feel that it is - lifted by the breeze! A moment ago it hung as heavily and stiffly as if it - were held out by pins. Do you see how the satin sheen that I have just - given to the breast rends the pliant, silken softness of a young girl’s - skin, and how the brown-red, blended with burnt ochre, brings warmth into - the cold gray of the deep shadow where the blood lay congealed instead of - coursing through the veins? Young man, young man, no master could teach - you how to do this that I am doing before your eyes. Mabuse alone - possessed the secret of giving life to his figures; Mabuse had but one - pupil—that was I. I have had none, and I am old. You have sufficient - intelligence to imagine the rest from the glimpses that I am giving you.” - </p> - <p> - While the old man was speaking, he gave a touch here and there; sometimes - two strokes of the brush, sometimes a single one; but every stroke told so - well, that the whole picture seemed transfigured—the painting was - flooded with light. He worked with such passionate fervor that beads of - sweat gathered upon his bare forehead; he worked so quickly, in brief, - impatient jerks, that it seemed to young Poussin as if some familiar - spirit inhabiting the body of this strange being took a grotesque pleasure - in making use of the man’s hands against his own will. The unearthly - glitter of his eyes, the convulsive movements that seemed like struggles, - gave to this fancy a semblance of truth which could not but stir a young - imagination. The old man continued, saying as he did so— - </p> - <p> - “Paf! paf! that is how to lay it on, young man!—Little touches! come - and bring a glow into those icy cold tones for me! Just so! Pon! pon! - pon!” and those parts of the picture that he had pointed out as cold and - lifeless flushed with warmer hues, a few bold strokes of color brought all - the tones of the picture into the required harmony with the glowing tints - of the Egyptian, and the differences in temperament vanished. - </p> - <p> - “Look you, youngster, the last touches make the picture. Porbus has given - it a hundred strokes for every one of mine. No one thanks us for what lies - beneath. Bear that in mind.” - </p> - <p> - At last the restless spirit stopped, and turning to Porbus and Poussin, - who were speechless with admiration, he spoke— - </p> - <p> - “This is not as good as my ‘Belle Noiseuse’; still one might put one’s - name to such a thing as this.—Yes, I would put my name to it,” he - added, rising to reach for a mirror, in which he looked at the picture.—“And - now,” he said, “will you both come and breakfast with me? I have a smoked - ham and some very fair wine!... Eh! eh! the times may be bad, but we can - still have some talk about art! We can talk like equals.... Here is a - little fellow who has aptitude,” he added, laying a hand on Nicolas - Poussin’s shoulder. - </p> - <p> - In this way the stranger became aware of the threadbare condition of the - Norman’s doublet. He drew a leather purse from his girdle, felt in it, - found two gold coins, and held them out. - </p> - <p> - “I will buy your sketch,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “Take it,” said Porbus, as he saw the other start and flush with - embarrassment, for Poussin had the pride of poverty. “Pray, take it; he - has a couple of king’s ransoms in his pouch!” - </p> - <p> - The three came down together from the studio, and, talking of art by the - way, reached a picturesque wooden house hard by the Pont Saint-Michel. - Poussin wondered a moment at its ornament, at the knocker, at the frames - of the casements, at the scroll-work designs, and in the next he stood in - a vast low-ceiled room. A table, covered with tempting dishes, stood near - the blazing fire, and (luck unhoped for) he was in the company of two - great artists full of genial good humor. - </p> - <p> - “Do not look too long at that canvas, young man,” said Porbus, when he saw - that Poussin was standing, struck with wonder, before a painting. “You - would fall a victim to despair.” - </p> - <p> - It was the “Adam” painted by Mabuse to purchase his release from the - prison, where his creditors had so long kept him. And, as a matter of - fact, the figure stood out so boldly and convincingly, that Nicolas - Poussin began to understand the real meaning of the words poured out by - the old artist, who was himself looking at the picture with apparent - satisfaction, but without enthusiasm. “I have done better than that!” he - seemed to be saying to himself. - </p> - <p> - “There is life in it,” he said aloud; “in that respect my poor master here - surpassed himself, but there is some lack of truth in the background. The - man lives indeed; he is rising, and will come toward us; but the - atmosphere, the sky, the air, the breath of the breeze—you look and - feel for them, but they are not there. And then the man himself is, after - all, only a man! Ah! but the one man in the world who came direct from the - hands of God must have had a something divine about him that is wanting - here. Mabuse himself would grind his teeth and say so when he was not - drunk.” - </p> - <p> - Poussin looked from the speaker to Porbus, and from Porbus to the speaker, - with restless curiosity. He went up to the latter to ask for the name of - their host; but the painter laid a finger on his lips with an air of - mystery. The young man’s interest was excited; he kept silence, but hoped - that sooner or later some word might be let fall that would reveal the - name of his entertainer. It was evident that he was a man of talent and - very wealthy, for Porbus listened to him respectfully, and the vast room - was crowded with marvels of art. - </p> - <p> - A magnificent portrait of a woman, hung against the dark oak panels of the - wall, next caught Poussin’s attention. - </p> - <p> - “What a glorious Giorgione!” he cried. - </p> - <p> - “No,” said his host, “it is an early daub of mine—” - </p> - <p> - “Gramercy! I am in the abode of the god of painting, it seems!” cried - Poussin ingenuously. - </p> - <p> - The old man smiled as if he had long grown familiar with such praise. - </p> - <p> - “Master Frenhofer!” said Porbus, “do you think you could spare me a little - of your capital Rhine wine?” - </p> - <p> - “A couple of pipes!” answered his host; “one to discharge a debt, for the - pleasure of seeing your pretty sinner, the other as a present from a - friend.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah! if I had my health,” returned Porbus, “and if you would but let me - see your ‘Belle Noiseuse,’ I would paint some great picture, with breadth - in it and depth; the figures should be life-size.” - </p> - <p> - “Let you see my work!” cried the painter in agitation. “No, no! it is not - perfect yet; something still remains for me to do. Yesterday, in the - dusk,” he said, “I thought I had reached the end. Her eyes seemed moist, - the flesh quivered, something stirred the tresses of her hair. She - breathed! But though I have succeeded in reproducing Nature’s roundness - and relief on the flat surface of the canvas, this morning, by daylight, I - found out my mistake. Ah! to achieve that glorious result I have studied - the works of the great masters of color, stripping off coat after coat of - color from Titian’s canvas, analyzing the pigments of the king of light. - Like that sovereign painter, I began the face in a slight tone with a - supple and fat paste—for shadow is but an accident; bear that in - mind, youngster!—Then I began afresh, and by half-tones and thin - glazes of color less and less transparent, I gradually deepened the tints - to the deepest black of the strongest shadows. An ordinary painter makes - his shadows something entirely different in nature from the high lights; - they are wood or brass, or what you will, anything but flesh in shadow. - You feel that even if those figures were to alter their position, those - shadow stains would never be cleansed away, those parts of the picture - would never glow with light. - </p> - <p> - “I have escaped one mistake, into which the most famous painters have - sometimes fallen; in my canvas the whiteness shines through the densest - and most persistent shadow. I have not marked out the limits of my figure - in hard, dry outlines, and brought every least anatomical detail into - prominence (like a host of dunces, who fancy that they can draw because - they can trace a line elaborately smooth and clean), for the human body is - not contained within the limits of line. In this the sculptor can approach - the truth more nearly than we painters. Nature’s way is a complicated - succession of curve within curve. Strictly speaking, there is no such - thing as drawing.—Do not laugh, young man; strange as that speech - may seem to you, you will understand the truth in it some day.—A - line is a method of expressing the effect of light upon an object; but - there are no lines in Nature, everything is solid. We draw by modeling, - that is to say, that we disengage an object from its setting; the - distribution of the light alone gives to a body the appearance by which we - know it. So I have not defined the outlines; I have suffused them with a - haze of half-tints warm or golden, in such a sort that you can not lay - your finger on the exact spot where background and contours meet. Seen - from near, the picture looks a blur; it seems to lack definition; but step - back two paces, and the whole thing becomes clear, distinct, and solid; - the body stands out; the rounded form comes into relief; you feel that the - air plays round it. And yet—I am not satisfied; I have misgivings. - Perhaps one ought not to draw a single line; perhaps it would be better to - attack the face from the centre, taking the highest prominences first, - proceeding from them through the whole range of shadows to the heaviest of - all. Is not this the method of the sun, the divine painter of the world? - Oh, Nature, Nature! who has surprised thee, fugitive? But, after all, too - much knowledge, like ignorance, brings you to a negation. I have doubts - about my work.” - </p> - <p> - There was a pause. Then the old man spoke again. “I have been at work upon - it for ten years, young man; but what are ten short years in a struggle - with Nature? Do we know how long Sir Pygmalion wrought at the one statue - that came to life?” The old man fell into deep musings, and gazed before - him with unseeing eyes, while he played unheedingly with his knife. - </p> - <p> - “Look, he is in conversation with his <i>domon!</i>” murmured Porbus. - </p> - <p> - At the word, Nicolas Poussin felt himself carried away by an unaccountable - accession of artist’s curiosity. For him the old man, at once intent and - inert, the seer with the unseeing eyes, became something more than a man—a - fantastic spirit living in a mysterious world, and countless vague - thoughts awoke within his soul. The effect of this species of fascination - upon his mind can no more be described in words than the passionate - longing awakened in an exile’s heart by the song that recalls his home. He - thought of the scorn that the old man affected to display for the noblest - efforts of art, of his wealth, his manners, of the deference paid to him - by Porbus. The mysterious picture, the work of patience on which he had - wrought so long in secret, was doubtless a work of genius, for the head of - the Virgin which young Poussin had admired so frankly was beautiful even - beside Mabuse’s “Adam”—there was no mistaking the imperial manner of - one of the princes of art. Everything combined to set the old man beyond - the limits of human nature. - </p> - <p> - Out of the wealth of fancies in Nicolas Poussin’s brain an idea grew, and - gathered shape and clearness. He saw in this supernatural being a complete - type of the artist nature, a nature mocking and kindly, barren and - prolific, an erratic spirit intrusted with great and manifold powers which - she too often abuses, leading sober reason, the Philistine, and sometimes - even the amateur forth into a stony wilderness where they see nothing; but - the white-winged maiden herself, wild as her fancies may be, finds epics - there and castles and works of art. For Poussin, the enthusiast, the old - man, was suddenly transfigured, and became Art incarnate, Art with its - mysteries, its vehement passion and its dreams. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, my dear Porbus,” Frenhofer continued, “hitherto I have never found a - flawless model, a body with outlines of perfect beauty, the carnations—Ah! - where does she live?” he cried, breaking in upon himself, “the - undiscoverable Venus of the older time, for whom we have sought so often, - only to find the scattered gleams of her beauty here and there? Oh! to - behold once and for one moment, Nature grown perfect and divine, the Ideal - at last, I would give all that I possess.... Nay, Beauty divine, I would - go to seek thee in the dim land of the dead; like Orpheus, I would go down - into the Hades of Art to bring back the life of art from among the shadows - of death.” - </p> - <p> - “We can go now,” said Porbus to Poussin. “He neither hears nor sees us any - longer.” - </p> - <p> - “Let us go to his studio,” said young Poussin, wondering greatly. - </p> - <p> - “Oh! the old fox takes care that no one shall enter it. His treasures are - so carefully guarded that it is impossible for us to come at them. I have - not waited for your suggestion and your fancy to attempt to lay hands on - this mystery by force.” - </p> - <p> - “So there is a mystery?” “Yes,” answered Porbus. “Old Frenhofer is the - only pupil Mabuse would take. Frenhofer became the painter’s friend, - deliverer, and father; he sacrificed the greater part of his fortune to - enable Mabuse to indulge in riotous extravagance, and in return Mabuse - bequeathed to him the secret of relief, the power of giving to his figures - the wonderful life, the flower of Nature, the eternal despair of art, the - secret which Ma-buse knew so well that one day when he had sold the - flowered brocade suit in which he should have appeared at the Entry of - Charles V, he accompanied his master in a suit of paper painted to - resemble the brocade. The peculiar richness and splendor of the stuff - struck the Emperor; he complimented the old drunkard’s patron on the - artist’s appearance, and so the trick was brought to light. Frenhofer is a - passionate enthusiast, who sees above and beyond other painters. He has - meditated profoundly on color, and the absolute truth of line; but by the - way of much research he has come to doubt the very existence of the - objects of his search. He says, in moments of despondency, that there is - no such thing as drawing, and that by means of lines we can only reproduce - geometrical figures; but that is overshooting the mark, for by outline and - shadow you can reproduce form without any color at all, which shows that - our art, like Nature, is composed of an infinite number of elements. - Drawing gives you the skeleton, the anatomical frame-’ work, and color - puts the life into it; but life without the skeleton is even more - incomplete than a skeleton without life. But there is something else truer - still, and it is this—f or painters, practise and observation are - everything; and when theories and poetical ideas begin to quarrel with the - brushes, the end is doubt, as has happened with our good friend, who is - half crack-brained enthusiast, half painter. A sublime painter! but - unlucky for him, he was born to riches, and so he has leisure to follow - his fancies. Do not you follow his example! Work! painters have no - business to think, except brush in hand.” - </p> - <p> - “We will find a way into his studio!” cried Poussin confidently. He had - ceased to heed Porbus’s remarks. The other smiled at the young painter’s - enthusiasm, asked him to come to see him again, and they parted. Nicolas - Poussin went slowly back to the Rue de la Harpe, and passed the modest - hostelry where he was lodging without noticing it. A feeling of uneasiness - prompted him to hurry up the crazy staircase till he reached a room at the - top, a quaint, airy recess under the steep, high-pitched roof common among - houses in old Paris. In the one dingy window of the place sat a young - girl, who sprang up at once when she heard some one at the door; it was - the prompting of love; she had recognized the painter’s touch on the - latch. - </p> - <p> - “What is the matter with you?” she asked. - </p> - <p> - “The matter is... is... Oh! I have felt that I am a painter! Until to-day - I have had doubts, but now I believe in myself! There is the making of a - great man in me! Never mind, Gillette, we shall be rich and happy! There - is gold at the tips of those brushes—” - </p> - <p> - He broke off suddenly. The joy faded from his powerful and earnest face as - he compared his vast hopes with his slender resources. The walls were - covered with sketches in chalk on sheets of common paper. There were but - four canvases in the room. Colors were very costly, and the young - painter’s palette was almost bare. Yet in the midst of his poverty he - possessed and was conscious of the possession of inexhaustible treasures - of the heart, of a devouring genius equal to all the tasks that lay before - him. - </p> - <p> - He had been brought to Paris by a nobleman among his friends, or perchance - by the consciousness of his powers; and in Paris he had found a mistress, - one of those noble and generous souls who choose to suffer by a great - man’s side, who share his struggles and strive to understand his fancies, - accepting their lot of poverty and love as bravely and dauntlessly as - other women will set themselves to bear the burden of riches and make a - parade of their insensibility. The smile that stole over Gillette’s lips - filled the garret with golden light, and rivaled the brightness of the sun - in heaven. The sun, moreover, does not always shine in heaven, whereas - Gillette was always in the garret, absorbed in her passion, occupied by - Poussin’s happiness and sorrow, consoling the genius which found an outlet - in love before art engrossed it. - </p> - <p> - “Listen, Gillette. Come here.” - </p> - <p> - The girl obeyed joyously, and sprang upon the painter’s knee. Hers was - perfect grace and beauty, and the loveliness of spring; she was adorned - with all luxuriant fairness of outward form, lighted up by the glow of a - fair soul within. - </p> - <p> - “Oh! God,” he cried; “I shall never dare to tell her—” - </p> - <p> - “A secret?” she cried; “I must know it!” - </p> - <p> - Poussin was absorbed in his dreams. - </p> - <p> - “Do tell it me!” - </p> - <p> - “Gillette... poor beloved heart!...” - </p> - <p> - “Oh! do you want something of me?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - “If you wish me to sit once more for you as I did the other day,” she - continued with playful petulance, “I will never consent to do such a thing - again, for your eyes say nothing all the while. You do not think of me at - all, and yet you look at me—” - </p> - <p> - “Would you rather have me draw another woman?” - </p> - <p> - “Perhaps—if she were very ugly,” she said. - </p> - <p> - “Well,” said Poussin gravely, “and if, for the sake of my fame to come, if - to make me a great painter, you must sit to some one else?” - </p> - <p> - “You may try me,” she said; “you know quite well that I would not.” - </p> - <p> - Poussin’s head sank on her breast; he seemed to be overpowered by some - intolerable joy or sorrow. - </p> - <p> - “Listen,” she cried, plucking at the sleeve of Poussin’s threadbare - doublet, “I told you, Nick, that I would lay down my life for you; but I - never promised you that I in my lifetime would lay down my love.” - </p> - <p> - “Your love?” cried the young artist. - </p> - <p> - “If I showed myself thus to another, you would love me no longer, and I - should feel myself unworthy of you. Obedience to your fancies was a - natural and simple thing, was it not? Even against my own will, I am glad - and even proud to do thy dear will. But for another, out upon it!” - </p> - <p> - “Forgive me, my Gillette,” said the painter, falling upon his knees; “I - would rather be beloved than famous. You are fairer than success and - honors. There, fling the pencils away, and burn these sketches! I have - made a mistake. I was meant to love and not to paint. Perish art and all - its secrets!” - </p> - <p> - Gillette looked admiringly at him, in an ecstasy of happiness! She was - triumphant; she felt instinctively that art was laid aside for her sake, - and flung like a grain of incense at her feet. - </p> - <p> - “Yet he is only an old man,” Poussin continued; “for him you would be a - woman, and nothing more. You—so perfect!” - </p> - <p> - “I must love you indeed!” she cried, ready to sacrifice even love’s - scruples to the lover who had given up so much for her sake; “but I should - bring about my own ruin. Ah! to ruin myself, to lose everything for - you!... It is a very glorious thought! Ah! but you will forget me. Oh I - what evil thought is this that has come to you?” - </p> - <p> - “I love you, and yet I thought of it,” he said, with something like - remorse, “Am I so base a wretch?” - </p> - <p> - “Let us consult Père Hardouin,” she said. - </p> - <p> - “No, no! Let it be a secret between us.” - </p> - <p> - “Very well; I will do it. But you must not be there,” she said. “Stay at - the door with your dagger in your hand; and if I call, rush in and kill - the painter.” - </p> - <p> - Poussin forgot everything but art. He held Gillette tightly in his arms. - </p> - <p> - “He loves me no longer!” thought Gillette when she was alone. She repented - of her resolution already. - </p> - <p> - But to these misgivings there soon succeeded a sharper pain, and she - strove to banish a hideous thought that arose in her own heart. It seemed - to her that her own love had grown less already, with a vague suspicion - that the painter had fallen somewhat in her eyes. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - II—CATHERINE LESCAULT - </h2> - <p> - Three months after Poussin and Porbus met, the latter went to see Master - Frenhofer. The old man had fallen a victim to one of those profound and - spontaneous fits of discouragement that are caused, according to medical - logicians, by indigestion, flatulence, fever, or enlargement of the - spleen; or, if you take the opinion of the Spiritualists, by the - imperfections of our mortal nature. The good man had simply overworked - himself in putting the finishing touches to his mysterious picture. He was - lounging in a huge carved oak chair, covered with black leather, and did - not change his listless attitude, but glanced at Porbus like a man who has - settled down into low spirits. - </p> - <p> - “Well, master,” said Porbus, “was the ultramarine bad that you sent for to - Bruges? Is the new white difficult to grind? Is the oil poor, or are the - brushes recalcitrant?” - </p> - <p> - “Alas!” cried the old man, “for a moment I thought that my work was - finished, but I am sure that I am mistaken in certain details, and I can - not rest until I have cleared my doubts. I am thinking of traveling. I am - going to Turkey, to Greece, to Asia, in quest of a model, so as to compare - my picture with the different living forms of Nature. Perhaps,” and a - smile of contentment stole over his face, “perhaps I have Nature herself - up there. At times I am half afraid that a breath may waken her, and that - she will escape me.” - </p> - <p> - He rose to his feet as if to set out at once. - </p> - <p> - “Aha!” said Porbus, “I have come just in time to save you the trouble and - expense of a journey.” - </p> - <p> - “What?” asked Frenhofer in amazement. - </p> - <p> - “Young Poussin is loved by a woman of incomparable and flawless beauty. - But, dear master, if he consents to lend her to you, at the least you - ought to let us see your work.” - </p> - <p> - The old man stood motionless and completely dazed. - </p> - <p> - “What!” he cried piteously at last, “show you my creation, my bride? Rend - the veil that has kept my happiness sacred? It would be an infamous - profanation. For ten years I have lived with her; she is mine, mine alone; - she loves me. Has she not smiled at me, at each stroke of the brush upon - the canvas? She has a soul—the soul that I have given her. She would - blush if any eyes but mine should rest on her. To exhibit her! Where is - the husband, the lover so vile as to bring the woman he loves to dishonor? - When you paint a picture for the court, you do not put your whole soul - into it; to courtiers you sell lay figures duly colored. My painting is no - painting, it is a sentiment, a passion. She was born in my studio, there - she must dwell in maiden solitude, and only when clad can she issue - thence. Poetry and women only lay the last veil aside for their lovers - Have we Rafael’s model, Ariosto’s Angelica, Dante’s Beatrice? Nay, only - their form and semblance. But this picture, locked away above in my - studio, is an exception in our art. It is not a canvas, it is a woman—a - woman with whom I talk. I share her thoughts, her tears, her laughter. - Would you have me fling aside these ten years of happiness like a cloak? - Would you have me cease at once to be father, lover, and creator? She is - not a creature, but a creation. - </p> - <p> - “Bring your young painter here. I will give him my treasures; I will give - him pictures by Correggio and Michelangelo and Titian; I will kiss his - footprints in the dust; but make him my rival! Shame on me. Ah! ah! I am a - lover first, and then a painter. Yes, with my latest sigh I could find - strength to burn my ‘Belle Noiseuse’; but—compel her to endure the - gaze of a stranger, a young man and a painter!—Ah! no, no! I would - kill him on the morrow who should sully her with a glance! Nay, you, my - friend, I would kill you with my own hands in a moment if you did not - kneel in reverence before her! Now, will you have me submit my idol to the - careless eyes and senseless criticisms of fools? Ah! love is a mystery; it - can only live hidden in the depths of the heart. You say, even to your - friend, ‘Behold her whom I love,’ and there is an end of love.” - </p> - <p> - The old man seemed to have grown young again; there was light and life in - his eyes, and a faint flush of red in his pale face. His hands shook. - Porbus was so amazed by the passionate vehemence of Frenhofer’s words that - he knew not what to reply to this utterance of an emotion as strange as it - was profound. Was Frenhofer sane or mad? Had he fallen a victim to some - freak of the artist’s fancy? or were these ideas of his produced by the - strange lightheadedness which comes over us during the long travail of a - work of art. Would it be possible to come to terms with this singular - passion? - </p> - <p> - Harassed by all these doubts, Porbus spoke—“Is it not woman for - woman?” he said. “Does not Poussin submit his mistress to your gaze?” - </p> - <p> - “What is she?” retorted the other. “A mistress who will be false to him - sooner or later. Mine will be faithful to me forever.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, well,” said Porbus, “let us say no more about it. But you may die - before you will find such a flawless beauty as hers, even in Asia, and - then your picture will be left unfinished. - </p> - <p> - “Oh! it is finished,” said Frenhof er. “Standing before it you would think - that it was a living woman lying on the velvet couch beneath the shadow of - the curtains. Perfumes are burning on a golden tripod by her side. You - would be tempted to lay your hand upon the tassel of the cord that holds - back the curtains; it would seem to you that you saw her breast rise and - fall as she breathed; that you beheld the living Catherine Lescault, the - beautiful courtezan whom men called ‘La Belle Noiseuse.’ And yet—if - I could but be sure—” - </p> - <p> - “Then go to Asia,” returned Porbus, noticing a certain indecision in - Frenhofer’s face. And with that Porbus made a few steps toward the door. - By that time Gillette and Nicolas Poussin had reached Frenhofer’s house. - The girl drew away her arm from her lover’s as she stood on the threshold, - and shrank back as if some presentiment flashed through her mind. - </p> - <p> - “Oh! what have I come to do here?” she asked of her lover in low vibrating - tones, with her eyes fixed on his. - </p> - <p> - “Gillette, I have left you to decide; I am ready to obey you in - everything. You are my conscience and my glory. Go home again; I shall be - happier, perhaps, if you do not—” - </p> - <p> - “Am I my own when you speak to me like that? No, no; I am a child.—Come,” - she added, seemingly with a violent effort; “if our love dies, if I plant - a long regret in my heart, your fame will be the reward of my obedience to - your wishes, will it not? Let us go in. I shall still live on as a memory - on your palette; that shall be life for me afterward.” - </p> - <p> - The door opened, and the two lovers encountered Porbus, who was surprised - by the beauty of Gillette, whose eyes were full of tears. He hurried her, - trembling from head to foot, into the presence of the old painter. - </p> - <p> - “Here!” he cried, “is she not worth all the masterpieces in the world!” - </p> - <p> - Frenhofer trembled. There stood Gillette in the artless and childlike - attitude of some timid and innocent Georgian, carried off by brigands, and - confronted with a slave merchant. A shamefaced red flushed her face, her - eyes drooped, her hands hung by her side, her strength seemed to have - failed her, her tears protested against this outrage. Poussin cursed - himself in despair that he should have brought his fair treasure from its - hiding-place. The lover overcame the artist, and countless doubts assailed - Poussin’s heart when he saw youth dawn in the old man’s eyes, as, like a - painter, he discerned every line of the form hidden beneath the young - girl’s vesture. Then the lover’s savage jealousy awoke. - </p> - <p> - “Gillette!” he cried, “let us go.” - </p> - <p> - The girl turned joyously at the cry and the tone in which it was uttered, - raised her eyes to his, looked at him, and fled to his arms. - </p> - <p> - “Ah! then you love me,” she cried; “you love me!” and she burst into - tears. - </p> - <p> - She had spirit enough to suffer in silence, but she had no strength to - hide her joy. - </p> - <p> - “Oh! leave her with me for one moment,” said the old painter, “and you - shall compare her with my Catherine... yes—I consent.” - </p> - <p> - Frenhofer’s words likewise came from him like a lover’s cry. His vanity - seemed to be engaged for his semblance of womanhood; he anticipated the - triumph of the beauty of his own creation over the beauty of the living - girl. - </p> - <p> - “Do not give him time to change his mind!” cried Porbus, striking Poussin - on the shoulder. “The flower of love soon fades, but the flower of art is - immortal.” - </p> - <p> - “Then am I only a woman now for him?” said Gillette. She was watching - Poussin and Porbus closely. - </p> - <p> - She raised her head proudly; she glanced at Frenhofer, and her eyes - flashed; then as she saw how her lover had fallen again to gazing at the - portrait which he had taken at first for a Giorgione— - </p> - <p> - “Ah!” she cried; “let us go up to the studio. He never gave me such a - look.” - </p> - <p> - The sound of her voice recalled Poussin from his dreams. - </p> - <p> - “Old man,” he said, “do you see this blade? I will plunge it into your - heart at the first cry from this young girl; I will set fire to your - house, and no one shall leave it alive. Do you understand?” - </p> - <p> - Nicolas Poussin scowled; every word was a menace. Gillette took comfort - from the young painter’s bearing, and yet more from that gesture, and - almost forgave him for sacrificing her to his art and his glorious future. - </p> - <p> - Porbus and Poussin stood at the door of the studio and looked at each - other in silence. At first the painter of the Saint Mary of Egypt hazarded - some exclamations: “Ah! she has taken off her clothes; he told her to come - into the light—he is comparing the two!” but the sight of the deep - distress in Poussin’s face suddenly silenced him; and though old painters - no longer feel these scruples, so petty in the presence of art, he admired - them because they were so natural and gracious in the lover. The young man - kept his hand on the hilt of his dagger, and his ear was almost glued to - the door. The two men standing in the shadow might have been conspirators - waiting for the hour when they might strike down a tyrant. - </p> - <p> - “Come in, come in,” cried the old man. He was radiant with delight. “My - work is perfect. I can show her now with pride. Never shall painter, - brushes, colors, light, and canvas produce a rival for ‘Catherine - Lescault,’ the beautiful courtezan!” - </p> - <p> - Porbus and Poussin, burning with eager curiosity, hurried into a vast - studio. Everything was in disorder and covered with dust, but they saw a - few pictures here and there upon the wall. They stopped first of all in - admiration before the life-size figure of a woman partially draped. - </p> - <p> - “Oh! never mind that,” said Frenhofer; “that is a rough daub that I made, - a study, a pose, it is nothing. These are my failures,” he went on, - indicating the enchanting compositions upon the walls of the studio. - </p> - <p> - This scorn for such works of art struck Porbus and Poussin dumb with - amazement. They looked round for the picture of which he had spoken, and - could not discover it. - </p> - <p> - “Look here!” said the old man. His hair was disordered, his face aglow - with a more than human exaltation, his eyes glittered, he breathed hard - like a young lover frenzied by love. - </p> - <p> - “Aha!” he cried, “you did not expect to see such perfection! You are - looking for a picture, and you see a woman before you. There is such depth - in that canvas, the atmosphere is so true that you can not distinguish it - from the air that surrounds us. Where is art? Art has vanished, it is - invisible! It is the form of a living girl that you see before you. Have I - not caught the very hues of life, the spirit of the living line that - defines the figure? Is there not the effect produced there like that which - all natural objects present in the atmosphere about them, or fishes in the - water? Do you see how the figure stands out against the background? Does - it not seem to you that you pass your hand along the back? But then for - seven years I studied and watched how the daylight blends with the objects - on which it falls. And the hair, the light pours over it like a flood, - does it not?... Ah! she breathed, I am sure that she breathed! Her breast—ah, - see! Who would not fall on his knees before her? Her pulses throb. She - will rise to her feet. Wait!” - </p> - <p> - “Do you see anything?” Poussin asked of Porbus. - </p> - <p> - “No... do you?” - </p> - <p> - “I see nothing.” - </p> - <p> - The two painters left the old man to his ecstasy, and tried to ascertain - whether the light that fell full upon the canvas had in some way - neutralized all the effect for them. They moved to the right and left of - the picture; they came in front, bending down and standing upright by - turns. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, yes, it is really canvas,” said Frenhofer, who mistook the nature of - this minute investigation. - </p> - <p> - “Look! the canvas is on a stretcher, here is the easel; indeed, here are - my colors, my brushes,” and he took up a brush and held it out to them, - all unsuspicious of their thought. - </p> - <p> - “The old <i>lansquenet</i> is laughing at us,” said Poussin, coming once - more toward the supposed picture. “I can see nothing there but confused - masses of color and a multitude of fantastical lines that go to make a - dead wall of paint.” - </p> - <p> - “We are mistaken, look!” said Porbus. - </p> - <p> - In a corner of the canvas, as they came nearer, they distinguished a bare - foot emerging from the chaos of color, half-tints and vague shadows that - made up a dim, formless fog. Its living delicate beauty held them - spellbound. This fragment that had escaped an incomprehensible, slow, and - gradual destruction seemed to them like the Parian marble torso of some - Venus emerging from the ashes of a ruined town. - </p> - <p> - “There is a woman beneath,” exclaimed Porbus, calling Poussin’s attention - to the coats of paint with which the old artist had overlaid and concealed - his work in the quest of perfection. - </p> - <p> - Both artists turned involuntarily to Frenhofer. They began to have some - understanding, vague though it was, of the ecstasy in which he lived. - </p> - <p> - “He believes it in all good faith,” said Porbus. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, my friend,” said the old man, rousing himself from his dreams, “it - needs faith, faith in art, and you must live for long with your work to - produce such a creation. What toil some of those shadows have cost me. - Look! there is a faint shadow there upon the cheek beneath the eyes—if - you saw that on a human face, it would seem to you that you could never - render it with paint. Do you think that that effect has not cost unheard - of toil? - </p> - <p> - “But not only so, dear Porbus. Look closely at my work, and you will - understand more clearly what I was saying as to methods of modeling and - outline. Look at the high lights on the bosom, and see how by touch on - touch, thickly laid on, I have raised the surface so that it catches the - light itself and blends it with the lustrous whiteness of the high lights, - and how by an opposite process, by flattening the surface of the paint, - and leaving no trace of the passage of the brush, I have succeeded in - softening the contours of my figures and enveloping them in half-tints - until the very idea of drawing, of the means by which the effect is - produced, fades away, and the picture has the roundness and relief of - nature. Come closer. You will see the manner of working better; at a - little distance it can not be seen. There I Just there, it is, I think, - very plainly to be seen,” and with the tip of his brush he pointed out a - patch of transparent color to the two painters. - </p> - <p> - Porbus, laying a hand on the old artist’s shoulder, turned to Poussin with - a “Do you know that in him we see a very great painter?” - </p> - <p> - “He is even more of a poet than a painter,” Poussin answered gravely. - </p> - <p> - “There,” Porbus continued, as he touched the canvas, “Use the utmost limit - of our art on earth.” - </p> - <p> - “Beyond that point it loses itself in the skies,” said Poussin. - </p> - <p> - “What joys lie there on this piece of canvas!” exclaimed Porbus. - </p> - <p> - The old man, deep in his own musings, smiled at the woman he alone beheld, - and did not hear. - </p> - <p> - “But sooner or later he will find out that there is nothing there!” cried - Poussin. - </p> - <p> - “Nothing on my canvas!” said Frenhofer, looking in turn at either painter - and at his picture. - </p> - <p> - “What have you done?” muttered Porbus, turning to Poussin. - </p> - <p> - The old man clutched the young painter’s arm and said, “Do you see - nothing? clodpatel Huguenot! varlet! cullion! What brought you here into - my studio?—My good Porbus,” he went on, as he turned to the painter, - “are you also making a fool of me? Answer! I am your friend. Tell me, have - I ruined my picture after all?” - </p> - <p> - Porbus hesitated and said nothing, but there was such intolerable anxiety - in the old man’s white face that he pointed to the easel. - </p> - <p> - “Look!” he said. - </p> - <p> - Frenhofer looked for a moment at his picture, and staggered back. - </p> - <p> - “Nothing! nothing! After ten years of work...” He sat down and wept. - </p> - <p> - “So I am a dotard, a madman, I have neither talent nor power! I am only a - rich man, who works for his own pleasure, and makes no progress, I have - done nothing after all!” - </p> - <p> - He looked through his tears at his picture. Suddenly he rose and stood - proudly before the two painters. - </p> - <p> - “By the body and blood of Christ,” he cried with flashing eyes, “you are - jealous! You would have me think that my picture is a failure because you - want to steal her from me! Ah! I see her, I see her,” he cried “she is - marvelously beautiful...” - </p> - <p> - At that moment Poussin heard the sound of weeping; Gillette was crouching - forgotten in a corner. All at once the painter once more became the lover. - “What is it, my angel?” he asked her. - </p> - <p> - “Kill me!” she sobbed. “I must be a vile thing if I love you still, for I - despise you.... I admire you, and I hate you! I love you, and I feel that - I hate you even now!” - </p> - <p> - While Gillette’s words sounded in Poussin’s ears, Frenhof er drew a green - serge covering over his “Catherine” with the sober deliberation of a - jeweler who locks his drawers when he suspects his visitors to be expert - thieves. He gave the two painters a profoundly astute glance that - expressed to the full his suspicions, and his contempt for them, saw them - out of his studio with impetuous haste and in silence, until from the - threshold of his house he bade them “Good-by, my young friends!” - </p> - <p> - That farewell struck a chill of dread into the two painters. Porbus, in - anxiety, went again on the morrow to see Frenhofer, and learned that he - had died in the night after burning his canvases. - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p> - Paris, February, 1832. - </p> - <div style="height: 6em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg’s The Unknown Masterpiece, by Honoré De Balzac - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNKNOWN MASTERPIECE *** - -***** This file should be named 23060-h.htm or 23060-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/0/6/23060/ - -Produced by David Widger - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily -keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. - - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: - - http://www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - - -</pre> - </body> -</html> diff --git a/old/old-2025-02-19/23060.txt b/old/old-2025-02-19/23060.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1f3c89b..0000000 --- a/old/old-2025-02-19/23060.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1504 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Unknown Masterpiece, by Honore De Balzac - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 - -Author: Honore De Balzac - -Release Date: October 17, 2007 [EBook #23060] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNKNOWN MASTERPIECE *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger - - - - - -THE UNKNOWN MASTERPIECE - -By Honore De Balzac - -TO A LORD - -1845 - - - - -I--GILLETTE - -On a cold December morning in the year 1612, a young man, whose clothing -was somewhat of the thinnest, was walking to and fro before a gateway -in the Rue des Grands-Augustins in Paris. He went up and down the street -before this house with the irresolution of a gallant who dares not -venture into the presence of the mistress whom he loves for the first -time, easy of access though she may be; but after a sufficiently long -interval of hesitation, he at last crossed the threshold and inquired -of an old woman, who was sweeping out a large room on the ground floor, -whether Master Porbus was within. Receiving a reply in the affirmative, -the young man went slowly up the staircase, like a gentleman but newly -come to court, and doubtful as to his reception by the king. He came to -a stand once more on the landing at the head of the stairs, and again he -hesitated before raising his hand to the grotesque knocker on the door -of the studio, where doubtless the painter was at work--Master Porbus, -sometime painter in ordinary to Henri IV till Mary de' Medici took -Rubens into favor. - -The young man felt deeply stirred by an emotion that must thrill the -hearts of all great artists when, in the pride of their youth and their -first love of art, they come into the presence of a master or stand -before a masterpiece. For all human sentiments there is a time of early -blossoming, a day of generous enthusiasm that gradually fades until -nothing is left of happiness but a memory, and glory is known for -a delusion. Of all these delicate and short-lived emotions, none so -resemble love as the passion of a young artist for his art, as he is -about to enter on the blissful martyrdom of his career of glory and -disaster, of vague expectations and real disappointments. - -Those who have missed this experience in the early days of light purses; -who have not, in the dawn of their genius, stood in the presence of -a master and felt the throbbing of their hearts, will always carry in -their inmost souls a chord that has never been touched, and in their -work an indefinable quality will be lacking, a something in the stroke -of the brush, a mysterious element that we call poetry. The swaggerers, -so puffed up by self-conceit that they are confident over-soon of their -success, can never be taken for men of talent save by fools. From this -point of view, if youthful modesty is the measure of youthful genius, -the stranger on the staircase might be allowed to have something in -him; for he seemed to possess the indescribable diffidence, the early -timidity that artists are bound to lose in the course of a great career, -even as pretty women lose it as they make progress in the arts of -coquetry. Self-distrust vanishes as triumph succeeds to triumph, and -modesty is, perhaps, distrust of itself. - -The poor neophyte was so overcome by the consciousness of his own -presumption and insignificance, that it began to look as if he was -hardly likely to penetrate into the studio of the painter, to whom we -owe the wonderful portrait of Henri IV. But fate was propitious; an old -man came up the staircase. From the quaint costume of this newcomer, his -collar of magnificent lace, and a certain serene gravity in his bearing, -the first arrival thought that this personage must be either a patron or -a friend of the court painter. He stood aside therefore upon the landing -to allow the visitor to pass, scrutinizing him curiously the while. -Perhaps he might hope to find the good nature of an artist or to receive -the good offices of an amateur not unfriendly to the arts; but besides -an almost diabolical expression in the face that met his gaze, there was -that indescribable something which has an irresistible attraction for -artists. - -Picture that face. A bald high forehead and rugged jutting brows above -a small flat nose turned up at the end, as in the portraits of Socrates -and Rabelais; deep lines about the mocking mouth; a short chin, carried -proudly, covered with a grizzled pointed beard; sea-green eyes that age -might seem to have dimmed were it not for the contrast between the iris -and the surrounding mother-of-pearl tints, so that it seemed as if under -the stress of anger or enthusiasm there would be a magnetic power to -quell or kindle in their glances. The face was withered beyond wont by -the fatigue of years, yet it seemed aged still more by the thoughts that -had worn away both soul and body. There were no lashes to the deep-set -eyes, and scarcely a trace of the arching lines of the eyebrows above -them. Set this head on a spare and feeble frame, place it in a frame of -lace wrought like an engraved silver fish-slice, imagine a heavy gold -chain over the old man's black doublet, and you will have some dim idea -of this strange personage, who seemed still more fantastic in the sombre -twilight of the staircase. One of Rembrandt's portraits might have -stepped down from its frame to walk in an appropriate atmosphere of -gloom, such as the great painter loved. The older man gave the younger a -shrewd glance, and knocked thrice at the door. It was opened by a man of -forty or thereabout, who seemed to be an invalid. - -"Good day, Master." - -Porbus bowed respectfully, and held the door open for the younger man to -enter, thinking that the latter accompanied his visitor; and when he -saw that the neophyte stood a while as if spellbound, feeling, as every -artist-nature must feel, the fascinating influence of the first sight -of a studio in which the material processes of art are revealed, Porbus -troubled himself no more about this second comer. - -All the light in the studio came from a window in the roof, and was -concentrated upon an easel, where a canvas stood untouched as yet save -for three or four outlines in chalk. The daylight scarcely reached the -remoter angles and corners of the vast room; they were as dark as night, -but the silver ornamented breastplate of a Reiter's corselet, that hung -upon the wall, attracted a stray gleam to its dim abiding-place among -the brown shadows; or a shaft of light shot across the carved and -glistening surface of an antique sideboard covered with curious -silver-plate, or struck out a line of glittering dots among the raised -threads of the golden warp of some old brocaded curtains, where the -lines of the stiff, heavy folds were broken, as the stuff had been flung -carelessly down to serve as a model. - -Plaster _ecorches_ stood about the room; and here and there, on shelves -and tables, lay fragments of classical sculpture-torsos of antique -goddesses, worn smooth as though all the years of the centuries that had -passed over them had been lovers' kisses. The walls were covered, from -floor to ceiling, with countless sketches in charcoal, red chalk, or -pen and ink. Amid the litter and confusion of color boxes, overturned -stools, flasks of oil, and essences, there was just room to move so as -to reach the illuminated circular space where the easel stood. The light -from the window in the roof fell full upon Por-bus's pale face and on -the ivory-tinted forehead of his strange visitor. But in another moment -the younger man heeded nothing but a picture that had already become -famous even in those stormy days of political and religious revolution, -a picture that a few of the zealous worshipers, who have so often kept -the sacred fire of art alive in evil days, were wont to go on pilgrimage -to see. The beautiful panel represented a Saint Mary of Egypt about to -pay her passage across the seas. It was a masterpiece destined for Mary -de' Medici, who sold it in later years of poverty. - -"I like your saint," the old man remarked, addressing Porbus. "I would -give you ten golden crowns for her over and above the price the Queen is -paying; but as for putting a spoke in that wheel,--the devil take it!" - -"It is good then?" - -"Hey! hey!" said the old man; "good, say you?--Yes and no. Your good -woman is not badly done, but she is not alive. You artists fancy that -when a figure is correctly drawn, and everything in its place according -to the rules of anatomy, there is nothing more to be done. You make up -the flesh tints beforehand on your palettes according to your formulae, -and fill in the outlines with due care that one side of the face shall -be darker than the other; and because you look from time to time at a -naked woman who stands on the platform before you, you fondly imagine -that you have copied nature, think yourselves to be painters, believe -that you have wrested His secret from God. Pshaw! You may know your -syntax thoroughly and make no blunders in your grammar, but it takes -that and something more to make a great poet. Look at your saint, -Porbus! At a first glance she is admirable; look at her again, and you -see at once that she is glued to the background, and that you could not -walk round her. She is a silhouette that turns but one side of her face -to all beholders, a figure cut out of canvas, an image with no power -to move nor change her position. I feel as if there were no air between -that arm and the background, no space, no sense of distance in your -canvas. The perspective is perfectly correct, the strength of the -coloring is accurately diminished with the distance; but, in spite of -these praiseworthy efforts, I could never bring myself to believe that -the warm breath of life comes and goes in that beautiful body. It seems -to me that if I laid my hand on the firm, rounded throat, it would be -cold as marble to the touch. No, my friend, the blood does not flow -beneath that ivory skin, the tide of life does not flush those delicate -fibres, the purple veins that trace a network beneath the transparent -amber of her brow and breast. Here the pulse seems to beat, there it is -motionless, life and death are at strife in every detail; here you see -a woman, there a statue, there again a corpse. Your creation is -incomplete. You had only power to breathe a portion of your soul into -your beloved work. The fire of Prometheus died out again and again in -your hands; many a spot in your picture has not been touched by the -divine flame." - -"But how is it, dear master?" Porbus asked respectfully, while the young -man with difficulty repressed his strong desire to beat the critic. - -"Ah!" said the old man, "it is this! You have halted between two -manners. You have hesitated between drawing and color, between the -dogged attention to detail, the stiff precision of the German masters -and the dazzling glow, the joyous exuberance of Italian painters. You -have set yourself to imitate Hans Holbein and Titian, Albrecht Durer -and Paul Veronese in a single picture. A magnificent ambition truly, -but what has come of it? Your work has neither the severe charm of a dry -execution nor the magical illusion of Italian _chiaroscuro_. Titian's -rich golden coloring poured into Albrecht Dureras austere outlines has -shattered them, like molten bronze bursting through the mold that is not -strong enough to hold it. In other places the outlines have held firm, -imprisoning and obscuring the magnificent, glowing flood of Venetian -color. The drawing of the face is not perfect, the coloring is not -perfect; traces of that unlucky indecision are to be seen everywhere. -Unless you felt strong enough to fuse the two opposed manners in the -fire of your own genius, you should have cast in your lot boldly with -the one or the other, and so have obtained the unity which simulates one -of the conditions of life itself. Your work is only true in the centres; -your outlines are false, they project nothing, there is no hint of -anything behind them. There is truth here," said the old man, pointing -to the breast of the Saint, "and again here," he went on, indicating the -rounded shoulder. "But there," once more returning to the column of -the throat, "everything is false. Let us go no further into detail, you -would be disheartened." - -The old man sat down on a stool, and remained a while without speaking, -with his face buried in his hands. - -"Yet I studied that throat from the life, dear master," Porbus began; -"it happens sometimes, for our misfortune, that real effects in nature -look improbable when transferred to canvas--" - -"The aim of art is not to copy nature, but to express it. You are not a -servile copyist, but a poet!" cried the old man sharply, cutting Porbus -short with an imperious gesture. "Otherwise a sculptor might make a -plaster cast of a living woman and save himself all further trouble. -Well, try to make a cast of your mistress's hand, and set up the -thing before you. You will see a monstrosity, a dead mass, bearing no -resemblance to the living hand; you would be compelled to have recourse -to the chisel of a sculptor who, without making an exact copy, would -represent for you its movement and its life. We must detect the spirit, -the informing soul in the appearances of things and beings. Effects! -What are effects but the accidents of life, not life itself? A hand, -since I have taken that example, is not only a part of a body, it is the -expression and extension of a thought that must be grasped and rendered. -Neither painter nor poet nor sculptor may separate the effect from the -cause, which are inevitably contained the one in the other. There -begins the real struggle! Many a painter achieves success instinctively, -unconscious of the task that is set before art. You draw a woman, yet -you do not see her! Not so do you succeed in wresting Nature's secrets -from her! You are reproducing mechanically the model that you copied in -your master's studio. You do not penetrate far enough into the inmost -secrets of the mystery of form; you do not seek with love enough and -perseverance enough after the form that baffles and eludes you. Beauty -is a thing severe and unapproachable, never to be won by a languid -lover. You must lie in wait for her coming and take her unawares, press -her hard and clasp her in a tight embrace, and force her to yield. Form -is a Proteus more intangible and more manifold than the Proteus of the -legend; compelled, only after long wrestling, to stand forth manifest in -his true aspect. Some of you are satisfied with the first shape, or -at most by the second or the third that appears. Not thus wrestle the -victors, the unvanquished painters who never suffer themselves to be -deluded by all those treacherous shadow-shapes; they persevere till -Nature at the last stands bare to their gaze, and her very soul is -revealed. - -"In this manner worked Rafael," said the old man, taking off his cap to -express his reverence for the King of Art. "His transcendent greatness -came of the intimate sense that, in him, seems as if it would shatter -external form. Form in his figures (as with us) is a symbol, a means of -communicating sensations, ideas, the vast imaginings of a poet. Every -face is a whole world. The subject of the portrait appeared for him -bathed in the light of a divine vision; it was revealed by an inner -voice, the finger of God laid bare the sources of expression in the past -of a whole life. - -"You clothe your women in fair raiment of flesh, in gracious veiling -of hair; but where is the blood, the source of passion and of calm, the -cause of the particular effect? Why, this brown Egyptian of yours, my -good Porbus, is a colorless creature! These figures that you set before -us are painted bloodless fantoms; and you call that painting, you call -that art! - -"Because you have made something more like a woman than a house, you -think that you have set your fingers on the goal; you are quite proud -that you need not to write _currus venustus_ or _pulcher homo_ beside -your figures, as early painters were wont to do and you fancy that you -have done wonders. Ah! my good friend, there is still something more to -learn, and you will use up a great deal of chalk and cover many a canvas -before you will learn it. Yes, truly, a woman carries her head in just -such a way, so she holds her garments gathered into her hand; her eyes -grow dreamy and soft with that expression of meek sweetness, and even -so the quivering shadow of the lashes hovers upon her cheeks. It is all -there, and yet it is not there. What is lacking? A nothing, but that -nothing is everything. - -"There you have the semblance of life, but you do not express its -fulness and effluence, that indescribable something, perhaps the soul -itself, that envelopes the outlines of the body like a haze; that -flower of life, in short, that Titian and Rafael caught. Your utmost -achievement hitherto has only brought you to the starting-point. You -might now perhaps begin to do excellent work, but you grow weary all too -soon; and the crowd admires, and those who know smile. - -"Oh, Mabuse! oh, my master!" cried the strange speaker, "thou art a -thief! Thou hast carried away the secret of life with thee!" - -"Nevertheless," he began again, "this picture of yours is worth more -than all the paintings of that rascal Rubens, with his mountains of -Flemish flesh raddled with vermilion, his torrents of red hair, his riot -of color. You, at least have color there, and feeling and drawing--the -three essentials in art." - -The young man roused himself from his deep musings. - -"Why, my good man, the Saint is sublime!" he cried. "There is a subtlety -of imagination about those two figures, the Saint Mary and the Shipman, -that can not be found among Italian masters; I do not know a single one -of them capable of imagining the Shipman's hesitation." - -"Did that little malapert come with you?" asked Porbus of the older man. - -"Alas! master, pardon my boldness," cried the neophyte, and the color -mounted to his face. "I am unknown--a dauber by instinct, and but lately -come to this city--the fountain-head of all learning." - -"Set to work," said Porbus, handing him a bit of red chalk and a sheet -of paper. - -The new-comer quickly sketched the Saint Mary line for line. - -"Aha!" exclaimed the old man. "Your name?" he added. - -The young man wrote "Nicolas Poussin" below the sketch. - -"Not bad that for a beginning," said the strange speaker, who had -discoursed so wildly. "I see that we can talk of art in your presence. -I do not blame you for admiring Porbus's saint. In the eyes of the world -she is a masterpiece, and those alone who have been initiated into the -inmost mysteries of art can discover her shortcomings. But it is worth -while to give you the lesson, for you are able to understand it, so I -will show you how little it needs to complete this picture. You must be -all eyes, all attention, for it may be that such a chance of learning -will never come in your way again--Porbus! your palette." - -Porbus went in search of palette and brushes. The little old man turned -back his sleeves with impatient energy, seized the palette, covered with -many hues, that Porbus handed to him, and snatched rather than took a -handful of brushes of various sizes from the hands of his acquaintance. -His pointed beard suddenly bristled--a menacing movement that expressed -the prick of a lover's fancy. As he loaded his brush, he muttered -between his teeth, "These paints are only fit to fling out of the -window, together with the fellow who ground them, their crudeness and -falseness are disgusting! How can one paint with this?" - -He dipped the tip of the brush with feverish eagerness in the different -pigments, making the circuit of the palette several times more quickly -than the organist of a cathedral sweeps the octaves on the keyboard of -his clavier for the "O Filii" at Easter. - -Porbus and Poussin, on either side of the easel, stood stock-still, -watching with intense interest. - -"Look, young man," he began again, "see how three or four strokes of -the brush and a thin glaze of blue let in the free air to play about the -head of the poor Saint, who must have felt stifled and oppressed by the -close atmosphere! See how the drapery begins to flutter; you feel that -it is lifted by the breeze! A moment ago it hung as heavily and stiffly -as if it were held out by pins. Do you see how the satin sheen that I -have just given to the breast rends the pliant, silken softness of a -young girl's skin, and how the brown-red, blended with burnt ochre, -brings warmth into the cold gray of the deep shadow where the blood lay -congealed instead of coursing through the veins? Young man, young man, -no master could teach you how to do this that I am doing before your -eyes. Mabuse alone possessed the secret of giving life to his figures; -Mabuse had but one pupil--that was I. I have had none, and I am old. You -have sufficient intelligence to imagine the rest from the glimpses that -I am giving you." - -While the old man was speaking, he gave a touch here and there; -sometimes two strokes of the brush, sometimes a single one; but every -stroke told so well, that the whole picture seemed transfigured--the -painting was flooded with light. He worked with such passionate fervor -that beads of sweat gathered upon his bare forehead; he worked so -quickly, in brief, impatient jerks, that it seemed to young Poussin as -if some familiar spirit inhabiting the body of this strange being took -a grotesque pleasure in making use of the man's hands against his own -will. The unearthly glitter of his eyes, the convulsive movements -that seemed like struggles, gave to this fancy a semblance of truth -which could not but stir a young imagination. The old man continued, -saying as he did so-- - -"Paf! paf! that is how to lay it on, young man!--Little touches! come -and bring a glow into those icy cold tones for me! Just so! Pon! pon! -pon!" and those parts of the picture that he had pointed out as cold and -lifeless flushed with warmer hues, a few bold strokes of color brought -all the tones of the picture into the required harmony with the glowing -tints of the Egyptian, and the differences in temperament vanished. - -"Look you, youngster, the last touches make the picture. Porbus has -given it a hundred strokes for every one of mine. No one thanks us for -what lies beneath. Bear that in mind." - -At last the restless spirit stopped, and turning to Porbus and Poussin, -who were speechless with admiration, he spoke-- - -"This is not as good as my 'Belle Noiseuse'; still one might put one's -name to such a thing as this.--Yes, I would put my name to it," -he added, rising to reach for a mirror, in which he looked at the -picture.--"And now," he said, "will you both come and breakfast with me? -I have a smoked ham and some very fair wine!... Eh! eh! the times may -be bad, but we can still have some talk about art! We can talk like -equals.... Here is a little fellow who has aptitude," he added, laying a -hand on Nicolas Poussin's shoulder. - -In this way the stranger became aware of the threadbare condition of the -Norman's doublet. He drew a leather purse from his girdle, felt in it, -found two gold coins, and held them out. - -"I will buy your sketch," he said. - -"Take it," said Porbus, as he saw the other start and flush with -embarrassment, for Poussin had the pride of poverty. "Pray, take it; he -has a couple of king's ransoms in his pouch!" - -The three came down together from the studio, and, talking of art by the -way, reached a picturesque wooden house hard by the Pont Saint-Michel. -Poussin wondered a moment at its ornament, at the knocker, at the frames -of the casements, at the scroll-work designs, and in the next he stood -in a vast low-ceiled room. A table, covered with tempting dishes, stood -near the blazing fire, and (luck unhoped for) he was in the company of -two great artists full of genial good humor. - -"Do not look too long at that canvas, young man," said Porbus, when he -saw that Poussin was standing, struck with wonder, before a painting. -"You would fall a victim to despair." - -It was the "Adam" painted by Mabuse to purchase his release from the -prison, where his creditors had so long kept him. And, as a matter of -fact, the figure stood out so boldly and convincingly, that Nicolas -Poussin began to understand the real meaning of the words poured out -by the old artist, who was himself looking at the picture with apparent -satisfaction, but without enthusiasm. "I have done better than that!" he -seemed to be saying to himself. - -"There is life in it," he said aloud; "in that respect my poor -master here surpassed himself, but there is some lack of truth in the -background. The man lives indeed; he is rising, and will come toward us; -but the atmosphere, the sky, the air, the breath of the breeze--you look -and feel for them, but they are not there. And then the man himself is, -after all, only a man! Ah! but the one man in the world who came direct -from the hands of God must have had a something divine about him that -is wanting here. Mabuse himself would grind his teeth and say so when he -was not drunk." - -Poussin looked from the speaker to Porbus, and from Porbus to the -speaker, with restless curiosity. He went up to the latter to ask for -the name of their host; but the painter laid a finger on his lips -with an air of mystery. The young man's interest was excited; he kept -silence, but hoped that sooner or later some word might be let fall that -would reveal the name of his entertainer. It was evident that he was a -man of talent and very wealthy, for Porbus listened to him respectfully, -and the vast room was crowded with marvels of art. - -A magnificent portrait of a woman, hung against the dark oak panels of -the wall, next caught Poussin's attention. - -"What a glorious Giorgione!" he cried. - -"No," said his host, "it is an early daub of mine--" - -"Gramercy! I am in the abode of the god of painting, it seems!" cried -Poussin ingenuously. - -The old man smiled as if he had long grown familiar with such praise. - -"Master Frenhofer!" said Porbus, "do you think you could spare me a -little of your capital Rhine wine?" - -"A couple of pipes!" answered his host; "one to discharge a debt, for -the pleasure of seeing your pretty sinner, the other as a present from a -friend." - -"Ah! if I had my health," returned Porbus, "and if you would but let -me see your 'Belle Noiseuse,' I would paint some great picture, with -breadth in it and depth; the figures should be life-size." - -"Let you see my work!" cried the painter in agitation. "No, no! it is -not perfect yet; something still remains for me to do. Yesterday, in the -dusk," he said, "I thought I had reached the end. Her eyes seemed moist, -the flesh quivered, something stirred the tresses of her hair. She -breathed! But though I have succeeded in reproducing Nature's roundness -and relief on the flat surface of the canvas, this morning, by daylight, -I found out my mistake. Ah! to achieve that glorious result I have -studied the works of the great masters of color, stripping off coat -after coat of color from Titian's canvas, analyzing the pigments of the -king of light. Like that sovereign painter, I began the face in a slight -tone with a supple and fat paste--for shadow is but an accident; bear -that in mind, youngster!--Then I began afresh, and by half-tones and -thin glazes of color less and less transparent, I gradually deepened the -tints to the deepest black of the strongest shadows. An ordinary painter -makes his shadows something entirely different in nature from the high -lights; they are wood or brass, or what you will, anything but flesh -in shadow. You feel that even if those figures were to alter their -position, those shadow stains would never be cleansed away, those parts -of the picture would never glow with light. - -"I have escaped one mistake, into which the most famous painters have -sometimes fallen; in my canvas the whiteness shines through the densest -and most persistent shadow. I have not marked out the limits of my -figure in hard, dry outlines, and brought every least anatomical detail -into prominence (like a host of dunces, who fancy that they can draw -because they can trace a line elaborately smooth and clean), for the -human body is not contained within the limits of line. In this the -sculptor can approach the truth more nearly than we painters. Nature's -way is a complicated succession of curve within curve. Strictly -speaking, there is no such thing as drawing.--Do not laugh, young man; -strange as that speech may seem to you, you will understand the truth in -it some day.--A line is a method of expressing the effect of light upon -an object; but there are no lines in Nature, everything is solid. We -draw by modeling, that is to say, that we disengage an object from -its setting; the distribution of the light alone gives to a body the -appearance by which we know it. So I have not defined the outlines; I -have suffused them with a haze of half-tints warm or golden, in such a -sort that you can not lay your finger on the exact spot where background -and contours meet. Seen from near, the picture looks a blur; it seems -to lack definition; but step back two paces, and the whole thing becomes -clear, distinct, and solid; the body stands out; the rounded form comes -into relief; you feel that the air plays round it. And yet--I am not -satisfied; I have misgivings. Perhaps one ought not to draw a single -line; perhaps it would be better to attack the face from the centre, -taking the highest prominences first, proceeding from them through the -whole range of shadows to the heaviest of all. Is not this the method -of the sun, the divine painter of the world? Oh, Nature, Nature! who -has surprised thee, fugitive? But, after all, too much knowledge, like -ignorance, brings you to a negation. I have doubts about my work." - -There was a pause. Then the old man spoke again. "I have been at work -upon it for ten years, young man; but what are ten short years in a -struggle with Nature? Do we know how long Sir Pygmalion wrought at the -one statue that came to life?" The old man fell into deep musings, and -gazed before him with unseeing eyes, while he played unheedingly with -his knife. - -"Look, he is in conversation with his _domon!_" murmured Porbus. - -At the word, Nicolas Poussin felt himself carried away by an -unaccountable accession of artist's curiosity. For him the old man, at -once intent and inert, the seer with the unseeing eyes, became something -more than a man--a fantastic spirit living in a mysterious world, and -countless vague thoughts awoke within his soul. The effect of this -species of fascination upon his mind can no more be described in words -than the passionate longing awakened in an exile's heart by the song -that recalls his home. He thought of the scorn that the old man affected -to display for the noblest efforts of art, of his wealth, his manners, -of the deference paid to him by Porbus. The mysterious picture, the work -of patience on which he had wrought so long in secret, was doubtless -a work of genius, for the head of the Virgin which young Poussin had -admired so frankly was beautiful even beside Mabuse's "Adam"--there -was no mistaking the imperial manner of one of the princes of art. -Everything combined to set the old man beyond the limits of human -nature. - -Out of the wealth of fancies in Nicolas Poussin's brain an idea grew, -and gathered shape and clearness. He saw in this supernatural being a -complete type of the artist nature, a nature mocking and kindly, barren -and prolific, an erratic spirit intrusted with great and manifold powers -which she too often abuses, leading sober reason, the Philistine, and -sometimes even the amateur forth into a stony wilderness where they see -nothing; but the white-winged maiden herself, wild as her fancies may -be, finds epics there and castles and works of art. For Poussin, the -enthusiast, the old man, was suddenly transfigured, and became Art -incarnate, Art with its mysteries, its vehement passion and its dreams. - -"Yes, my dear Porbus," Frenhofer continued, "hitherto I have never -found a flawless model, a body with outlines of perfect beauty, the -carnations--Ah! where does she live?" he cried, breaking in upon -himself, "the undiscoverable Venus of the older time, for whom we have -sought so often, only to find the scattered gleams of her beauty here -and there? Oh! to behold once and for one moment, Nature grown perfect -and divine, the Ideal at last, I would give all that I possess.... Nay, -Beauty divine, I would go to seek thee in the dim land of the dead; like -Orpheus, I would go down into the Hades of Art to bring back the life of -art from among the shadows of death." - -"We can go now," said Porbus to Poussin. "He neither hears nor sees us -any longer." - -"Let us go to his studio," said young Poussin, wondering greatly. - -"Oh! the old fox takes care that no one shall enter it. His treasures -are so carefully guarded that it is impossible for us to come at them. -I have not waited for your suggestion and your fancy to attempt to lay -hands on this mystery by force." - -"So there is a mystery?" "Yes," answered Porbus. "Old Frenhofer is the -only pupil Mabuse would take. Frenhofer became the painter's friend, -deliverer, and father; he sacrificed the greater part of his fortune to -enable Mabuse to indulge in riotous extravagance, and in return Mabuse -bequeathed to him the secret of relief, the power of giving to his -figures the wonderful life, the flower of Nature, the eternal despair of -art, the secret which Ma-buse knew so well that one day when he had sold -the flowered brocade suit in which he should have appeared at the Entry -of Charles V, he accompanied his master in a suit of paper painted to -resemble the brocade. The peculiar richness and splendor of the stuff -struck the Emperor; he complimented the old drunkard's patron on the -artist's appearance, and so the trick was brought to light. Frenhofer -is a passionate enthusiast, who sees above and beyond other painters. He -has meditated profoundly on color, and the absolute truth of line; but -by the way of much research he has come to doubt the very existence -of the objects of his search. He says, in moments of despondency, that -there is no such thing as drawing, and that by means of lines we can -only reproduce geometrical figures; but that is overshooting the mark, -for by outline and shadow you can reproduce form without any color at -all, which shows that our art, like Nature, is composed of an infinite -number of elements. Drawing gives you the skeleton, the anatomical -frame-' work, and color puts the life into it; but life without the -skeleton is even more incomplete than a skeleton without life. But there -is something else truer still, and it is this--f or painters, practise -and observation are everything; and when theories and poetical ideas -begin to quarrel with the brushes, the end is doubt, as has happened -with our good friend, who is half crack-brained enthusiast, half -painter. A sublime painter! but unlucky for him, he was born to riches, -and so he has leisure to follow his fancies. Do not you follow his -example! Work! painters have no business to think, except brush in -hand." - -"We will find a way into his studio!" cried Poussin confidently. He had -ceased to heed Porbus's remarks. The other smiled at the young painter's -enthusiasm, asked him to come to see him again, and they parted. Nicolas -Poussin went slowly back to the Rue de la Harpe, and passed the -modest hostelry where he was lodging without noticing it. A feeling of -uneasiness prompted him to hurry up the crazy staircase till he reached -a room at the top, a quaint, airy recess under the steep, high-pitched -roof common among houses in old Paris. In the one dingy window of the -place sat a young girl, who sprang up at once when she heard some one at -the door; it was the prompting of love; she had recognized the painter's -touch on the latch. - -"What is the matter with you?" she asked. - -"The matter is... is... Oh! I have felt that I am a painter! Until -to-day I have had doubts, but now I believe in myself! There is the -making of a great man in me! Never mind, Gillette, we shall be rich and -happy! There is gold at the tips of those brushes--" - -He broke off suddenly. The joy faded from his powerful and earnest face -as he compared his vast hopes with his slender resources. The walls were -covered with sketches in chalk on sheets of common paper. There were -but four canvases in the room. Colors were very costly, and the young -painter's palette was almost bare. Yet in the midst of his poverty he -possessed and was conscious of the possession of inexhaustible treasures -of the heart, of a devouring genius equal to all the tasks that lay -before him. - -He had been brought to Paris by a nobleman among his friends, or -perchance by the consciousness of his powers; and in Paris he had found -a mistress, one of those noble and generous souls who choose to suffer -by a great man's side, who share his struggles and strive to understand -his fancies, accepting their lot of poverty and love as bravely and -dauntlessly as other women will set themselves to bear the burden of -riches and make a parade of their insensibility. The smile that stole -over Gillette's lips filled the garret with golden light, and rivaled -the brightness of the sun in heaven. The sun, moreover, does not always -shine in heaven, whereas Gillette was always in the garret, absorbed in -her passion, occupied by Poussin's happiness and sorrow, consoling the -genius which found an outlet in love before art engrossed it. - -"Listen, Gillette. Come here." - -The girl obeyed joyously, and sprang upon the painter's knee. Hers was -perfect grace and beauty, and the loveliness of spring; she was adorned -with all luxuriant fairness of outward form, lighted up by the glow of a -fair soul within. - -"Oh! God," he cried; "I shall never dare to tell her--" - -"A secret?" she cried; "I must know it!" - -Poussin was absorbed in his dreams. - -"Do tell it me!" - -"Gillette... poor beloved heart!..." - -"Oh! do you want something of me?" - -"Yes." - -"If you wish me to sit once more for you as I did the other day," she -continued with playful petulance, "I will never consent to do such a -thing again, for your eyes say nothing all the while. You do not think -of me at all, and yet you look at me--" - -"Would you rather have me draw another woman?" - -"Perhaps--if she were very ugly," she said. - -"Well," said Poussin gravely, "and if, for the sake of my fame to come, -if to make me a great painter, you must sit to some one else?" - -"You may try me," she said; "you know quite well that I would not." - -Poussin's head sank on her breast; he seemed to be overpowered by some -intolerable joy or sorrow. - -"Listen," she cried, plucking at the sleeve of Poussin's threadbare -doublet, "I told you, Nick, that I would lay down my life for you; but I -never promised you that I in my lifetime would lay down my love." - -"Your love?" cried the young artist. - -"If I showed myself thus to another, you would love me no longer, and -I should feel myself unworthy of you. Obedience to your fancies was a -natural and simple thing, was it not? Even against my own will, I am -glad and even proud to do thy dear will. But for another, out upon it!" - -"Forgive me, my Gillette," said the painter, falling upon his knees; -"I would rather be beloved than famous. You are fairer than success and -honors. There, fling the pencils away, and burn these sketches! I have -made a mistake. I was meant to love and not to paint. Perish art and all -its secrets!" - -Gillette looked admiringly at him, in an ecstasy of happiness! She was -triumphant; she felt instinctively that art was laid aside for her sake, -and flung like a grain of incense at her feet. - -"Yet he is only an old man," Poussin continued; "for him you would be a -woman, and nothing more. You--so perfect!" - -"I must love you indeed!" she cried, ready to sacrifice even love's -scruples to the lover who had given up so much for her sake; "but I -should bring about my own ruin. Ah! to ruin myself, to lose everything -for you!... It is a very glorious thought! Ah! but you will forget me. -Oh I what evil thought is this that has come to you?" - -"I love you, and yet I thought of it," he said, with something like -remorse, "Am I so base a wretch?" - -"Let us consult Pere Hardouin," she said. - -"No, no! Let it be a secret between us." - -"Very well; I will do it. But you must not be there," she said. "Stay at -the door with your dagger in your hand; and if I call, rush in and kill -the painter." - -Poussin forgot everything but art. He held Gillette tightly in his arms. - -"He loves me no longer!" thought Gillette when she was alone. She -repented of her resolution already. - -But to these misgivings there soon succeeded a sharper pain, and she -strove to banish a hideous thought that arose in her own heart. It -seemed to her that her own love had grown less already, with a vague -suspicion that the painter had fallen somewhat in her eyes. - - - - -II--CATHERINE LESCAULT - -Three months after Poussin and Porbus met, the latter went to see Master -Frenhofer. The old man had fallen a victim to one of those profound and -spontaneous fits of discouragement that are caused, according to medical -logicians, by indigestion, flatulence, fever, or enlargement of the -spleen; or, if you take the opinion of the Spiritualists, by the -imperfections of our mortal nature. The good man had simply overworked -himself in putting the finishing touches to his mysterious picture. He -was lounging in a huge carved oak chair, covered with black leather, and -did not change his listless attitude, but glanced at Porbus like a man -who has settled down into low spirits. - -"Well, master," said Porbus, "was the ultramarine bad that you sent for -to Bruges? Is the new white difficult to grind? Is the oil poor, or are -the brushes recalcitrant?" - -"Alas!" cried the old man, "for a moment I thought that my work was -finished, but I am sure that I am mistaken in certain details, and I can -not rest until I have cleared my doubts. I am thinking of traveling. I -am going to Turkey, to Greece, to Asia, in quest of a model, so as to -compare my picture with the different living forms of Nature. Perhaps," -and a smile of contentment stole over his face, "perhaps I have Nature -herself up there. At times I am half afraid that a breath may waken her, -and that she will escape me." - -He rose to his feet as if to set out at once. - -"Aha!" said Porbus, "I have come just in time to save you the trouble -and expense of a journey." - -"What?" asked Frenhofer in amazement. - -"Young Poussin is loved by a woman of incomparable and flawless beauty. -But, dear master, if he consents to lend her to you, at the least you -ought to let us see your work." - -The old man stood motionless and completely dazed. - -"What!" he cried piteously at last, "show you my creation, my bride? -Rend the veil that has kept my happiness sacred? It would be an infamous -profanation. For ten years I have lived with her; she is mine, mine -alone; she loves me. Has she not smiled at me, at each stroke of the -brush upon the canvas? She has a soul--the soul that I have given her. -She would blush if any eyes but mine should rest on her. To exhibit her! -Where is the husband, the lover so vile as to bring the woman he loves -to dishonor? When you paint a picture for the court, you do not put your -whole soul into it; to courtiers you sell lay figures duly colored. My -painting is no painting, it is a sentiment, a passion. She was born in -my studio, there she must dwell in maiden solitude, and only when clad -can she issue thence. Poetry and women only lay the last veil aside -for their lovers Have we Rafael's model, Ariosto's Angelica, Dante's -Beatrice? Nay, only their form and semblance. But this picture, locked -away above in my studio, is an exception in our art. It is not a canvas, -it is a woman--a woman with whom I talk. I share her thoughts, her -tears, her laughter. Would you have me fling aside these ten years of -happiness like a cloak? Would you have me cease at once to be father, -lover, and creator? She is not a creature, but a creation. - -"Bring your young painter here. I will give him my treasures; I will -give him pictures by Correggio and Michelangelo and Titian; I will kiss -his footprints in the dust; but make him my rival! Shame on me. Ah! ah! -I am a lover first, and then a painter. Yes, with my latest sigh I could -find strength to burn my 'Belle Noiseuse'; but--compel her to endure the -gaze of a stranger, a young man and a painter!--Ah! no, no! I would -kill him on the morrow who should sully her with a glance! Nay, you, my -friend, I would kill you with my own hands in a moment if you did not -kneel in reverence before her! Now, will you have me submit my idol -to the careless eyes and senseless criticisms of fools? Ah! love is a -mystery; it can only live hidden in the depths of the heart. You say, -even to your friend, 'Behold her whom I love,' and there is an end of -love." - -The old man seemed to have grown young again; there was light and life -in his eyes, and a faint flush of red in his pale face. His hands shook. -Porbus was so amazed by the passionate vehemence of Frenhofer's words -that he knew not what to reply to this utterance of an emotion as -strange as it was profound. Was Frenhofer sane or mad? Had he fallen a -victim to some freak of the artist's fancy? or were these ideas of his -produced by the strange lightheadedness which comes over us during the -long travail of a work of art. Would it be possible to come to terms -with this singular passion? - -Harassed by all these doubts, Porbus spoke--"Is it not woman for woman?" -he said. "Does not Poussin submit his mistress to your gaze?" - -"What is she?" retorted the other. "A mistress who will be false to him -sooner or later. Mine will be faithful to me forever." - -"Well, well," said Porbus, "let us say no more about it. But you may die -before you will find such a flawless beauty as hers, even in Asia, and -then your picture will be left unfinished. - -"Oh! it is finished," said Frenhof er. "Standing before it you would -think that it was a living woman lying on the velvet couch beneath the -shadow of the curtains. Perfumes are burning on a golden tripod by her -side. You would be tempted to lay your hand upon the tassel of the cord -that holds back the curtains; it would seem to you that you saw her -breast rise and fall as she breathed; that you beheld the living -Catherine Lescault, the beautiful courtezan whom men called 'La Belle -Noiseuse.' And yet--if I could but be sure--" - -"Then go to Asia," returned Porbus, noticing a certain indecision in -Frenhofer's face. And with that Porbus made a few steps toward the door. -By that time Gillette and Nicolas Poussin had reached Frenhofer's -house. The girl drew away her arm from her lover's as she stood on the -threshold, and shrank back as if some presentiment flashed through her -mind. - -"Oh! what have I come to do here?" she asked of her lover in low -vibrating tones, with her eyes fixed on his. - -"Gillette, I have left you to decide; I am ready to obey you in -everything. You are my conscience and my glory. Go home again; I shall -be happier, perhaps, if you do not--" - -"Am I my own when you speak to me like that? No, no; I am a -child.--Come," she added, seemingly with a violent effort; "if our love -dies, if I plant a long regret in my heart, your fame will be the reward -of my obedience to your wishes, will it not? Let us go in. I shall -still live on as a memory on your palette; that shall be life for me -afterward." - -The door opened, and the two lovers encountered Porbus, who was -surprised by the beauty of Gillette, whose eyes were full of tears. He -hurried her, trembling from head to foot, into the presence of the old -painter. - -"Here!" he cried, "is she not worth all the masterpieces in the world!" - -Frenhofer trembled. There stood Gillette in the artless and childlike -attitude of some timid and innocent Georgian, carried off by brigands, -and confronted with a slave merchant. A shamefaced red flushed her face, -her eyes drooped, her hands hung by her side, her strength seemed to -have failed her, her tears protested against this outrage. Poussin -cursed himself in despair that he should have brought his fair treasure -from its hiding-place. The lover overcame the artist, and countless -doubts assailed Poussin's heart when he saw youth dawn in the old man's -eyes, as, like a painter, he discerned every line of the form hidden -beneath the young girl's vesture. Then the lover's savage jealousy -awoke. - -"Gillette!" he cried, "let us go." - -The girl turned joyously at the cry and the tone in which it was -uttered, raised her eyes to his, looked at him, and fled to his arms. - -"Ah! then you love me," she cried; "you love me!" and she burst into -tears. - -She had spirit enough to suffer in silence, but she had no strength to -hide her joy. - -"Oh! leave her with me for one moment," said the old painter, "and you -shall compare her with my Catherine... yes--I consent." - -Frenhofer's words likewise came from him like a lover's cry. His vanity -seemed to be engaged for his semblance of womanhood; he anticipated the -triumph of the beauty of his own creation over the beauty of the living -girl. - -"Do not give him time to change his mind!" cried Porbus, striking -Poussin on the shoulder. "The flower of love soon fades, but the flower -of art is immortal." - -"Then am I only a woman now for him?" said Gillette. She was watching -Poussin and Porbus closely. - -She raised her head proudly; she glanced at Frenhofer, and her eyes -flashed; then as she saw how her lover had fallen again to gazing at the -portrait which he had taken at first for a Giorgione-- - -"Ah!" she cried; "let us go up to the studio. He never gave me such a -look." - -The sound of her voice recalled Poussin from his dreams. - -"Old man," he said, "do you see this blade? I will plunge it into your -heart at the first cry from this young girl; I will set fire to your -house, and no one shall leave it alive. Do you understand?" - -Nicolas Poussin scowled; every word was a menace. Gillette took comfort -from the young painter's bearing, and yet more from that gesture, and -almost forgave him for sacrificing her to his art and his glorious -future. - -Porbus and Poussin stood at the door of the studio and looked at each -other in silence. At first the painter of the Saint Mary of Egypt -hazarded some exclamations: "Ah! she has taken off her clothes; he told -her to come into the light--he is comparing the two!" but the sight of -the deep distress in Poussin's face suddenly silenced him; and though -old painters no longer feel these scruples, so petty in the presence of -art, he admired them because they were so natural and gracious in the -lover. The young man kept his hand on the hilt of his dagger, and his -ear was almost glued to the door. The two men standing in the shadow -might have been conspirators waiting for the hour when they might strike -down a tyrant. - -"Come in, come in," cried the old man. He was radiant with delight. "My -work is perfect. I can show her now with pride. Never shall painter, -brushes, colors, light, and canvas produce a rival for 'Catherine -Lescault,' the beautiful courtezan!" - -Porbus and Poussin, burning with eager curiosity, hurried into a vast -studio. Everything was in disorder and covered with dust, but they saw a -few pictures here and there upon the wall. They stopped first of all in -admiration before the life-size figure of a woman partially draped. - -"Oh! never mind that," said Frenhofer; "that is a rough daub that I -made, a study, a pose, it is nothing. These are my failures," he went -on, indicating the enchanting compositions upon the walls of the studio. - -This scorn for such works of art struck Porbus and Poussin dumb with -amazement. They looked round for the picture of which he had spoken, and -could not discover it. - -"Look here!" said the old man. His hair was disordered, his face aglow -with a more than human exaltation, his eyes glittered, he breathed hard -like a young lover frenzied by love. - -"Aha!" he cried, "you did not expect to see such perfection! You are -looking for a picture, and you see a woman before you. There is such -depth in that canvas, the atmosphere is so true that you can not -distinguish it from the air that surrounds us. Where is art? Art has -vanished, it is invisible! It is the form of a living girl that you see -before you. Have I not caught the very hues of life, the spirit of the -living line that defines the figure? Is there not the effect produced -there like that which all natural objects present in the atmosphere -about them, or fishes in the water? Do you see how the figure stands out -against the background? Does it not seem to you that you pass your hand -along the back? But then for seven years I studied and watched how the -daylight blends with the objects on which it falls. And the hair, the -light pours over it like a flood, does it not?... Ah! she breathed, I am -sure that she breathed! Her breast--ah, see! Who would not fall on his -knees before her? Her pulses throb. She will rise to her feet. Wait!" - -"Do you see anything?" Poussin asked of Porbus. - -"No... do you?" - -"I see nothing." - -The two painters left the old man to his ecstasy, and tried to ascertain -whether the light that fell full upon the canvas had in some way -neutralized all the effect for them. They moved to the right and left -of the picture; they came in front, bending down and standing upright by -turns. - -"Yes, yes, it is really canvas," said Frenhofer, who mistook the nature -of this minute investigation. - -"Look! the canvas is on a stretcher, here is the easel; indeed, here are -my colors, my brushes," and he took up a brush and held it out to them, -all unsuspicious of their thought. - -"The old _lansquenet_ is laughing at us," said Poussin, coming once -more toward the supposed picture. "I can see nothing there but confused -masses of color and a multitude of fantastical lines that go to make a -dead wall of paint." - -"We are mistaken, look!" said Porbus. - -In a corner of the canvas, as they came nearer, they distinguished a -bare foot emerging from the chaos of color, half-tints and vague shadows -that made up a dim, formless fog. Its living delicate beauty held them -spellbound. This fragment that had escaped an incomprehensible, slow, -and gradual destruction seemed to them like the Parian marble torso of -some Venus emerging from the ashes of a ruined town. - -"There is a woman beneath," exclaimed Porbus, calling Poussin's -attention to the coats of paint with which the old artist had overlaid -and concealed his work in the quest of perfection. - -Both artists turned involuntarily to Frenhofer. They began to have some -understanding, vague though it was, of the ecstasy in which he lived. - -"He believes it in all good faith," said Porbus. - -"Yes, my friend," said the old man, rousing himself from his dreams, "it -needs faith, faith in art, and you must live for long with your work to -produce such a creation. What toil some of those shadows have cost me. -Look! there is a faint shadow there upon the cheek beneath the eyes--if -you saw that on a human face, it would seem to you that you could never -render it with paint. Do you think that that effect has not cost unheard -of toil? - -"But not only so, dear Porbus. Look closely at my work, and you will -understand more clearly what I was saying as to methods of modeling and -outline. Look at the high lights on the bosom, and see how by touch on -touch, thickly laid on, I have raised the surface so that it catches -the light itself and blends it with the lustrous whiteness of the high -lights, and how by an opposite process, by flattening the surface of -the paint, and leaving no trace of the passage of the brush, I have -succeeded in softening the contours of my figures and enveloping them -in half-tints until the very idea of drawing, of the means by which the -effect is produced, fades away, and the picture has the roundness -and relief of nature. Come closer. You will see the manner of working -better; at a little distance it can not be seen. There I Just there, it -is, I think, very plainly to be seen," and with the tip of his brush he -pointed out a patch of transparent color to the two painters. - -Porbus, laying a hand on the old artist's shoulder, turned to Poussin -with a "Do you know that in him we see a very great painter?" - -"He is even more of a poet than a painter," Poussin answered gravely. - -"There," Porbus continued, as he touched the canvas, "Use the utmost -limit of our art on earth." - -"Beyond that point it loses itself in the skies," said Poussin. - -"What joys lie there on this piece of canvas!" exclaimed Porbus. - -The old man, deep in his own musings, smiled at the woman he alone -beheld, and did not hear. - -"But sooner or later he will find out that there is nothing there!" -cried Poussin. - -"Nothing on my canvas!" said Frenhofer, looking in turn at either -painter and at his picture. - -"What have you done?" muttered Porbus, turning to Poussin. - -The old man clutched the young painter's arm and said, "Do you see -nothing? clodpatel Huguenot! varlet! cullion! What brought you here into -my studio?--My good Porbus," he went on, as he turned to the painter, -"are you also making a fool of me? Answer! I am your friend. Tell me, -have I ruined my picture after all?" - -Porbus hesitated and said nothing, but there was such intolerable -anxiety in the old man's white face that he pointed to the easel. - -"Look!" he said. - -Frenhofer looked for a moment at his picture, and staggered back. - -"Nothing! nothing! After ten years of work..." He sat down and wept. - -"So I am a dotard, a madman, I have neither talent nor power! I am only -a rich man, who works for his own pleasure, and makes no progress, I -have done nothing after all!" - -He looked through his tears at his picture. Suddenly he rose and stood -proudly before the two painters. - -"By the body and blood of Christ," he cried with flashing eyes, "you are -jealous! You would have me think that my picture is a failure because -you want to steal her from me! Ah! I see her, I see her," he cried "she -is marvelously beautiful..." - -At that moment Poussin heard the sound of weeping; Gillette was -crouching forgotten in a corner. All at once the painter once more -became the lover. "What is it, my angel?" he asked her. - -"Kill me!" she sobbed. "I must be a vile thing if I love you still, for -I despise you.... I admire you, and I hate you! I love you, and I feel -that I hate you even now!" - -While Gillette's words sounded in Poussin's ears, Frenhof er drew a -green serge covering over his "Catherine" with the sober deliberation -of a jeweler who locks his drawers when he suspects his visitors to be -expert thieves. He gave the two painters a profoundly astute glance that -expressed to the full his suspicions, and his contempt for them, saw -them out of his studio with impetuous haste and in silence, until from -the threshold of his house he bade them "Good-by, my young friends!" - -That farewell struck a chill of dread into the two painters. Porbus, in -anxiety, went again on the morrow to see Frenhofer, and learned that he -had died in the night after burning his canvases. - -Paris, February, 1832. - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Unknown Masterpiece, by Honore De Balzac - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNKNOWN MASTERPIECE *** - -***** This file should be named 23060.txt or 23060.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/0/6/23060/ - -Produced by David Widger - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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