I
The youth’s name was Apollos Rivers. We admired him, used him, and
for a time, despised him, too. Why we admired and used, I can easily
explain. Apollos was every inch his name—blond, athletic, superb; no
model in New York posed as faithfully. Why we despised—well, the logic
of that is more complicated. Our contempt was doubtless merely a habit,
formed on sight unseen and strengthened by hearsay. Apollos, indeed!
How absurd a name for the oldest Rivers boy, seeking work in studios!
In vain he had politely explained to us that his late father, a bookish
Montreal goldsmith, had so greatly admired the senior Paul Revere of
colonial history (the Paul Revere whose Huguenot name had originally been
Apollos Rivoire) that he himself, British subject though he was, had
bestowed the name Apollos on his own firstborn. Later Rivers arrivals,
less magnificent in physique, had to content themselves with names less
proud—Tom, Chuck, Nipper, and plain Ellen.
Perhaps we would have accepted that explanation, if somebody (that
eternally busy somebody) had not seen young Apollos at an Academy
reception, his ears tinted rose-pink, with cheeks to match, and his
vigorous young eyelashes weighted with whatever it is the chorus ladies
use to veil and enhance their already too potent come-hither-of-the-eye.
After this, do you wonder that we jumped at the conclusion that Apollos
was merely a name the youth had wished on himself, a _nom de pose_, as it
were? And why did he polish his nails? Unnatural in a boy of eighteen!
Anyhow, we wouldn’t have done it, at that age. And I fear that with some
of us, even his honest Canadian accent was against him. Take the word
_been_, for instance. Those whose grandfathers had always said _ben_, and
whose mothers had said _bin_, were repelled when the Montreal lad called
it _bean_.
But the posing of Apollos (one can’t forget that!) was absolutely the
best I had ever met anywhere. He first came to me when I was doing
that big California thing; you know, the one they call Three Angels,
two of the angels being winged marble youths in flat relief, kneeling,
and the third a retributive sort of shrouded female figure in bronze,
standing, of course, and dominating the other two. Get me? Oh, yes, in
the round, she was. I had no trouble in finding her type, no trouble
at all. Powerful women abound, these days. But the youths were a more
difficult matter. Of course I didn’t want them to look Athenian, as
if I’d just dislodged them from the Parthenon frieze, and given them
a pair of wings apiece; but then, on the other hand, I didn’t care to
have them suggest that I’d merely picked them up on the beach at Coney
Island, the Sunday before. Angels mustn’t bear too personal a stamp,
you know. To my thinking, no artist has ever surpassed Saint-Gaudens in
creating the impersonal, other-worldly type. But he always used a lot of
wonder-drapery for his angelic hosts; I had merely wings.
I had tried a good many youths from thirteen to thirty, before I finally
decided to take with me to my summer studio, for a period of ten weeks,
Apollos Rivers and Phineas Stickney. Remembering those tinted ears, I had
some doubt about Apollos and his staying powers through a country summer,
far from all but the most elementary sort of movies and like attractions;
but I had a hope that the influence of Phineas Stickney, coupled with my
own persuasions, would keep the boy on the side of the angels.
In fact, the angels were all that counted with me, that summer. The
commission was an important one, and the contract ironclad. If within
three years I couldn’t produce the Three Angels, “complete in place
and in the final materials as hereinbefore specified,” my name, on the
Golden Coast, would be mud instead of Jefferson. And the three years
had by now dwindled to one year only! Time pressed. I’d been diligent
and fore-handed enough, Heaven knows. If anything, I am diligent to a
fault. The retributive woman was all done in bronze; but those two youths
weren’t yet ready for the plaster, let alone the “final materials as
hereinbefore specified.”
My work in the country studio was cut out for me. I had had an assistant
there for some weeks, setting up the full-size work from a half-size
study; but when I saw the thing sketched out in the large, I was not at
all satisfied with my original idea of those figures. I wanted to make
certain very drastic changes; I really needed both Apollos and Phineas,
using each lad part of the day. Rough on me, rather; and I suppose
fellows in shops and offices would open their eyes if they saw a mere
artist—next door to a do-nothing, you know—beginning work every morning
at five and quitting at summer sundown; yes, and perhaps stealing back
for more study by twilight. For it’s twilight that wipes out all the
pettiness that the day reveals; it’s twilight that knows all and tells
only the good, in sculpture. If it were not for the healing touch of
twilight on our work, how many of us sculptors would have abandoned the
art, long ago! Well, I’ve often marvelled at the amount of work I put
through that summer. Of course it makes a difference when a man’s work is
such that he can make a lark out of it, as well as a living. Still, don’t
run away with the idea that any art is pure ecstasy every minute. Nothing
is.
I don’t know why I felt so uneasy about Apollos. All sorts of sinister
anxieties haunted me. Did I fear that he would burn up my barn of a
studio? No, for he smoked neither cigarettes nor a pipe. Would he elope
with the cook, leaving us with an empty larder and a desecrated hearth?
No, for if his own words were to be trusted, skirts bored him. Would he
paint his ears, and so make talk for the village folk? How could I tell?
My chief hope was in the influence of Phineas. The two would naturally
be thrown together at the farmhouse where they boarded. Phineas, as I
had seen him in the city, was an unusually attractive lad. His posing,
to be sure, left something to be desired. But then, very few models in
this world, I knew, had both the figure and the posing power that Apollos
possessed. A rare combination!
Phineas was a boy with no end of ancestry. His father had been a
Mayor, filling out some one’s term, in a great New England city; his
grandfather had been Governor of a near Western State; and to crown all,
his grandfather’s great-grandfather had been a Signer. I wondered how he
could stoop to pose, after all that! But for some reason, he wanted to
study modelling, and so had begged me to take him on as assistant. When I
declined the honor, he offered to pose; anything to forward his artistic
studies. I engaged him, and naturally thinking that so august a personage
deserved more consideration than Apollos, I allotted to the aristocrat
the easier, briefer afternoon sessions, and took Apollos with the morning
dews.
We had a routine. From five till quarter past, Apollos and I disposed of
three buttered health biscuits and two hot doughnuts apiece, the whole
made interesting by the very good coffee which I myself made over an
oil stove; in the deep country, wise housekeepers ask no crack-of-dawn
exploits from any cook, no matter how greatly underworked. The doughnuts
down, we worked easily and steadily until my normal family breakfast, at
which I sat down with appetite. No loafing, however! At eight, Apollos
and I were in the studio again, working till noon. Thus Apollos posed six
hours, and Phineas four.
From the first, I tried to work in a little fatherly counsel for Apollos
during the pose. “That knee just a bit to the left, please, and the rear
hoof as far back as you can get it. Fine! Well, you know you’re in luck,
up here in the country air, along with a lad like Phineas! Not that he
poses any better than you; no one does. But his manners are certainly
good, aren’t they?”
“Are they, sir?”
I asked myself whether Apollos was perhaps jealous of his more fortunate
co-worker. His face, however, showed only a perfect Apollonian calm,
combined with a gratifying attention to business. It was a kneeling
pose, you remember; and those who have never knelt much can’t know
what grit it takes, when long drawn out. I thought it wiser to defer
advice to a more convenient season. Next morning, when I was working on
a comparatively easy place, I happened to say to Apollos that Phineas
talked remarkably well for a boy of his age. Apollos preserved his pose
and made no reply. I pressed the subject.
“Perfectly good talker, sir, just as you say,” replied Apollos, squirming
ever so slightly with the foot I was not modelling, “but of course you
hire us to pose, not talk. I rather fancied you liked the place kept
quiet.”
“Righto, boy. But sometimes a little conversation helps the slow minutes
to skip by.”
“That depends, sir.”
“On what?”
“Oh, on who does the talking, and what is said.”
The reply caught my fancy. I wondered what response Phineas, that
excellent conversationalist, would have made; I decided to put the same
question to him, in the afternoon. Unfortunately, his posing happened to
be less satisfactory than usual that day, and it thrust me out of the
mood for easy converse with him. Besides, he himself had so much to say
of his ambitions, prospects, and great-grandfathers, that I did not care
to add anything to the welter of talk. A few days later, however, I found
occasion to remind him that with his inheritance—I meant blue blood, of
course—he was fortunate in being able to help those boys with whom he
came in contact.
“I’ve tried to help Apollos with his manners,” he replied, “but,
confidentially, it’s rather uphill work.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Apollos doesn’t appear so badly. Seldom speaks unless
spoken to, and then pretty sensibly, I find. Besides” (here I thought
a helpful suggestion might be in order), “his posing is so absolutely
perfect that anything else he does perhaps seems imperfect in comparison.”
“Yes, poor fellow! Pity that just posing should be what a fellow’s fitted
for, isn’t it? For my part—”
“For your part,” I interrupted rather testily, “if you will kindly keep
that left leg of yours—well, ever so slightly _reminiscent_ of what it
was when you began to pose it for me, I shall be most appreciative.” I
had never before spoken like that to the scion of a Signer, but I saw he
needed it. It was gradually being revealed to me that long descent is by
no means the main desideratum in a model. Phineas had developed a rather
unusual and uncanny gift for slumping in his pose;—making it easier
and easier for himself, minute by minute, so that at the end of the
half-hour, there was really nothing left that was of the slightest use
to me. I had to do my work from knowledge, instead of from Phineas. Of
course, most models have this infirmity of self-protection, but Phineas
could give all comers cards and spades in the game of slumping.
Still, in the excellent séances I had with Apollos, I would sometimes
enlarge upon Phineas’s advantages. Once I expressed a hope that Apollos
was profiting duly by the companionship.
“It profiteth me nothing,” was the unexpected reply. “Phineas talked me
over once. Never again, sir!”
“How so?”
“Oh, nothing of any importance, really. A silly fool business. I couldn’t
make any one, an adult, I mean, understand just how it happened.”
“Try me! Boy myself once.”
A slow color shot up over Apollos’s classic torso, and flamed fiercely
in his ears. He even became white around the mouth, as if the blood had
receded from that part to concentrate in his listening apparatus. Then
his confidence gushed forth, as if long pent up.
“I wanted some money to get my little sister a birthday present. She’d
been ill in bed for five weeks, and was peevish as a wasp, driving Aunt
Lise distracted asking for a big doll. Much as ever we could pay for the
doctor and medicines, let alone a French doll, but I wanted to get it
for her. She’s the only girl we have. Well, I was walking by Flatto’s
one day, with Phineas, and I was fool enough to say I’d give my boots if
I could get her a beauty doll we saw there in the window. ‘Gosh,’ says
Phin, ‘I can tell you how you can earn that doll, on the side, without
working.’ ‘How so?’ says I. ‘Well,’ says Phinny, ever so thoughtful, ‘a
rich feller and I got talking about the way girls paint up their faces,
and I said men sometimes did it too. He said rats, and I bet him ten
I could prove it, and he took me up on it. I was thinking about the
Academy exhibition,’ says Phinny, ‘and I knew Mr. Lucas was sending
his self-portrait to the show. But now,’ says Phinny, ‘I’ve found out
that portrait wasn’t accepted; and maybe my friend wouldn’t ante, just
for a painted _portrait_, not a real _person_. But,’ says Phinny, very
earnestly, ‘if I could get a regular feller, like you, to make up with
paint, I’d give him half what I make; and that would net you the five
plunks for the doll.’”
Apollos paused as if ashamed of “telling.” But his recollections were too
much for him, and upon my encouragement, he went on.
“Well, I fell for it. I didn’t stop to think how it would look; I only
knew the money would look good to me. And I knew Phinny was a little
brother to the rich; some of his fool-friends just wallow in coin. So
on the spur of the moment, we went round to Phin’s house for him to do
me. He’s in with the set that do private theatricals, and he has all the
stuff from a rabbit’s-foot down. _I_ thought it would be funny if he
would do my nose good and red; but, no, he just did my cheeks and ears,
and blackened up my eyelashes, and we went right over to the Academy
exhibition then and there, and met his fool-friend. One of the artists
had given Phinny tickets on account of his ancestors. I had no idea what
I looked like. People stared, of course, but I thought that was part of
the programme.”
Evidently a very painful thought still lurked in Apollos’s mind.
“You got the money,” I remarked, casually.
“Oh, no.” Apollos rapidly wiggled all his ten toes. “I threw it back at
him and told him to go to Hell with it.”
“For Heaven’s sake, why?”
Again a bright red suffused the boy’s face.
“When I got up to the L station and looked in the mirror, I saw for the
first time that he’d made me up to look like a _girl_!” Clearly the
horror of that realization had not yet departed from Apollos. “It was a
low-down trick, and I beat him up for it.”
With a new respect for the kneeling boy, I watched the blush die away
from his countenance; it lingered last of all in his ears. How often I
myself had repeated that stupid tattle about Apollos and his ears at
the Academy! I dare say I may have turned red myself, when I recognized
how small the talk was, and what a small thing had started it. Perhaps
Apollos observed this, for he continued, “You know what it is to have
a habit of blushing, don’t you? The more you try not to, the more it
happens. Well, Phineas noticed it on me, my Canadian ears, you know, that
first day we met in your New York studio. So he thought he could put one
over on me. And I’ll say he did.”
“So I suppose you two down there at the boarding-house never speak as you
pass pie?”
“Sure we do! What’s the use of holding a grudge? We’ve got on fine since
we fought.” A big generous smile swept the shadows from his eyes. “And
the best of it was, Ellie got her doll, after all. Who from? From Phinny,
to be sure. Said he couldn’t feel right about it, any other way, so I let
him.” Having been a boy myself, I saw the point; and I marvelled once
more at the intricacies of boy nature.
At that moment, I was modelling a hand, one of the important details,
as it happened. Apollos had superb hands, strong and sinewy, with those
noble bones we sculptors are always looking for. To my surprise, I found
that I was actually copying the youth’s hand, every bit of it. And that’s
something one can’t often do; one generally has to juggle with Nature, in
the interest of Art. It’s part of the game, especially if you are doing
angels.
“Say, ’Pollos, what’s the idea, manicuring your nails? Thank Heaven you
do, as far as I’m concerned; all I have to do is to copy that left hand
of yours.”
Not a trace of embarrassment appeared in the lad’s reply. “I’m very
pleased if it’s right, sir. You see, I studied it all out, from the hands
on Michael Angelo’s David. I saw that most of you sculptors use that type
of hand, nails all trued up, and so on; and I concluded I’d better dress
the part, as long as I was on the job.”
So then, the manicuring was but a part of the amazing Apollonian
thoroughness!—the same thoroughness that I had remarked in him when he
went out one afternoon with an old gun of mine, and brought me back three
pairs of wings—a sapsucker’s, a crow’s, and a goose’s. The goose’s wings,
in particular, he told me in his serious, smiling way, might perhaps give
me some suggestion for the other angel, “the Phineas feller.” He was
right, too. In making an angel’s wing, one does not _copy_ a goose’s, but
one gets light from on high.
“I suppose you mean to go on with this work, don’t you? Posing, studio
jobs, and so on?”
Apollos opened wide eyes. “Not I, sir! For me, it’s only a _pis-aller_,
if you’ll excuse my saying so. _Faute de mieux_, you know.”
I was astonished, for I had no idea that Apollos knew a word of French,
even the tags he had just used. I thought I would be jocose.
“What are you going to do, then? Teach languages?”
“I’ve tried that,” replied the best model I ever saw, “but I found it
unsatisfactory. You see my mother was French, born in Strasbourg. So
while she lived, we always spoke the three languages at home, meal-times;
English for breakfast, German for dinner, and French for supper. Father
liked it so, and we boys couldn’t look back on a time when it wasn’t so.
I had the French conversation classes for two terms at the Elmdale High
School, and I got on fine until one of the trustees wanted the job for
his wife’s sister. So he went ahead and found out that I was a minor, and
had me fired.”
“What a shame!”
“Why, no, it didn’t matter much. If I might rest this elbow just a
moment, it seems a bit dead—I meant to quit, anyway. There was nothing in
it for me, it wasn’t leading to anything I wanted.”
“Well, what was it you wanted?”
Apollos made no answer other than that slow blush of his, swarming all
over his face and finally demobilizing in his ears. For a moment, his
whole figure had an expression that would have been wistful in a smaller
lad; even as it was, there was something very touching about it. I could
only hope that his ambition, however humble, was at least honorable. I
reminded myself that I must not expect, in a Canadian boy, the same lofty
impulses that would quicken the blood of a Signer’s descendant.
Meanwhile, my work with Phineas was going rather badly. I could not teach
his aristocratic spirit to get down to brass tacks. His posing became
worse instead of better. Before long, I found myself doing over again,
every morning, from Apollos, all that I had bungled in doing, every
afternoon, from Phineas. It occurred to me that perhaps I was too tired,
in the afternoon, to do justice to Phineas, and that possibly Phineas’s
pose was the more difficult one. However, when I changed about, things
were still worse. I realized at last that my sprig of nobility was a
hindrance rather than a help. What to do? I had promised him work through
the summer. If I should pay him handsomely and discharge him, with his
part of the bargain unfulfilled, I should write myself down an easy mark
for models—a reputation no serious artist seeks. It would be complicity
after the crime. Besides, Apollos might well become discontented, on
beholding the rewards of the ungodly.
Toward the middle of the summer, the tension became too great. Precious
as time was, with that ironclad contract haunting my dreams, I saw that
perhaps I should gain, in the end, if I should leave my studio, for a
double-size week-end, and go a-fishing from Friday to the following
Tuesday. I was working in plastiline instead of clay, and I could safely
leave my angels, without fear of their drying up on me as soon as my back
was turned. The holiday might not hurt the boys, either. Apollos had
stuck valiantly to his “_pis-aller_” job; perhaps Phineas would do better
after a few days’ change; at any rate, I told myself, he couldn’t do
worse. In that, however, I was mistaken.