by Emile Erckmann (1822-1899) and
Alexandre Chatrian (1826-1890)
I
Opposite the Saint Sebaldus Chapel in Nuremberg rises up a little
inn, tall and narrow, with a jagged gable, dusty windows and a
plaster cast of Our Lady on top of its roof. It was here that I spent
the unhappiest days of my life. I had gone to Nuremberg to study
the old German masters, but, due to a lack of liquidity, I had to
paint portraits...and what portraits they were! Fat purveyors of
tittle-tattle with a cat on their knees, aldermen in wigs, burgomasters
wearing a three-cornered hat and the whole thing set off by luminous
ochre and cinnabar by the bucketful.
From portraits I descended to sketches and from sketches to outlines.
Nothing can be worse, believe me, than to constantly have on your
back a head steward, tight-lipped, shrill, impudent-looking, who comes
to you every day with: "So then! How soon will you be paying, sir?
Have you any idea how much your bill is now? No. It doesn't bother
you, does it?... Sir eats, drinks and sleeps as he pleases... Does not
our heavenly Father feed even the birds of the air? Sir's bill comes to
four hundred schillings and ten kreuzer... It's hardly worth mentioning,
I know."
Those who have not heard this scale being sung can have no concept
of it - love of art, imagination, a sacred passion for the beautiful all
dry up under the withering breath of such a browbeater... You grow
gauche and timid, all your energy dissipated along with any feeling of
personal dignity.
One night, penniless as usual, and threatened with debtor's prison by
that worthy steward Rap, I decided I would thwart his hopes of payment
by slitting my throat. With this pleasant thought in mind, sitting on my
truckle bed opposite the window, I gave myself up to a thousand
philosophical reflexions of varying degrees of cheerfulness. I did not
dare to open my razor for fear that the irresistible force of my
reasoning might well instil in me sufficient courage to do away with
myself once and for all. Having argued with myself in this way, I blew
out my candle, deferring the conclusion to this line of thought to the
morrow.
This abominable Rap had driven me completely round the bend. All I
could do now artistically was draw silhouettes and my only desire was
to have the money to rid myself of this awful man's odious presence.
But that night my mind performed a singular about-turn. I woke up
going on for one o'clock, relit my light and, wrapping around me my
grey smock, dashed down on paper a quick sketch reminiscent of an
old Dutch master...something strange, bizarre and bearing no
resemblance to my usual style.
Picture a dark courtyard hemmed in by high dilapidated walls...These
walls are furnished with hooks seven or eight feet from the ground.
Even at a cursory glance we may guess that this is a shambles of some
sort.
On the left there is a latticework made up of narrow strips. Through it
you can see a side of beef suspended from an enormous ceiling by
enormous pulleys. Broad pools of blood run down over paving stones
and meet up in a drain full of undefined debris.
The light comes down from on high, from between chimneys, against
which weathervanes are silhouetted by a piece of sky only as big as
your hand and the roofs of neighbouring houses drop their shadows
dramatically from one floor to another.
At the end of this recess is a space. In this space is a woodshed, on
this woodshed ladders, a few bales of straw, rope, a hen-coop and an
old rabbit hutch that has seen better days.
How did these heterogeneous details come to present themselves to
my imagination?... I do not know. I had no memories of things like
this and yet each stroke of my charcoal pencil was a fantastic feat
of observation by dint of being true to nature. Nothing was missing!
But on the right of the picture one corner of the sketch remained
blank. I knew not what to put there... Something was stirring and
moving about... Suddenly I saw a foot, a foot in the air, a foot off
the ground. Despite its improbable position, I followed my inspiration
without understanding where all this was leading. This foot bordered
on a leg...over the tensely stretched-out leg there soon floated part
of a dress...To cut a long story short an old woman appeared, rumpled,
dishevelled, haggard, successively leaning backward over the edge
of a well and fighting against a fist that was strangling her...