“Strange, isn’t it, that I should arrive here to be told that pitiful
story within an hour or two of the death of the model?” said I. “The
poor artist! I am sure that he felt that he was immortalising Denny; and
yet--I suppose that in a year or two no one will know anything either
of the sculptor or his model. Perhaps the vulgarity of the Ulster patron
is, after all, the most enduring of all the qualities that went to the
production of this work.”
“The patron eventually became one of the most distinguished bankrupts
of his generation,” said Dr Barnett. “He died a few years ago, but
vulgarity did not die with him. Yes, I think you are right--vulgarity is
immortal.”
“I wonder if our friend Denny was proud to be reproduced in the stone,
or was he mortified at the result of his first connection with art?” I
remarked, while we were strolling back to the house.
“He took an interest in the thing up to the very last,” replied the
doctor. “I have often seen him take a surreptitious glance at it, and
pass away from it, stroking his head mournfully. He confided in me once
that his sorrow was that the sculptor had not lived to reproduce
his fine head of hair; and I know that he believed that it was the
unfinished state of the crown of the figure that brought about its
rejection. His widow told me only yesterday that this was the greatest
trouble of his last hours. You see, the figure was a record of his
early manhood, but the pride that he had in looking at it must have been
chastened by the feeling that it did not do justice to his curls--his
one vanity was his curly head. He was nicknamed in Irish ‘The
curly-headed boy.’ It was pathetic to hear his widow repeat the phrase
over his body when I visited her in her trouble yesterday. ‘He was my
curly-headed boy--my curly-headed boy will never know the touch of my
comb again!’ she wailed in Irish.”
“Poor old Denny!” said I.
“That seems by one consent to be his most appropriate epitaph,” said the
doctor.
After dinner that night I played a very pleasant rubber of whist with my
client, and the doctor and his wife. When the party separated I went to
the billiard-room with Barnett, and we played a hundred up. Lighting
a cigar then, I strolled out alone upon the terrace, the doctor having
gone to his room. The night was a brilliant one, and the landscape lay
bare and white beneath the moonlight, which flooded the far-off hills
and spread a garment of filigree over the foliage of the glen and of the
slope beyond. Beneath its brilliance the trout stream, whose voice came
fitfully through the brooding silence of the night, flashed here and
there among the trees. The square tower of the Castle shone like marble
in the distance. From one of the farms of the hillside the faint sound
of a dog’s bark reached my ears.
I seated myself on one of the terrace chairs, languidly smoking my cigar
and breathing the strong perfume of the stocks of the garden. I
confess that my mind was dwelling upon the story of that queer piece
of sculpture before which I had stood in the afternoon. It was as sad
a story as that of the poet Keats, only the brutal criticism of the
sculptor’s patron was more savage than the ‘Quarterly Review’ which had
bludgeoned the fine poet to the death. But my sympathy was not given to
the artist so fully as to leave no pity to bestow upon his model, who
had lived on for thirty or forty years with his humble grievance. I
could appreciate the feelings of poor old Denny all the years that he
had laboured beneath the burden of being handed down in effigy to coming
generations shorn of his greatest glory. The one who was known to all
men as the curly-haired hoy was doomed to stand before the eyes of all
comers as the possessor of shapeless, matted locks that were not locks
at all!
He was not made of the same fibre as the artist; he had not broken down
beneath the weight of that reflection; but I knew it must have been a
heaviness to him all his days.
I remained seated in the moonlight for a long time, and just as I
thought that I should turn in, I noticed a figure crossing the little
grassy slope toward the garden. It was, I perceived, the figure of a
man, and he was wearing what I took at first to be an ordinary night
suit of light silk; but before he had gone a dozen steps I perceived
that his garment was a painter’s blouse. He moved silently over the
grass, and I could not help feeling, as I had often done before, how a
glance of moonlight on a figure may produce such an effect of mystery
as can never be gained in daylight. I assumed that the object which was
passing away among the flower-beds was one of the household staff on
duty--a watchman, it might be, or a gardener going to regulate the
heating apparatus in a greenhouse. And yet, looking at him from my seat,
he seemed as weird and unsubstantial as a whiff of mountain mist.
I rose from my place, and was about to walk round to the entrance to
the house and get to bed, when I became aware of another figure moving
through the moonlight along the grassy terrace. I gave an exclamation of
surprise when I saw that this one was half nude and white--white as
the stone of the statue beyond the trees--there, it moved--_the statue
itself_---I saw it--the figure of the man with his hands held aloft--the
features were the same--the proportions of the body--only this one was
more perfect than the other, for he had a mass of curly locks clustering
over his head like the curls of the Herakles of the Vatican.
And even while I stood there watching him, the figure passed away among
the trees.
I waited in such a state of amazement as I had never experienced before.
I had the sensation of being newly awakened; but I knew that I had not
fallen asleep for a moment. I was not afraid; only, finding myself in a
situation to which I was unaccustomed, I did not know what I should do.
It took me some minutes to collect myself.
Through the stillness I became aware of a curious dull tapping
sound--there it went, tap, tap, tap; then a slight pause, and again tap,
tap, tap, tap.
A dog behind the house gave a prolonged howl, and along the path below
me a fox-terrier, which I had seen during the day, scurried, its tail
between its legs, and every limb trembling.
“Tap, tap, tap”--a pause--“tap, tap, tap, tap.”
My mind was made up. I went cautiously along the terrace in the
direction of the garden. I found myself walking stealthily on my toes,
as though I was anxious not to disturb someone who was desirous of
quiet; and as I went on, the sounds of the tapping became more distinct.
Almost before I knew it, I reached that part of the grassy terrace which
commanded a view of the garden; and in an instant I was standing still.
I could hear the beating of my own heart as I saw, under my very eyes,
not twenty yards away, three figures, equally white and shadowy.
The nearest to me was of the half-naked man with the head of curls; the
one in the middle was in exactly the same posture--it was the figure of
the statue; and the third was the one which I had seen wearing the long
white blouse, and this was the only one of the three that moved. He was
standing, as it seemed, on the ledge of the pedestal, and a sculptor’s
chisel was in one hand and a mallet in the other. He was working at
the head of the statue, every now and again glancing at the head of the
model, pausing while he did so, and beginning to work again after the
lapse of a second or two.
I stood there on the terrace watching this strange scene, and the
curious part of it was that it did not seem in the least degree curious
to me while it was being enacted. On the contrary, I had a distinct
sense of harmony--of artistic finish--the pleasurable sensation of
which one is conscious on the completion of the _leit motif_ of a
symphony,--that is how I can best express what my feelings were at the
time. During the hour that I remained there it never occurred to me that
I should draw any nearer to the shadowy group. As a matter of fact, I
believe that there was uppermost in my mind an apprehension that it was
necessary for me to keep very still, lest I should interfere with the
work. I have had precisely the same feeling when in the studio of a
painter while he was at work and I was watching him. But I could not
leave the place where I stood, so long as that scene was being enacted
in the silence, and the three figures were equally silent. The night
knew no sound except that caused by the chiselling of the stone.
An hour must have passed--perhaps more than an hour--and then, still in
silence, the sculptor threw his chisel and his mallet to the ground. I
heard the little thud which each gave on the turf. Then he sprang to the
ground; but his feet made no sound in alighting. I stood on the terrace
and watched him and his model move away across the garden as silently
as they had come, and disappear among the trees at the entrance to the
glen.
*****
The next morning when I had breakfasted I sought my friend Dr Barnett,
and told him my experience of the night. He did not smile. But he
was strictly scientific. We were smoking together on one of the paths
bordered by laurels, and when I had told him all that I had to tell, he
put his hand on my arm, saying--
“My dear boy, the phenomena of ghosts are invariably interesting,
and, on the whole, not more perplexing than other natural phenomena.
Sometimes they are due to one cause, sometimes to another. Most
frequently they must be attributed to the projection of an image upon
the eye from within, not from without. Now, in your case--but we had
better stroll round to the scene of your illusion.”
We went together across the lawn in the direction of the companion
cedars, and he continued his discourse.
“All that you have told me interests me greatly, showing as it does how,
under certain conditions, the most admirably balanced brain may become
what I may call sensitised--susceptible as a photographic plate to an
image----”
At this point his speech was arrested. We had passed between the cedars,
and the statue was facing us. The doctor was gazing up at it.
“Good heavens!” he said in a whisper; “he has finished it!”