THE PORTRAIT
My father who was an iron manufacturer intended to take me into his
works, but first of all he was bent on my undergoing a complete course
of study in one of those Technical Institutes in the United States
where one is supposed to learn everything that can be useful to a
mechanic and an engineer, but where the practice of every form of sport
is a particular and glorious feature. I may say that I was the pride of
the Institute though I was the greatest dunce in it. Boxing, tennis,
golf, riding, swimming, boating, into which I fiercely threw myself,
diverted my thoughts from Cordélia without making me forget her.
I counted the months which stood between me and the happiness that
awaited me. Meanwhile my father and mother were carried off almost
at the same time during an epidemic of influenza, as it was then
called. I fulfilled their wishes by making no attempt to precipitate
the course of events. They were of opinion that I ought not to marry
until I reached my twenty-fourth year. I had no desire to thwart them,
particularly now that they were in their graves.
My uncle’s attitude towards me in the circumstances left nothing to be
desired. He took upon himself the management of my business affairs. I
was relieved from all trouble, notwithstanding that both my father and
mother had left me a considerable fortune.
He asked me if I wished to take up the succession to my father’s
business. I answered that I would readily have done so had such been
necessary, but since I was left with sufficient means to insure the
happiness of Cordélia and myself, I had made up my mind to live, in my
own way, upon my income.
He assured me that I would soon become bored unless I engaged in some
work. I answered that I had often felt bored when I was engaged in
work but never when I was not working. My uncle’s ideas belonged to a
different age which did not realize how full life is nowadays. I mean
full of the movement which brings with it health and beauty. An athlete
is never bored.
For that matter, the argument that I am advancing on the subject of
work is by no means necessarily that of a “sportsman.” I have heard a
man of considerable intellectual power, an author—a novelist who worked
his ten hours a day—declare that he had a horror of work because work
swallowed up the best part of his time, leaving him no opportunity of
seeing life which was a marvelous occupation and a spectacle tedious
only to imbeciles. He looked upon work as an ignominious necessity to
which mankind had been doomed for some transgression or other, and
he considered that those mortals who by the favor of the gods were
absolved from it, and yet clamored for it because time hung heavily
upon their hands, were deserving of eternal punishment.
For my part, I hold the same opinion and I add: If they are feeling
bored, bless my soul, let them play football.
At length I reached my twenty-fourth year, and I sailed in the mail
steamer to Havre. I already pictured to myself Cordélia waiting for
me on the pier. I had not seen her for eighteen months. We had never
ceased to write to each other with the greatest freedom. And yet during
the last period of my stay in America I seemed to perceive some change
in her.
True, her heart still remained mine but her mind had become unsettled;
in other words I did not comprehend everything that she said in her
letters. I have mentioned that Cordélia had always displayed an
inclination for the arts and in particular for painting. Well, it was
in connection with a small painting that she sent to me, a portrait of
myself painted from memory, which I considered a splendid likeness,
that she wrote extraordinary things which I scornfully called, without
quite knowing why, a “deterioration,” for they appertained to a sphere
of knowledge in which we were not accustomed to wander at my Technical
Institute.
I said to myself: Cordélia thinks too much. It is high time that I was
home. You bet I’ll make her give up her books and painting and music,
and then to horse! as in the good old days.
But let me return to this portrait and in regard to it I will refer
to my “notes.” I am not, to be sure, one of those persons who write
their recollections from day to day. But I rejoice that I possess these
memoranda, and I will explain how they came to be made almost without
my noticing it, and why I happened to keep them.
I am very methodical and have always kept a strict record of my
expenditure. I still have my little account books. Thus in the evening
after casting up my accounts for the day, I used to sit gazing at
the figures before me and dreaming of Cordélia, and I seldom closed
the book without setting down some thought about her, or adding some
comment upon her last letter.
These were often very simple remarks. For example, I find this entry
under the date of the 25th April, 19——.
“Thirty-five dollars ten cents.... Dearest Cordélia, we shall have
heaps of beautiful children crowding round our knee.” Or else a few
words even more simple still. Under the date of the 30th May of the
same year I find:
“Twenty-five dollars ten cents.... Dear, dear, dear Cordélia!”
Here are my observations concerning the portrait:
“To-day I received my portrait painted by Cordélia. It is a speaking
likeness. It is complete in every respect, even to the scar which I
still bear under the right eyebrow, caused by an unlucky fall against
the corner of the stairs when I was eight. The wound bled copiously,
and I call to mind Cordélia’s sorrow, for we had been playing together.
I feel certain that when she portrayed this little scar she remembered
that unfortunate mishap with some feeling. Dear, dear Cordélia!”
A month later I wrote the following note:
“What is happening? I have received a letter from Cordélia and can
make nothing of it. She asks me to return the portrait. She considers
the painting unworthy. I don’t quite follow whether she considers it
unworthy of me or unworthy of her. Moreover she declares that while it
resembles me it is not like me. What is the meaning of this fantastic
language?”
And still dwelling on the portrait which, however, I was careful not to
return to her because I was delighted with it, I wrote:
“Cordélia says in her letter that I ought to understand that a portrait
should represent something more than the mere lineaments of a person;
for instance, it should convey the expression of the soul and in so far
as the soul is not expressed in a portrait, it expresses nothing at
all!”
Well, I was quite at a loss. I did not understand how she could
materialize my soul which was a thing essentially unseen. Had she meant
by her words that it is indispensable to put life into a portrait, I
should agree with her, and all that is needed for the purpose is a
certain touch of animation in the expression of the eyes, but to depict
the soul!... I shall ask her to explain what she means.
I pass over various comments expressing surprise at the tone of other
letters from Cordélia which, moreover, were becoming very brief and few
and far between. I am eager to arrive at Havre....
And here I was at Havre again.
Alas! Cordélia was not waiting for me on the pier.
On the other hand an old man-servant of my uncle’s came to meet me on
the _Titan_, which was a small steam-tug engaged in the pilot and post
service, and I learnt that Cordélia and her father had set out two days
before on “an urgent journey abroad.”
Though I was physically hardened by my devotion to sport, I could
not restrain my tears, for the news was so unforeseen and coincided
so little with my expectations, that I felt a presentiment that some
irretrievable calamity had befallen me.