AN UNEXPECTED PRESENT
On returning to the house we found our guests in the drawing-room
gazing enraptured at the wedding presents which were on view. Heaven
knows that they were numerous enough!
It was at this juncture that Surdon came in carrying, with some
difficulty, a large flat package wrapped in canvas upon which a small
square piece of cardboard was pinned bearing in writing the words:
“_My offering for the wedding_”
The card was not signed.
Several guests had read the inscription, and were amused over the
wedding “offering.” Our attention was attracted by their laughter,
and when my uncle, Cordélia and myself drew near, they were already
speaking of a wedding surprise, and eagerly expressing a wish to see
the present.
My uncle read the card, turned pale, lifted his eyes and looked at
Cordélia, who also read it. A deep blush suffused her cheeks. But she
displayed no confusion, and smiling said:
“It’s from him. He often uses one word instead of another. Sometimes he
does it on purpose as it amuses him. Besides, it’s his writing.”
To me the incident was a complete riddle. My uncle’s pallor, Cordélia’s
blushes, the words that passed between them—these things began to
trouble me.
“We might as well see what it is,” I said, pointing to the package.
“What’s the use?” returned my uncle. “We’ll have a look at it later on.”
Cordélia left us and went to an adjoining drawing-room.
Then I was seized with a feeling of curiosity and opened the package
myself. When the canvas which covered it was removed, I could not
repress a cry of admiration, and the guests around me were breathless
with wonder.
It was a portrait—a portrait of Cordélia. And such a portrait!
It was a picture of a marvelous radiance. It seemed to have been
painted with the softest of lights. It was utterly impossible to
conceive by what magic of coloring a human being who had nothing at
his command save brushes and the pigments in metal tubes, was able to
transmit to canvas so ideal a visual image.
I had never before encountered anything which could lead me to suspect
the existence of such an art. I had had an opportunity, like all those
who assist at great public functions in Paris, and delight in such
things, of visiting one or two exhibitions of paintings which affected
to be original, and professed to revolutionize art. Those works
expressed either an exaggerated symbolism or flights of the wildest
fantasy—were a great hoax in fact. I say freely what I think and if
any one takes offense the more’s the pity. As a general rule these
paintings are enshrouded in an erudite obscurity from which shines a
vague and eccentric glimmer of light.
But the miracle of this portrait consisted in this: It was the picture
itself which was painted in such a way that rays seemed to radiate from
it of themselves, without the intervention of any sort of trick.
The artist had succeeded in showing to the ordinary eye what it does
not usually perceive, that is to say, the invisible light which the
body radiates around itself....
I can speak of these things now that I have acquired the most painful
and terrible experience in this domain, but at that time I was
conscious of it all without comprehending it, and it would have been
difficult for me to express clearly my thoughts in a language of which
I was ignorant.
In short, in this effulgent portrait it was as though Cordélia’s soul
came to greet you from the first with a divine smile which emanated
from the entire expression of her face.
And now I understood what she meant when she wrote: “A portrait should
represent something more than the mere lineaments of a person; it
should convey the expression of the soul.”
She was obviously acquainted therefore with painting like that which
that day had enraptured us, and also doubtless with the painter
himself, who had sent this “offering” for the wedding.
It was no longer possible for me to doubt it!
I bent over the canvas to discover if the portrait was signed. I
deciphered the one letter “P.”
My uncle and Cordélia were not present to satisfy my curiosity. I went
to look for them but could not find them. I was told that Cordélia had
retired to her room in order to have a short rest.
Our guests were beginning to take their leave. My uncle rejoined me.
The pallor which had made such an impression on me was gone. On the
other hand he was in high good humor and very talkative as he wished
good-bye to his guests. He glanced at me from time to time and smiled
broadly as how should say: “Be happy. All goes well.”
What was the cause of his sudden perturbation during that memorable day?
Yielding to a latent impulse which had been growing in me since the
scene over the portrait, I returned to the drawing-room where the
wedding presents were on show. The portrait was gone.
I asked old Surdon what had become of the masterpiece. He made answer
that by “Mademoiselle’s” orders—he could not get accustomed to call her
“Madame”—he had himself taken it down into the cellar.
When I expressed my astonishment, he assured me that it was the very
place for the devil’s own painting.
I stopped him as he was making off and said:
“Do you know the man who painted the portrait?”
“You have other things to do, monsieur, to-day, than to bother about
such nonsense,” he returned, giving me a look and frowning.
He wanted to slip away, but I held him back.
“Look here, Surdon, I am going to ask you one question, but you will
have to answer me if we are to remain good friends. When I went to
Hennequeville I saw a man outside the garden gate looking up at the
empty house. I was told that this man was an English painter whom
people in the district regarded as slightly ‘touched.’ Is this the man
who sent the portrait to your mistress to-day?”
But Surdon stubbornly turned away, answering me in words which
exasperated me:
“I have already told you, monsieur, that the whole thing is nonsense.”
I was raging within myself and did not know what to say.
Surdon was right, however. That was a day on which nothing but my
happiness ought to have occupied my mind, and here was I questioning
a servant in secret upon incidents which, obviously, were not now
serious, and from which, to all appearance, it was desired to spare me
out of good feeling.
I retired in a more or less ill temper to a secluded part of the park,
which I never cared for because of my thinking it was a dreary place. I
was surprised to find myself harboring thoughts which were unworthy of
Cordélia and me. But, as has been said, man is a foolish animal.
Just then my uncle came up to me. He was in traveling clothes. He had
in fact decided to leave that same evening for Caen. He at once said
that he had something to tell me in confidence; something, however, of
no great importance to which he would certainly not have alluded but
for Surdon, who had acquainted him of my curiosity with regard to the
portrait of Cordélia.