All of that summer I worked for the old Count. Besides the Heraldry
work, I assisted him with the restoration of the old oil portraits, some
of which we had to copy completely. The Count had not much patience with
the work the Society set him to do, and he let me do most of the
copying, while he worked on other painting more congenial to him.
He was making a large painting of Andromeda, the figure of a nude woman
tied to the rocks, and in the clouds was seen Perseus coming to deliver
her. He had a very pretty girl named Lil Markey to pose for this.
My father was a landscape and marine painter, and never used models, and
the first time I saw Lil I was repulsed and horrified. She came tripping
into the studio without a stitch on her, and she even danced about and
seemed to be amused by my shocked face. I inwardly despised her. Little
did I dream that the time would come when I, too, would earn my living
in that way.
I got much interested when I saw the Count painting from life. He tied
Lil to an easel with soft rags, so as not to hurt her hands, and later
he painted the rocks from a sketch, behind her, where the old easel was.
While Lil rested, she would swing (still naked) in the big swing, and
jump about and sing. In all my experiences later as an artist’s model in
America, I never saw a model who behaved as Lil did. The Count would
give her cigarettes and she would tell stories that were not nice, and I
had to pretend I didn’t hear or couldn’t understand them.
Lil was not exactly a bad girl, but sort of reckless and lacking
entirely in modesty. She did have some decent homely traits, however.
She would wrap a piece of drapery about her and say:
“You folks go on painting, and I’ll be the cook.”
Then she would disappear into the kitchen and come back presently with a
delicious lunch which she had cooked all herself. I was afraid the Count
was falling in love with her, for he used to look at her lovingly and
sometimes he called her “Countess.” Lil would make faces at him behind
his back, and whisper to me: “Golly, he looks like a dying duck.”
Twice a week, the Count had pupils, rich young women mostly, who learned
to paint just as they did to play the piano and to dance. The Count
would make fun of them to Lil and me. They would take a canvas and copy
one of the Count’s pictures, he doing most of the work. Then he would
practically repaint it. The pupil, so the Count said, would then have it
framed and when it was hung on the wall the proud parents would point to
the work and admiring friends would say:
“What talent your daughter has!”
The Count, between chuckles and excited “Ya, ya’s,” would illustrate
derisively the whole scene to Lil and me.
He tried to form a Bohemian club to meet at the studio in the Château,
and we sent out many invitations for an opening party. When the evening
came there was a large gathering of society folk, and we had the place
full. Every one went looking at the Count’s things and exclaiming about
them, and they asked what he termed the “most foolish questions” about
art.
Among them was a violinist, Karl Walter, whose exquisite music made me
want to cry. He had a beautiful face, and I could not take my eyes from
it all evening. When the party was over, he offered to see me home. The
rest of the company were all departing in their carriages, and I thought
rather drearily of that ride home on the horse-car. It seemed very
short, however, with Mr. Walter. When we came to our door, he took my
hand and said:
[Illustration: He would tell stories that were not nice and I had to
pretend I couldn’t hear or didn’t understand them.]
“Mademoiselle, I am going away for six months. When I return, I would
like to know you better. Your sympathetic face was the only one I was
playing to. The rest were all cattle.”
He never came back to our Montreal, and I heard that he died soon after
leaving us.
The morning after the party, the old Count was very irritable and cross,
and when I asked him if he had enjoyed himself, he exclaimed
disgustedly:
“Stupid! Stupid! Those Canadians, do not know the meaning of the word
‘Bohemian.’ It was a ‘pink tea.’ Ugh!”
I suggested that next time we should invite Patty Chase and Lu Fraser,
and girls like that, but the Count shook his head with a hopeless
gesture.
“That is the other extreme,” he said. “No, no, you, my little friend,
are the only one worthy to belong to such a club as I had hoped to
start. It is impossible in this so stupid Canada.”