Weikhardt had been working at his Descent from the Cross for two
years, yet he could not finish the picture. No effort, no absorption,
no lonely contemplation, no spiritual seeking would bring him the
expression on the face of Christ.
He could not create that expression--the compassion and the pain.
He had scratched the face from the canvas a hundred times; he had tried
many models; he had spent hours and days studying the old masters; he
had made hundreds and hundreds of sketches; he had tried and tried. It
was all in vain; he could not create it.
In the spring he had married Helen Falkenhaus, the girl of whom he
had once spoken to Imhof. Their married life was a quiet one. Their
means were small, and they had to be content with very little. Helen
bore every privation with great sweetness. Her piety, which often had
a touch of expectant passion, helped her to ease her husband of the
consciousness of his burdens and responsibilities.
She had an understanding of art, a high and fine perception of its
qualities. He showed her his sketches, and she thought many of them
very beautiful. At times he seemed to her to have come near the vision
of which she too had a glimpse; but she was forced to admit that he
never quite embodied it. He attained compassion and pain, but not the
compassion and the pain of Christ.
Just then there arrived in Munich the Polish countess for whom he
had copied the cycle of Luini. One evening she gave an entertainment
to which Weikhardt was invited, and among the crowd he caught sight
of Sybil Scharnitzer. He had seen her years ago in the studio of
a fashionable painter. She had been surrounded by admirers and
flatterers, and he had carried away only a general impression of her
beauty.
This time she inspired him with a strange and magical excitement. He
knew at once that he needed her, that between her and his work there
was some mystic bond. He approached her and held her by his vivid
eloquence. Carefully he revealed his purpose. Absorbing her mien, her
gesture, that look of hers that went to the very soul, he saw clearly
what he expected of her and what she could give him. In this eye, when
it was wide open, he saw that more than mortal look which had hitherto
been but dim in his mind. He begged her to sit for him. She thought a
little and consented.
She came. He asked her to bare her neck and shoulders, and to swathe
her bust in a black shawl of Venetian lace. He stood at his easel, and
for ten minutes he gazed at her steadily. Scarcely did his lids stir.
Then he took a piece of charcoal, and drew the outlines of the head of
Christ. Sybil was astonished. At the end of an hour he thanked her, and
that was the first time he had spoken. He begged her to come again.
Quite as amazed as she had been at first, she pointed at the canvas.
But he smiled secretively, told her that his technical approach was a
roundabout one, and asked her to have patience.
When she left, Helen came in. He had told her of his plan, and his
confidence had prevailed over her doubts. She knew the history of Sybil
Scharnitzer, and had observed her that evening at the countess’s with
the cold scrutiny which one woman gives another. She looked at the
charcoal sketch, and was silent for many minutes. At last, under his
questioning look, casting down her own eyes, she asked: “Did any model
ever appear so disguised?”
Weikhardt had recovered his usual, phlegmatic temper. “Very few people
will understand my excursion behind the scenes--painters least of all.
I can see them crossing themselves and making venomous comments.”
“That doesn’t matter,” said Helen. “But what do you mean by an
excursion behind the scenes?”
“I mean the scenes set by God.”
Helen thought this over, but his words hurt her. She said: “I could
understand that perfectly if Sybil’s face were genuine; but you
yourself have told me who and what she is. You know that it is a
beautiful screen, with emptiness behind it. And in this vain deception
you think you will find what is deepest in the world--the Saviour, your
vision of the Saviour? Isn’t it as though you had delivered yourself
into the power of falseness itself?”
“No,” Weikhardt answered, “it is not. You don’t see far enough. Things
cohere together far more closely than you think. One body, one element,
one stream--each is more interwoven with all things than you realize.
The soulless emptiness in Sybil Scharnitzer’s breast is the reflection
of some light, and to me personally it is a concrete thing. If a form
deceives me, I am still grateful to it, for it forces me to create
its content from within myself; and the creative dream is the greater
thing. Can a blade of grass be a lie? Or a shell by the shore? And if I
were strong enough and guiltless enough and devout enough, it would be
given me to find in every blade and shell the compassion and the pain
of Christ. There is an element of chance in these things, or else some
dispensation.”
Helen did not contradict him.