I
Opposite the chapel of Saint Sebalt in Nuremberg, at the corner of
Trabaus Street, there stands a little tavern, tall and narrow, with a
toothed gable and dusty windows, whose roof is surmounted by a
plaster Virgin. It was there that I spent the unhappiest days of my
life. I had gone to Nuremberg to study the old German masters; but
in default of ready money, I had to paint portraits--and such
portraits! Fat old women with their cats on their laps, big-wigged
aldermen, burgomasters in three-cornered hats--all horribly bright
with ochre and vermilion. From portraits I descended to sketches,
and from sketches to silhouettes.
Nothing is more annoying than to have your landlord come to you every
day with pinched lips, shrill voice, and impudent manner to say:
"Well, sir, how soon are you going to pay me? Do you know how much
your bill is? No; that doesn't worry you! You eat, drink, and sleep
calmly enough. God feeds the sparrows. Your bill now amounts to two
hundred florins and ten kreutzers--it is not worth talking about."
Those who have not heard any one talk in this way can form no idea of
it; love of art, imagination, and the sacred enthusiasm for the
beautiful are blasted by the breath of such an attack. You become
awkward and timid; all your energy evaporates, as well as your
feeling of personal dignity, and you bow respectfully at a distance
to the burgomaster Schneegans.
One night, not having a sou, as usual, and threatened with
imprisonment by this worthy Mister Rap, I determined to make him a
bankrupt by cutting my throat. Seated on my narrow bed, opposite the
window, in this agreeable mood, I gave myself up to a thousand
philosophical reflections, more or less comforting.
"What is man?" I asked myself. "An omnivorous animal; his jaws,
provided with canines, incisors, and molars, prove it. The canines
are made to tear meat; the incisors to bite fruits; and the molars to
masticate, grind and triturate animal and vegetable substances that
are pleasant to smell and to taste. But when he has nothing to
masticate, this being is an absurdity in Nature, a superfluity, a
fifth wheel to the coach."
Such were my reflections. I dared not open my razor for fear that
the invincible force of my logic would inspire me with the courage to
make an end of it all. After having argued so finely, I blew out my
candle, postponing the sequel till the morrow.
That abominable Rap had completely stupefied me. I could do nothing
but silhouettes, and my sole desire was to have some money to rid
myself of his odious presence. But on this night a singular change
came over my mind. I awoke about one o'clock--I lit my lamp, and,
enveloping myself in my gray gabardine, I drew upon the paper a rapid
sketch after the Dutch school--something strange and bizarre, which
had not the slightest resemblance to my ordinary conceptions.
Imagine a dreary courtyard enclosed by high dilapidated walls. These
walls are furnished with hooks, seven or eight feet from the ground.
You see, at a glance, that it is a butchery.
On the left, there extends a lattice structure; you perceive through
it a quartered beef suspended from the roof by enormous pulleys.
Great pools of blood run over the flagstones and unite in a ditch
full of refuse.
The light falls from above, between the chimneys where the
weathercocks stand out from a bit of the sky the size of your hand,
and the roofs of the neighboring houses throw bold shadows from story
to story.
At the back of this place is a shed, beneath the shed a pile of wood,
and upon the pile of wood some ladders, a few bundles of straw, some
coils of rope, a chicken-coop, and an old dilapidated rabbit-hutch.
How did these heterogeneous details suggest themselves to my
imagination? I don't know; I had no reminiscences, and yet every
stroke of the pencil seemed the result of observation, and strange
because it was all so true. Nothing was lacking.
But on the right, one corner of the sketch remained a blank. I did
not know what to put there.... Something suddenly seemed to writhe
there, to move! Then I saw a foot, the sole of a foot.
Notwithstanding this improbable position, I followed my inspiration
without reference to my own criticism. This foot was joined to a
leg--over this leg, stretched out with effort, there soon floated the
skirt of a dress. In short, there appeared by degrees, an old woman,
pale, disheveled, and wasted, thrown down at the side of a well, and
struggling to free herself from a hand that clutched at her throat.
It was a murder scene that I was drawing. The pencil fell from my
hand.
This woman, in the boldest attitude, with her thighs bent on the curb
of the well, her face contracted by terror, and her two hands
grasping the murderer's arm, frightened me. I could not look at her.
But the man--he, the person to whom that arm belonged--I could not
see him. It was impossible for me to finish the sketch.
"I am tired," I said, my forehead dripping with perspiration; "there
is only this figure to do; I will finish it to-morrow. It will be
easy then."
And I went to bed again, thoroughly frightened by my vision.
The next morning, I got up very early. I was dressing in order to
resume my interrupted work, when two little knocks were heard on my
door.
"Come in!"
The door opened. An old man, tall, thin, and dressed in black,
appeared on the threshold. This man's face, his eyes set close
together and his large nose like the beak of an eagle, surmounted by
a high bony forehead, had something severe about it. He bowed to me
gravely.
"Mister Christian Vénius, the painter?" said he.
"That is my name, sir."
He bowed again, adding:
"The Baron Frederick Van Spreckdal."
The appearance of the rich amateur, Van Spreckdal, judge of the
criminal court, in my poor lodging, greatly disturbed me. I could
not help throwing a stealthy glance at my old worm-eaten furniture,
my damp hangings and my dusty floor. I felt humiliated by such
dilapidation; but Van Spreckdal did not seem to take any account of
these details; and sitting down at my little table:
"Mister Vénius," he resumed, "I come--" But at this instant his
glance fell upon the unfinished sketch--he did not finish his phrase.
I was sitting on the edge of my little bed; and the sudden attention
that this personage bestowed upon one of my productions made my heart
beat with an indefinable apprehension.
At the end of a minute, Van Spreckdal lifted his head:
"Are you the author of that sketch?" he asked me with an intent look.
"Yes, sir."
"What is the price of it?"
"I never sell my sketches. It is the plan for a picture."
"Ah!" said he, picking up the paper with the tips of his long yellow
fingers.
He took a lens from his waistcoat pocket and began to study the
design in silence.
The sun was now shining obliquely into the garret. Van Spreckdal
never said a word; the hook of his immense nose increased, his heavy
eyebrows contracted, and his long pointed chin took a turn upward,
making a thousand little wrinkles in his long, thin cheeks. The
silence was so profound that I could distinctly hear the plaintive
buzzing of a fly that had been caught in a spider's web.
"And the dimensions of this picture, Mister Vénius," he said without
looking at me.
"Three feet by four."
"The price?"
"Fifty ducats."
Van Spreckdal laid the sketch on the table, and drew from his pocket
a large purse of green silk shaped like a pear; he drew the rings of
it--
"Fifty ducats," said he, "here they are."