SUNDAY came; and with it a warm sun, a blue sky, a soft, southerly
breeze. It was one of those days, peculiar to our climate, which, though
they may fall in the middle of winter, bear the fragrance of April upon
their breath, and resuscitate for a moment in one's heart all the keen
emotions dead since last spring-time. Elias presented himself at the
Redwood house shortly after nine o'clock. Christine smiled upon him,
and gave him a warm little hand to press. Her father asked, “How about
costume? Want her to make up?” Elias said, “Oh, no; what she has on is
perfect.” That was a simple gown of some dark blue stuff, confined at
the waist by a broad band of cardinal ribbon. Her golden hair was caught
in a loose knot behind her ears. Elias set up his easel in the parlor.
Then he began the process of posing the model. This called for nice
discrimination, and was productive of much mirthful debate. At last it
was finished.
“Now,” said old Redwood, “this is altogether too fine a day for me to
spend cooped up in the house. I'll leave you two young folks to take
care of each other. I'm going to read my newspaper in the park. Sunday
don't come more than once a week, you understand. By-by, Chris. So long,
Mr. Bacharach.”
He went off.
For a while Elias worked in silence. So great was the pleasure that he
got from studying this young girl's beauty, and endeavoring to transfer
the elements of it to his canvas, that he never thought of how heavily
the time might lag for her. But all at once it occurred to him.
“Why,” he reflected, “I'm treating her for all the world as if she were
a paid model. This won't do. I must try to amuse her.”
Then he sought high and low for something to say, something that would
be at once appropriate and entertaining. In vain. His wits seemed to
have deserted him, his mind to have become a total and hopeless blank.
In order readily and happily to manufacture polite conversation, one
must have had experience. Elias had had none. Now, in despair, he saw
himself reduced to taking refuge in the weather.
“This--er--has been an unusually mild fall, Miss Redwood,” he ventured.
“Yes, very,” she acquiesced.
“But the summer--that was a scorcher, wasn't it?”
“Yes, indeed, dreadful,” she assented.
“You spent it in the country, I suppose?”
“Oh, no; we staid in the city.”
“Ah, did you? So did I.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes.”
He waited for her to go on, but she did not go on. With a sense of deep
discouragement, he concluded that he had entered a cul-de-sac. He must
begin anew, and upon another topic.
Presently, “I hope you are not getting tired,” he said. “Don't hesitate
to rest as often as you like.”
“Oh, thank you, no; I'm not tired yet,” she answered.
“Generally,” he announced, standing off, closing one eye, and taking
an observation over the end of his crayon, “generally people who aren't
used to it, find sitting very irksome; and even regular models,
whose business it is, want to get up every now and then, and stretch
themselves. But the painter himself never wearies.”
“Because he is so interested in his work, I suppose?”
“Yes, of course. Why, sometimes, of a summer day, I've painted for
thirteen or fourteen hours at a stretch--from dawn till sunset--and then
only been sorry that I could paint no more.”
“It must be delightful to have an occupation like that--one that is a
constant source of pleasure. It's the same, isn't it, with all kinds of
artists--with musicians and sculptors?”
“Yes, and writers. I know a man who is a writer--writes stories and
poems and that sort of thing--and his wife says she has to use main
force to get him to leave his manuscripts. Writers have the advantage of
painters in one respect--they don't need daylight. Indeed, I think many
of them like lamp-light better. The lamp is sort of emblematic of their
calling, just as the palette is of ours. I have read somewhere of quite
a celebrated novelist--I forget his name--an Englishman, I believe--who
shuts his blinds, and lights the gas, and works by gaslight even in
broad day. That's curious, isn't it?”
“And foolish, besides; because they say it's very unhealthful and very
bad for the eyes. I should think his novels would be awfully morbid.”
“I used to paint by gaslight when I was at the League. But I don't any
more. It doesn't pay. In the daytime your colors all look false and
unwholesome--hectic--as if they had the consumption. Of course, if
you're merely sketching, or working in black and white, it's different.”
“Did you study at the League?”
“Yes; and also under Stainar, in his studio.”
“Stainar? At Paris?”
“Oh, no; in New York. What little I know I have learned here in New
York.”
“Why, I thought every body had to study abroad--at Paris or Munich or
Düsseldorf.”
“They don't exactly _have_ to. You can get very good instruction here.
Stainar is a capital master; and there are others. Of course, it's
desirable to study abroad, too. But I couldn't very well. I have never
been further than fifty or a hundred miles from this city in my life.”
“Why, how strange! I haven't either. But then, I'm a girl. You're a man.
I should think you would have traveled.”
“It was on account of my mother. She was a great stay-at-home; and I
never felt like leaving her. Since her death--two years ago--I haven't
had any wish to travel. I haven't had the heart for it.”
After a little pause, Christine asked softly, “Have you any brothers or
sisters?”
“No, none. And my father died when I was a baby. So, except for me, my
mother was quite alone. To be sure, she had my uncle, the rabbi; but
he's not much company.”
“Oh, have you an uncle who is a rabbi?”
“Yes--Dr. Gedaza, of the Congregation Gates of Pearl, in Seventeenth
Street.”
“How interesting! Tell me, what is he like?”
“Why, I don't know. How do you mean?”
“What does he look like? And his character?”
“Well, he's a little old gentleman, a widower. He wears spectacles, and
he's got a bald head. He knows an' awful lot of theology, but in point
of worldly wisdom he's as deficient as a child. Sometimes he's fairly
good-natured, sometimes very severe. Generally he's absent-minded--up in
the clouds.”
“Has he a long white beard?”
“He has a beard; but it's neither long nor white. It's short and
black--though there may be a few white hairs scattered through it. There
ought to be, considering his age. He's--Let me see. He's ten years older
than my mother; and she was thirty years older than I. That would make
him sixty-six.”
“I have never seen a rabbi; but I always thought they had long white
beards, and wore gowns, and looked mysterious and awe-inspiring, like
astrologers or alchemists.”
“There's nothing mysterious about my uncle,” said Elias, laughing,
“unless it be his prodigious learning; and nothing awe-inspiring, except
his temper. That's pretty quick. He wears an ordinary black coat
and white cravat, like a Protestant minister's. You'd take him for a
Protestant minister if you should pass him in the street.”
“And he isn't at all patriarchal or picturesque?”
“Alas, no; not that I have been able to discover.”
“Oh, dear; how disappointing!”
After another little pause, Christine said: “I haven't any brothers or
sisters, either; and my mother died when I was three years old; and my
father is a great home-body, too. Isn't it strange that our lives should
have been so much alike? Only, you're a man and an artist; and I'm
a girl and have nothing to do but to keep house. I wish I loved
housekeeping as you do painting. But I don't; I hate it.”
“That's too bad. But then, it doesn't take up all your time, and it
doesn't cause you such an endless deal of worry and discouragement as
painting does. You have plenty of time left in which to read, and see
your friends, and enjoy life.”
“Oh, no, I don't. You have no idea how many miserable little things
there are to be done. And we only keep one servant. And she's so stupid
that I have to be standing over her all day long. It's like a regular
business--almost.”
She had thrown a good deal of feeling into these utterances; had
emphasized them by bending forward, and lifting her face toward her
hearer's; and by this time she was completely out of pose.
Didn't she think she'd like to rest a little now? Elias asked.
She thought she _would_ like to, for a few minutes, she said; and
getting up, she crossed over and looked at Elias's canvas. All she could
see were a few straggling charcoal lines.
“Oh,” she queried, “is that the way you begin?”
“Yes; I must sketch every thing in in black, first.”
“But how long will that take?”
“That depends upon how often you let me come.”
“Well, if you come every Sunday?”
“Oh, it will take three or four weeks--may be more.”
“And then, how long before the picture will be finished?”
“I can't tell exactly; but if we only have one sitting a week, probably
not till spring.”
“Oh,” she said, and said it with an inflection which Elias construed to
be that of disappointment.
“Why, did you wish to have it finished earlier?” he asked.
“Oh, no; I don't care about that. I wasn't thinking of that,” she
answered, but still with an inflection which made Elias feel that her
contentment had been disturbed. He wondered whether he had said any
thing indiscreet, any thing to hurt or to offend her. He could remember
nothing.
She resumed her pose. He could not have told what it was, but there was
something in her bearing which prompted him to ask: “Is the position
uncomfortable?” and to urge: “Don't sit any more to-day, if you would
rather not.”
“Oh, no; the position isn't uncomfortable. I'd just as soon sit,” was
her reply, in the same unhappy tone of voice.
Now, what could the matter be? What had happened to annoy her?
“Please, Miss Redwood,” Elias pleaded, “please be frank with me. Perhaps
I am keeping you from something?”
Her eyes were fixed dreamily upon the window-pane behind his shoulder.
“I was only thinking,” she confessed in a slow, pensive manner, “of what
a beautiful day it is, and that”--She stopped herself.
“And that--”
“That's all. Nothing else.”
“Oh, yes, there was. Please tell me. And that--?”
“And that--now the winter is upon us--that we shan't have many more like
it. There.”
“Ah, I see! And you were longing to be out of doors, enjoying it. No
wonder.”
She colored up and began protesting.
“Oh, really, Mr. Bacharach; no, indeed--”
“Oh, yes, you were. No use denying it. And so far as I'm concerned, I've
done a good morning's work already. And, I propose that we go and join
your father in the park--if you know where to find him?”
“Oh, yes, I know where to find him. Shall I put on my things? One
sitting, more or less--if it's going to take so very, very long--won't
count, will it?”
A few moments later they had entered the park, and were sauntering down
a sunlit pathway. Christine's hair glowed like a web of fine flames.
Roses bloomed in her cheeks. Her eyes sparkled. She vowed that there had
never before been such a delicious day. How soft the air was, and yet
how crisp! How sweet it smelled! How exquisitely the leafless branches
of the trees, gilded by the sunshine, were penciled against the deep
blue of the sky! The sunshine transfigured every thing. What rich
and varied colors it brought out upon the landscape! What reds, what
purples, what yellows! Had Mr. Bacharach ever seen any thing equal to
it? Was it not a keen pleasure merely to breathe, merely to exist, upon
such a day? By and by they turned a corner, and came upon a bench.
“Oh,” exclaimed Christine, halting abruptly, “he's not here.”
“Who?” Elias asked.
“Why, my father.”
“Oh, to be sure; I had forgotten.”
“This is his favorite bench. He always sits here. Now, what can have
become of him?”
“Perhaps he has walked on a little.”
“I suppose he has. But he can't have gone far. He never does. We'll soon
overtake him.”
At the end of another quarter hour, however, they had not yet overtaken
him.
“I'm afraid we've missed him,” she said; “though it's very strange,
because he never goes anywhere else, but just in this direction. I think
we may as well give up the search. But I'm a little tired, and would you
mind sitting down and resting for a moment before turning back?”
“I should like nothing better; only, I must warn you that I haven't the
remotest notion how we are to find our way out of here. The paths we
have taken have been so crooked, I've entirely lost my reckoning.”
“Ah, but I--I know the park by heart. I could find my way anywhere in
it, blindfold, I think.”
“Indeed? How did you get so well acquainted?”
“Oh, we've lived within a stone's throw of it all my life. When I was
a little girl I used to play here. Then I had to cross it twice a day,
when I went to the Normal College. And since then I've made a practice
of taking long walks here every afternoon. There's scarcely a tree or
stone that I'm not familiar with; and I've discovered lots of delightful
little places--nooks and corners--that nobody else suspects the
existence of. Sometime I'd like to show you some of them. They'd be
splendid to paint.”
By this time they were seated.
“Oh, thank you,” said Elias, “that will be charming. And so, you went to
the Normal College?”
“Yes; I graduated there last spring.”
“Graduated! Why, I shouldn't have thought you were old enough!”
“How old do you think I am?”
“Seventeen?”
“Oh, ever so much older. Guess again.”
“Eighteen, then?”
“I'll be nineteen in January--January third--just one month from
to-day.”
“Mercy! You're very venerable, to be sure. And then, having graduated
from the Normal College, what an immense deal of wisdom you must
possess, too!”
She laughed as gayly as though he had perpetrated a rare witticism; and
then said, “No, seriously, I never learned much at the Normal College--I
mean in the classes--except a lot of mathematics and Latin, which
I've forgotten all about now. I learned a little from the other girls,
though. Some of them were wonderfully intelligent and cultivated; and
they put me on the track of good books and such things. Shall we start
home now?” (They rose and began to retrace their steps.) “Tell me, Mr.
Bacharach, what is the one book which you like best of all?”
“That's rather a hard question. Suppose I were to put it to you, could
you answer it?”
“Oh, yes. I think 'Adam Bede' is the greatest book that was ever
written.”
“That's saying a vast deal, isn't it?”
“Well, of course, I mean the greatest book of its kind--the most
vivid and truthful picture of real deep feeling. I wasn't thinking of
scientific books, or essays, or histories, like Spencer, or Emerson, or
Macaulay. I mean, it pierces-deeper into the heart, than any other book
that I have read.”
“Have you ever read 'Wilhelm Meister?'”
“No. I was going to, though. One of the girls lent me a copy---Carlyle's
translation. She said it was splendid. But when my father saw it he made
me give it back. He holds very old-fashioned ideas of literature, you
know; and he says that Goethe is demoralizing. His taste in music is
old-fashioned, too. He never _will_ take me to hear good music. It
bores him dreadfully. He likes to go to grand sacred concerts on Sunday
evening, where they play Strauss and Offenbach, and then at the end
'Home, Sweet Home.' Strauss and Offenbach and even 'Home, Sweet Home'
are very well of their kind; but one tires of them after a while, don't
you think so? I haven't been at a Symphony or Philharmonic for more than
a year.”
“Why don't you go to the rehearsals?”
“Why, he won't take me to the rehearsals, any more than to the
concerts.”
“But you can go to them alone. They're in the afternoon.”
“Oh, but I can't bear to hear music alone. I I must have somebody with
me, or else I don't enjoy it at all. I always want somebody to nudge,
when the music is especially thrilling; don't you?”
“Yes, one longs for a sympathetic neighbor,” Elias admitted; and thought
in his own soul, “I wish the old man would deputize me; it must be
exceedingly pleasant to be nudged by her little elbow.”
When they had reached the house, Christine asked him whether he wouldn't
come in for a little while; and he replied that he guessed he would,
for the purpose of putting away his paraphernalia, which he had left
cluttering up the parlor. Inside they found old Redwood, who explained
that he had departed from his custom that morning, and chosen quite a
different quarter of the park for his outing. Elias stowed his things
under the piano. As he was doing so, a bell rang below stairs.
“Dinner,” announced the old man. “Come, Mr. Bacharach.”
Elias began to make his excuses.
“Oh, none o' that!” the old man cried, grasping Elias's arm. “Come down
and take pot-luck; and may good digestion wait on appetite.”
Pretty soon Elias found himself installed at Redwood's table, with
Christine beaming upon him from one end, and the old man carving a
turkey at the other.
“Well, I declare, Chris, this is quite jolly, ain't it? To have company
to dinner! We two--she and I, Mr. Bacharach--we generally dine alone;
and as we've told each other about all either of us knows, time and
time again, we don't find it particularly lively; do we, Chris? Now, Mr.
Bacharach, I know that you Israelites--excuse me--you foreigners--don't
drink ice-water with your meals; but as I haven't got any wine to offer
you, I'll send out for some beer. Mary!”
The maid appeared; and old Redwood instructed her to purchase a quart of
beer at the corner liquor store. “You'll have to go in by the side-door,
Mary, because it's Sunday. And if any policeman should ask what you've
got in the pitcher, tell him it's milk. Don't be afraid. If he takes you
up, I'll go bail for you. Ha-ha-ha!”
“_Father!_” cried Christine, with a glance at once beseeching and
reproachful.
“Beer,” the old man continued, moderating his hilarity, and adopting a
commentative tone, “beer is a great drink, mild, refreshing, wholesome.
And it's done a sight of good for temperance, too--more than all your
total abstinence orators and blue-rib-bonites put together. I'm very
fond of it, and always drink it with my lunch, down-town. There's a
saloon just under my shop. But Chris there, she can't abide it,
on account of the bitter. She likes wine--and wine--not being a
capitalist--I call an extravagance.”
“Yes,” said Christine, “I think wine is perfectly delicious; and
so pretty to look at, with its deep red or yellow. Once a friend of
father's sent us a whole box of wine--Rhine wine--and----”
“And,” old Redwood interrupted, “and that innocent appearing young woman
there, sir, she disposed of every blessed drop of it; she did, for a
fact. What do you think of that?”
“Oh, father,” protested Christine, blushing beautifully, “you ought not
to say such a thing. Mr. Bacharach might believe you.”
“Well, any how, I wish we had some of it left to offer you, Mr.
Bacharach,” said Redwood. “But here comes the beer.”
“Oh, by the way,” put in Elias, addressing himself to Christine, “did
you know? They're going to give the 'Damnation of Faust' at the Symphony
rehearsal Friday afternoon--the great work of Berlioz. Have you ever
heard it?”
“No; but I have heard selections from it. I wish”--bringing her eyes to
bear upon her father--“I wish I could go.”
“Well, why don't ye? Who's to prevent ye?”
“Will you take me?”
“Not I. But, Great Scott, what's the use of being a pretty young girl if
you've got to drag your aged father around after you? Why don't you get
some young man? I'll bet there are twenty young fellows in this town,
who'd only be too glad. But she, Mr. Bacharach, she scares them all
away, with her high and mighty manners. She's too particular. She'll die
an old maid, mark my words.”
Elias caught a glimpse of a golden opportunity. “I wish, Miss Redwood,
I wish you would go with me,” he ventured, a little timidly, and waited
anxiously for her response.
“There you are, Chris!” cried her father. “There's your chance!
But”--turning to Elias--“but she won't. You see if she will.”
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Bacharach? That's lovely. I'll go with the very
greatest pleasure.”
Her eyes lighted up; and leaving her seat, she ran around the table, and
deposited a wholly irrelevant kiss upon her father's forehead.
“Ha-ha-ha!” laughed that gentleman, clapping his hands. “You're the
first young fellow I've seen, Mr. Bacharach, who she thought was good
enough for her. By George, Chris, there's hope for you, after all.”
“Oh,” cried Christine, “I'm so glad. I never wanted any thing more in
my life, than I did to hear the--the--it sounds awfully profane, doesn't
it?--'Damnation of Faust.'”
“Well, now,” said the old man, “there's nothing like killing two birds
with one stone. So what I propose is this: I propose that you come up
here Friday forenoon, Mr. Bacharach; and then you can work for a while
at her portrait. Afterward she'll give you a bite of lunch--won't ye,
Chris?--and you can tote her off to the concert. By the way, where does
it take place? At the Academy?”
“No; at Steinway Hall.”
“And when does it let out?”
“At about half-past four, I think.”
“All right. Then I'll meet you at the door when it's over--my shop, you
know, is just around the corner--I'll meet you at the door and save you
the trouble of bringing her home. How does that suit, eh?”
“Very well,” said Elias; but he thought that he should not have minded
the trouble of bringing her home.
*****
When he returned to the quiet, dark house on Stuyvesant Square, late
that afternoon, he sat down at the big window of his studio, and went
over the happenings of the day. He felt wonderfully lighthearted,
wonderfully elated, as though he had drunken of some subtle stimulant.
What a pleasant, interesting city New York was, after all! How
thoroughly one could enjoy one's self in it! The noises of it, mingling
in a confused, continuous rumble, and falling upon his ears, sounded
like the voice of a good old friend. It was an old friend's face that
greeted him, as he looked out upon the bare trees in the park. Every
now and then he drew a deep, tremulous, audible breath. The colors faded
from the sky. Dusk gathered. The bell of St. George's Church rang to
vespers. The street lamps were lighted. It got dark. Elias did not stir.
“Oh, what a sweet, natural, beautiful girl!” he was soliloquizing. “And
what a rough old bear of a father! And what--what a heavenly time we'll
have on Friday!”
He marveled at himself, it gave him such a swift, exultant thrill to
think of Friday; but the obvious psychological explanation of it, he
never once suspected.