The fossilized skull of a man, who lived more than a million years ago,
was recently unearthed in Patagonia, and it antedates by hundreds of
thousands of years any human relic previously discovered. Dr. J. G.
Wolfe, who brought news of the remarkable discovery to Buenos Aires, says
the fossilization was that of Tertiary sandstone, and this means the man
lived in the Tertiary Era, which ended before the Glacial Era began,
which in turn means the skull is considerably more than a million years
old. Except for the lower jaw, which is missing, the skull is almost
perfect. The eye sockets and the teeth sockets in the upper jaw are well
defined. The cranium is long and oval-shaped, the forehead extremely low
and sloping.
Ruins of an ancient fortified town were also discovered by the scientist
in the wild region north of Lake Cardiel, in the territory of Santa Cruz.
This he regards as the remnants of a civilization that was perhaps even
earlier than that of the Peruvian Incas. On one of the walls he found a
carving of an animal that resembled the extinct glyptodon.
_Anthony M. Rud’s Remarkable Story of an Insane Artist_
_A_ SQUARE _of_ CANVAS
“No, Madame, I am _not_ insane! I see you hide a smile. Never mind
attempting to mask the expression. You are a newcomer here and have
learned nothing of my story. I do not blame any visitor—the burden of
proof rests upon us, _n’est-ce-pas?_
“In this same ward you have met several peculiar characters, have you
not? We have a motley assemblage of conquerors, diplomats, courtesans
and divinities—if you’ll take their words for it. There is Alexander the
Great, Richelieu, Julius Caesar, Spartacus, Cleopatra—but no matter. _I_
have no delusion. I am Hal Pemberton.
“You start? You believe _this_ my delusion? Look closely at me! I have
aged, it is true, yet if you have glimpsed the Metropolitan gallery
portrait that Paul Gauguin did of me when I visited Tahiti...?”
I gasped, and fell back a pace. This silver-haired, kindly old soul
the mad genius, Pemberton? The temptation was strong to flee when I
realized that he told the truth! I knew the portrait, indeed, and for an
art student like myself there could be no mistaking the resemblance. I
stopped, half-turned. After all, they allowed him freedom of the grounds.
He could be no worse surely, than the malignant Cleopatra whom I just
had left playing with her “asp”—a five-inch garter snake she had found
crossing the gravel path.
“I—I believe you,” came my stammered reply.
What I meant, of course, was that no doubt could exist that he was,
certainly, Hal Pemberton. His seamed face lighted up; it was plain _he_
believed that establishment of identity made the matter of his detention
absurd.
“They have me registered as Chase—John Chase,” he confided. “Come! Would
a true story of an artist’s persecution interest you? It is a recital of
misunderstanding, bigotry....”
He left the sentence incomplete, and beckoned with a curl of his tapered,
spatulate index finger toward a bench set fair in the sunshine just
beyond range of blowing mists from the fountain.
I was tempted. A guard was stationed less than two hundred feet distant.
Notwithstanding the horrid and distorted legends which shrouded our
memories of this man—supposed to have died in far-off Polynesia—he could
not harm me easily before assistance was available. Beside, I am an
active, bony woman of the grenadier type. I waited until he sat down,
then placed myself gingerly upon the opposite end of the bench.
“You are the first person who has not laughed in my face when learning
my true identity,” he continued then, making no attempt to close the
six-foot gap between us—much to my comfort. “_Ignorance_ placed me here.
Ignorance keeps me. I shall give you every detail, Madame. Then you may
inform others and procure my release. The _cognoscenti_ will demand it,
once they know of the cruel intolerance which has stolen nine years
from my career and from my life. You know——” and here Pemberton glanced
guardedly about before he added in a whisper, “_they won’t let me paint!_
“My youth and training are known in part. Alden Sefferich’s brochure
dealt with the externals, at least. You have read it? Ah, yes! Dear Alden
knew nothing, really. When I look at his etchings of buildings—at his
word sketch of myself—I see behind the lines and letters to a great void.
“At best, he was an admirable camera equipped with focal-plane shutter
and finest anastigmatic lenses depicting three dimensions faithfully in
two, yet ignoring the most important fourth dimension of temperament and
soul as though it were as mythical as that fourth dimension played with
by mathematicians.
“It is not. Artistic inspiration—what the underworld calls _yen_—has
been my whole life. Beyond the technique and inspiration furnished
by Guarneresi, one might scrap the whole of tutelage and still have
left—myself, and the divine spark!
“I was one of the Long Island Pembertons. Two sisters still are living.
They are staid, respectable ladies who married well. To hell with them!
They _really_ believed that Hal Pemberton disgraced them, the nauseating
prigs!
“Our mother was Sheila Varro, the singer. Father was an unimaginative
sort, president of the Everest Life and Casualty Company for many years.
I mention these facts merely to show you there was no hereditary taint,
no connate reason for warped mentality such as they attribute to me. That
I inherited the whole of my poor mother’s artistic predilection there is
possibility for doubt, for she was brilliant always. I was a dullard in
my youth. It was only with education and inspiration that even a spark of
her divine creative fury came to me—but the story of that I shall reach
later.”
* * * * *
“As a boy, I hated school. Before the age of ten I had been expelled from
three academies, always on account of the way I treated my associates. I
was cruel to other boys, because lessons did not capture my attention.
Nothing quiet, static, like the pursuit of facts, _ever_ has done so.
“When I tired of sticking pins into younger lads, or pulling their
hair, I sought out one or another of my own size and fought with him.
Often—usually—I was trounced, but this never bothered. Hurt, blood and
heat of combat always were curiosities to me—impersonal somehow. As long
as I could stand on my feet I would punch for the nose or eyes of my
antagonist, for nothing delighted me like seeing the involuntary pain
flood his countenance, and red blood stream from his mashed nostrils.
“Father sent me to the New York public schools, but there I lasted only
six or seven weeks. I was not popular either with my playmates or with
the teachers, who complained of what they took to be abnormality. I had
done nothing except arrange a pin taken from the hat of one of the women
teachers where I thought it would do the most good. This was in the
sleeve of the principal’s greatcoat.
“When he slid in his right hand the long pin pierced his palm, causing
him to cry out loudly with pain. I did not see him at the moment, but I
was waiting outside his office at the time, and I gloated in my mind at
the picture of his stabbed hand, ebbing drops of blood where the blue
steel entered.
“I longed to rush in and view my work, but did not dare. Later, when by
some shrewd deduction they fastened the blame on me, Mr. Mortenson had
his right hand bandaged.
“Father gave up the idea of public school after this, and procured me a
tutor. He thought me a trifle deficient, and I suppose my attitude lent
color to such a theory. I tormented the three men who took me in hand,
one after the other, until each one resigned. I malingered. I shirked. I
prepared ‘accidents’ in which all were injured.
“It was not that I could not learn—I realized all along that simple tasks
assigned me by these men could be accomplished without great effort—but
that I had no desire to study algebra, geography and language, or other
dull things of the kind. Only zoology tempted in the least, and none of
the men I had before Jackson came was competent to do much of anything
with this absorbing subject.
“Jackson was the fourth, and last. He proved himself an earnest soul, and
something of a scientist. He tried patiently for a fortnight to teach me
all that Dad desired, but found his pupil responsive only when he gave me
animals to study. These, while alive, interested me.
“One day, after a discouraging session with my other studies, he left me
with some small beetles which he intended to classify on his return. It
was a hot day, and the little sheath-winged insects were stimulated out
of dormance to lively movement. I had them under a glass cover to prevent
their escape.
“Just to see how they acted, I took them out, one by one, and performed
slight operations upon parts of their anatomy with the point of my
pen-knife. One I deprived of wings, another lost two legs of many, a
third was deprived of antennae, and so on. Then I squatted close with a
hand-lens and eyed their desperate struggles.
“Here was _life_, _pain_, _struggle_—death close by, leering at the tiny
creatures. It fascinated me. I watched eagerly, and then, when one of the
beetles grew slower in moving, I stimulated it with the heated point of a
pin.
“At the time—I was then only sixteen years of age—I had no analytical
explanation of interest, but now I know that the artist in me was swept
through a haze of adolescence by sight of that most sincere of all the
struggles of life, the struggle against _death_!
“A fever raced in my blood. I knew the beetles could not last. An
instinct made me wish to preserve some form of record of their supreme
moment. I seized my pencil. I wrote a paragraph, telling how I would feel
in case some huge, omnipotent force should put me under glass, remove
my legs, stab me with the point of a great knife, a red-hot dagger, and
watch my writhings.
“The description was pale, colorless, of course. It did not satisfy, even
while I scribbled. As you may readily understand, I possessed no power of
literary expression; crude sentences selected at random only emphasized
the need of expression of a better sort. Without reasoning—indeed, many
a person would have considered me quite mad at the time—I tore a clean
sheet of paper from a thick tablet and fell to _sketching_ rapidly,
furiously!
“As with writing, I knew nothing of technique—I never had drawn a line
before—but the impelling force was great. Before my eyes I saw the
picture I wished to portray—the play of protest against death I drew the
death struggle....”
* * * * *
“By the time Jackson returned the fire had died out of me.
“The horrid sketch was finished, and all but one of the beetles lay, legs
upturned, under the glass. That one had managed to escape somehow, and
was dragging itself hopelessly across the table, leaving a wet streak of
colorless blood to mark its passing. Exhausted in body and mind. I had
collapsed in the nearest chair, not caring whether I, myself, lived or
died.
“Poor Jackson was horrified when he saw what I had done to the
_Coleptera_, and he began reproaching me for my needless cruelty. Just as
he was waxing eloquent, however, his eye caught sight of my crude sketch.
He stopped speaking.
“I saw him tremble, adjust his pince-nez and stare long at the poor
picture I had made, and then at the dead beetles. Finally, seeming in
a torment of anger, he read the paragraph of description, turning to
examine me with horror and amazement in his glance.
“Then, suddenly, he sprang to his feet, gripping the two sheets of paper
in his hands, swung about, and made off before I could rouse from my
lassitude sufficiently to question him. I never saw Jackson again. The
poor fool.
“An hour later father sent for me. I knew that the tutor had been to
see him, and I expected another of the terrible lectures I had been in
habit of receiving each time a new lack or iniquity made itself apparent
to others. On several occasions in the past father had flogged me, and
driven himself close to the verge of apoplexy because of his extreme
anger at what he deemed deliberate obstinacy. I feared whippings; they
sickened me. My knees were quaking as I went to his study.
“This time, however, it was plain that father had given up. He was pale,
weighed down with what must have been the great disappointment of his
life; but he neither stormed nor offered to chastise me. Instead he told
me quietly that Jackson had resigned, finding me impossible to instruct.
“In a few sentences father reviewed the efforts he had made for my
education, then stated that all the tutors had been convinced that my
lack of progress had been due more to a chronic disinclination for work
rather than to any innate defect of body or mind.
“‘So far,’ he told me, ‘you have refused steadfastly to accept
opportunity. Now we come to the end. Mr. Jackson has showed me a sketch
made by you in which he professes to see real talent. He advises that you
be sent abroad to study drawing or painting. Would you care for this last
chance? Otherwise I must place you in an institution of some kind, where
you no longer can bring disgrace and pain upon me—a reform school, in
short. I tell you frankly, Hal, that I am ready to wash my hands of you.’
“What could I do? I chose, of course, to go to Paris. Father made the
necessary arrangements for me to enter Guarneresi’s big studios as a
beginner, paying for a year in advance, and making me a liberal allowance
in addition.
“‘I shall not attempt to conceal from you, Hal,’ he told me at parting,
‘that I do not wish you to return. Your allowance will continue just
as long as you remain abroad. If, in time, a moderate success in some
line of endeavor comes to you I shall be glad to see you again, but not
before. The Pembertons never were failures or parasites.’
“Thus I left him. He died while I was in my third year at the studio, and
by his express wish I was not notified until after the funeral was over.
I wept over the letter that came, but only because of the knowledge that
now I never could make up in any way for the great sorrow I had caused my
father. Had he lived only ten years longer—and this would not have been
extraordinary, as he died at the age of fifty-two—I could have restored
some of that lost pride to him.”
* * * * *
“Is it necessary to tell of my years with Guarneresi? No; you confessed
some slight knowledge of me. Very well, I shall pass over them lightly.
Suffice it to say that here at last I found my forte. I could paint.
The _maestro_ never valued my efforts very highly, but he taught with
conscientious diligence nevertheless. In the use of sweeping line and
chiaroscuro I excelled the majority of his pupils, but in color I
exhibited no talent—in _his_ estimation, at least.
“It was strange, too, for through my mind at odd intervals swept riots
of crimson, orange and purple, which never could be mixed satisfactorily
upon my palette for any given picture. I told myself that the fault lay
as much in the subjects of my pictures as in myself—the excuse of a liar,
of course.
“There _was_ some excuse there, however. For instance, when we painted
nudes Guarneresi would assemble a half-dozen old hags with yellowed skin,
bony torsos and shriveled breasts, asking us to portray youth and beauty.
Instead of attempting to pin a fabric of imagination upon such skeletons,
I used to search out the more beautiful of the cocottes of the night
cafés, and bring with me to the studio the next day memories and hurried
sketches of poses in which I had seen them. This was more interesting,
but unsatisfactory withal.
“I had been five years in the studio, and had traveled three winters to
Sicily, Sardinia and Italy, before the first hint of a resolution of
my problem came to me. It was in the month of July, when north-loving
students take their vacations.
“I was alone in the vast studio one afternoon. Guarneresi himself was
absent, which accounted for the holiday taken by the faithful who
remained during the hot days. On one side of the room were the cages,
where the _maestro_ kept small live animals, used for models with
beginners. There were a few rabbits, a dozen white mice and a red fox.
“Wandering about, near to my wits’ end for inspiration to further work,
I chanced to see one of the rabbits looking in my direction. Rays of
sunlight, falling through the open skylight, caught the beast’s eyes in
such a manner that they showed to me as round discs of _glowing scarlet_.
“Never had I witnessed this phenomenon before, which I since have learned
is common. It had an extraordinary effect upon me. In that second I
thought of my delinquent boyhood, of dozens of cruel impulses since
practically forgotten—of the mutilated, dying beetles which had been
instrumental in embarking me upon an art career.
“Blood rose in torrents to my own temples. A fever consumed me. There was
life and _there could be death_. I could renew the inspiration of those
tortured beetles.”
* * * * *
“With agitated stealth, I glanced out into the empty hallway, locked the
door of the studio, drew four shades over windows through which I might
be seen, and crept to the rabbit cage.
“Opening it, I seized by the long ears the white-furred animal which
had stared at me. The warm softness of its palpitating body raised my
artistic desire to a frenzy. I pulled a table from the wall, and holding
down the animal upon it I drew my knife. Overcoming the mad, futile
struggles of the rabbit, I slit long incisions in the white back and
belly. The blood welled out....
“Perfect fury of delight sent me to my canvas. My fingers trembled as
I mixed the colors, but there was no indecision now, and no hint of
muddiness in the result. I painted....
“You perhaps have seen a reproduction of that picture? It was called
“THE LUSTS OF THE MAGI,” and now hangs in one of the Paris galleries.
Some day it will grace the Louvre. And all because our white rabbit had
sacrificed its heart’s blood.
“At eleven next morning Guarneresi himself, coming to the studio, found
me exhausted and asleep upon the floor. When he demanded explanations, I
pointed in silence to the finished picture upon my easel.
“I thought the man would go frantic. He regarded it for an instant, with
intolerance fading from his bearded face. Then his mouth gaped open, and
a succession of low exclamations in his native tongue came forth. His
raised hands opened and shut in the gesture I knew to mean unrestrained
delight.
“Suddenly he dashed to the easel, and, before I could offer resistance,
he snatched down my picture and ran with it out of the studio and down
the stairs into the narrow street. I followed, but I was not swift
enough. He had disappeared.
“In half an hour he returned with four brother artists who had studios
nearby. The others were more than lavish in their praise, terming my
picture the greatest masterpiece turned out in the Quarter for years.
Guarneresi himself was less demonstrative now, but I detected tears in
his eyes when he turned to me.
“‘The pupil has become the master,’ he said simply. ‘Go! I did not teach
you this, and I cannot teach you more. Always I shall boast, however,
that Signor Pemberton painted his first great picture in my studio.’
“The next day I rented a studio of my own and moved out my effects
immediately. I started to paint in earnest. There is little to relate of
the next few months. A wraith of the inspiration which had given birth
to my great picture still lingered, but I was no better than mediocre in
my work. True the experience and accomplishment had improved me somewhat
in use of color, but I learned the galling truth soon enough that never
could I attain that same fervor of artistry again—unless....
“After four months of ineffectual striving—during which time I completed
two unsatisfactory canvases—I yielded, and bought myself a second white
rabbit. What was my horror now to discover, when I treated the beast as I
had treated its predecessor, that no wild thrill of inspiration assaulted
me.
“I could mix and apply colors a trifle more gaudily, yet the suffering
and blood of this animal had lost its potent effect upon me. After a
day or two the solution occurred. _Lusts of The Magi_ had exhausted the
stimulus which rabbits could furnish.
“Disconsolate now, I allowed my work to flag. Though I knew in my heart
that the one picture I had done was splendid in its way, I hated to
believe that in it I had reached the peak of artistic production. Yet I
could arouse in myself no more than the puerile enthusiasm for methodical
slapping on of oils I so ridiculed in other mediocre painters. Finally I
stopped altogether, and gave myself over to a fit of depression, absinthe
and cigarettes.
“Guarneresi visited me one day, and finding me so badly in the dumps
prescribed fresh air and sunshine. As I refused flatly to travel, knowing
my ailment to be of the subjective sort, not cured by glimpses of
pastures new, he lent me his saddle mare, a fine black animal with white
fetlocks and a star upon her forehead. I agreed listlessly to ride her
each day.
“Three weeks slipped by. I had kept my promise—actually enjoying
the exercise—but without any of the beneficent results appearing. I
was in fair physical health—only a trifle listless—it is true, yet
whenever I set myself to paint a greater inhibition of spiritual and
mental weariness seemed to hold me back. Little by little, the ghastly
conviction forced itself upon me that as an artist I had shot my bolt.
“One day, when I was riding a league or two beyond Passy, I had occasion
to dismount and slake my thirst at a spring on which it was necessary to
break a thin crust of ice. Drinking my fill I led the mare to the spot,
and she drank also. In raising her head, however, a sharp edge of ice cut
her tender skin the distance of a quarter inch. There, as I watched, _I
saw red drops of blood gather on her cheek_.
“I cannot describe adequately the sensations that gripped me! In that
second I remembered the beetles and the rabbit; and I _knew_ that this
splendid animal had been given to me for no purpose other than to renew
the wasted inspiration within me. It was the hand of Providence.”
* * * * *
“Preparations soon were made. I obtained the use of a spacious
well-lighted barn in the vicinity, and put the mare therein while I
returned to Paris for canvases and materials. Then, when I was all ready
for work, I hobbled the mare with strong ropes, and tied her so she could
not budge. Then I treated her as I had treated the rabbit.
“Deep down I hated to inflict this pain, for I had grown to care for that
mare almost as one cares for a dear friend; but the fury of artistic
desire would not be denied.
“Next day, when all was over, I took the canvas in to Paris and showed it
to Guarneresi. He went into ecstasies, proclaiming that I had reawakened,
indeed. Yet when I told him of the mare and offered to pay his own price,
he became very white of countenance and drew himself up, shuddering.
“‘Any but as great a man as yourself, Signor,’ he shrilled, his cracked
old voice breaking with emotion, ‘I should _kill_ for that. Yourself are
without the law which would damn another, but _not_ outside the sphere of
undying hatred. You are great, but awful. _Go!_’
“I found, then, that no one wished to look at my picture. Guarneresi had
told the story to sympathetic friends, and it had spread like a fire in
spruce throughout the Quarter. I was ostracized, deserted by all who had
called me their friend.
“A month later, nearly broken in spirit, I came to New York. I was done
with Paris. Here in America none knew the story of my last painting, and
when it was put on exhibition the critics heralded it as greater far than
the finest production of any previous or contemporary American artist. I
sold it for twenty thousand dollars, which was a good price in those days.
“I was swept up on a tide of popularity. As you know, in this country
even the poorest works of a popular man are snatched up avidly. Criticism
seems to die when once a reputation is attained. I got rid of all the
canvases I had painted in Paris, and was besieged for portrait sittings
by society women of the city.
“Because I had no particular idea in mind for my next painting I did
allow myself to drift into this work. It was easy and paid immensely
well. Also I was called upon to exercise no ingenuity or imagination. All
I did was paint them as they came, two a week, and get rich, wasting five
years in the process.
“Then I fell in love. Beatrice was much younger than myself, just turned
nineteen at the time. I was first attracted to her because my eye always
seeks out the beautiful in face and form as if I were choosing models
among all the women I meet.
“She was slim of waist and of ankle, though with the soft curve of neck
and shoulder which intrigues an artist instantly. She was more mature
in some ways than one might have expected of her years—but the more
delightful for that reason.
“Her eyes were dark pools rippled by the breeze of each passing fancy.
The moment I looked into them I knew that wrench of the heart which
bespeaks the advent of the one great emotion. Many times before I
had thought myself in love, yet in company of Beatrice I wondered at
my self-deception. In the evening, as she sat beside me in a nook of
Sebastian’s Spice Gardens—you know, the great indoor reproduction of the
famous gardens of Kandy, Ceylon—I gloried in her beauty, and in the way
soft silk clung to her person. The desire for possession was intolerable
within me. Before parting I asked her, and for answer she lifted her
soft, white arms to my neck and met my lips with a caress in which I felt
the whole fervor of love. That was the sweetest and happiest moment of my
life.
“We married, and built ourselves a home upon Long Island. After three
months of honeymoon we settled there, more than ever in love with each
other if that were possible.
“A year sped by. Ten months of this I spent without lifting a brush to
canvas. It was idyllic, yet toward the last a sense of shame began to
pervade my mind. Was I of such weak fibre that the love of one woman must
stamp out all ambition, all desire for accomplishment?
“At the end of the year I was painting again, making portraits. The long
rest and happiness had made me impatient with such piffle, however. I had
all the money that either of us could need in our lifetime, so I could
not take the portraiture seriously. I dabbled with it another full year,
without once endeavoring to start a serious piece of work.
“Then, after Beatrice bore me a daughter, I began to lay plans for
continuing serious endeavor. It is useless to repeat the story of
those struggles. It was the same experience I had had after that first
successful picture.
“My technique now was as near perfection as I could hope to attain,
and the mere matter of color mixing I had learned from those two wild
flights of frenzy. I found myself, however, psychologically unable to
attack a subject smacking in the least of the gruesome—and that, of
course, always had been my talent and interest.”
* * * * *
“I rebelled against the instinct which urged me to try the experiment
of the mare again. In cold blood I hated the thought of it, and also I
feared, with a great sinking of the heart, that I should find no more
inspiration there even if I did repeat.
“I turned to landscape painting, choosing sordid, dirty or powerful
scenes. I painted the fish-and-milk carts on Hester Street, showing
the hordes of dirty urchins in the background playing on the pavement.
Somehow, the picture fell short of being really good, although I had no
difficulty in selling it.
“I portrayed, then, a street in the Ghetto on a rainy night, with
greasy mud shining on the cobblestones and the shapeless figure of a
man slouched in a doorway. This was called powerful—the ‘awakening of
an American Franz Hals’ one critic termed it—but I knew better. Beside
the work I _could_ do under powerful stimulus and inspiration, this was
slush, slime. I _hated_ it!
“Even waterscapes did not satisfy. I painted half of one picture
depicting two sooty, straining tugs bringing a great leviathan of a
steamer into harbor, but this I never finished. I felt as if I drooled at
the mouth while I was working.
“Thus two more years went by, happy enough when I was with Beatrice, but
sad and savage when I was by myself in the studio. My wife had blossomed
early into the full beauty of womanhood, and yet she retained enough of
modesty and reticence of self that I never wearied of her. Because up to
this time, when I turned thirty-three years of age, the powers of both
of us, physical and mental, had been on the increase, we still were
exploring the delights of love and true affection.
“There was an impelling force within me, however, which would not be
denied. I had been born to accomplish great things. Weak compromise, or
weaker yielding to delights of the mind and body, could but heap fresh
fuel on the flame which consumed me when I got off by myself. I fought
against it months longer, but in the end I had to yield. With fear and
trepidation struggling with ambition and lust within me, I took a trip
to a distant town of New York State, procured a fine, blooded mare, and
repeated the experiment which had lost me the friendship of Guarneresi
and my Parisian contemporaries.
“All in vain. Out of the hideous slaughter of the animal I obtained only
a single grim picture—a canvas which I painted weeks later, when the
shudder of revulsion in my frame had died down somewhat. I called the
picture ‘CANNIBALISM,’ for it showed African savages gorging themselves
on human flesh. It never sold, for the instant I placed it on exhibition
the art censors of New York threw it under ban—and, I believe, no one
really wanted the thing in his house.
“I did not like it myself, and finally, after much urging by my wife, I
burned it. This sacrifice, however, merely accentuated the fury in my
heart. I _must_ do better than that!
“Since I have told you of my other periods of frenzy and self-hatred,
I may pass over the ensuing month. One day the inspiration for my last
great picture came, and as with the second, through pure accident.
Beatrice was cutting weeds in the garden with a sickle, while I sat
cross-legged beside her, watching. I always could find surcease from
discontent in being near her, and watching the fine play of animal forces
in her supple body.
“The sickle slipped. Beatrice cried out, and I jumped to place a
handkerchief over the wound that lay open on her wrist, but not before my
eyes had caught the sight of the red blood bubbling out upon her satiny
skin.
“A madness leaped into my soul. My fingers trembled and a throbbing made
itself felt in my temples as I laved on antiseptic and bound a bandage
over the wound. This was the logical, the inevitable conclusion! She was
my mate; she was in duty bound to furnish inspiration for the picture I
must paint, my _masterpiece_.
* * * * *
“I of course, told Beatrice nothing of what was passing in my mind, but
went immediately about my preparations.
“I placed a cot in the studio, fastening strong straps to it. Then I made
ready a gag, and sharpened a keen Weiss knife I possessed until its edge
would cut a hair at a touch. Last I made ready my canvas.
“She came at my call. At first, when I seized her and tore off her
clothing she thought me joking, and protested, laughing. When I came to
placing the gag, and bound her arms and legs with strong straps, however,
the terror of death began to steal into her dark eyes.
“To show her that I loved her still, no matter what duty impelled me to
do, I kissed her hair, her eyes, her breast. Then I set to work....
“In a few minutes I was away and painting as I never had painted before.
A red stream dripped from the steel cot, down to the floor, and ran
slowly toward where I stood. It elated me. I felt the fire of a fervor of
inspiration greater than ever had beset me. I painted. _I painted!_ This
was my masterpiece.
“Drunk with the fury of creation, I threw myself on the floor in the
midst of the red puddle time and time again. I even dipped my brushes in
it. Mad with the delight of unstinted accomplishment, I kept on and on,
until late in the evening I heard my little daughter crying in her room
for the dinner she had not received. Then I went downstairs, laughing at
the horror I saw in the faces of the servants.
“They found Beatrice, of course. The servants ’phoned immediately for the
police. I fooled them all, however. I knew that they might do something
to me, such is the lack of understanding against which true artists
always must labor, so I took the canvas of my masterpiece and hid it in
a secret cupboard in the wall known only to myself. I did not care what
they did to me, but this picture, for which Beatrice had offered up her
love and life, was sacred.
“They came and took me away. Then ensued a terrible scandal, and some
foolish examinations of me in which I took not the slightest interest.
And then they put me here.
“I have not been in duress all the time, though. Oh, no! Three years
later some of my old friends contrived at escape, and secreted me away
to the South Seas. There they gave me a studio, meaning to allow me to
paint. I was guarded, though. They would not allow me full freedom.
“I painted, but I have not the slightest idea what was done with those
canvases. I had no interest in them personally. All I could think of now
was the one great masterpiece hidden in the cupboard of my old studio. I
wanted to see it, to glory in the flame of color and in the tremendous
conception itself.
* * * * *
“At last I gave my guards the slip, and after long wandering about in
native proas, made my way to this country again, to New York. I found the
canvas, and, rolling it, secreted it upon my person. Then I went out and
gave myself up to them. I was brought here again.
“Imprisonment was not important to me any more. I was getting old. Though
I would like to be released now it is a matter of less urgency than
before, because I have with me always my masterpiece. _See!_”
The old man tugged at something inside his blouse, and brought forth a
dirtied roll which he unsnapped with fingers that trembled in eagerness.
“See, Madame!” he repeated triumphantly.
And, before my horrified eyes, he unrolled _a blank square of white
canvas_!
[Illustration]
_Do You Want a Slice of Life from the Thirteenth Century? If so, Don’t
Fail to Read_