He kneels down before her, embraces her, and presses his head against
her breast, and she—in her heartlessness—laughs—and now I hear her
saying aloud:
“Ah! You need another application of the whip.”
“Woman! Goddess! Are you without a heart—can’t you love,” exclaimed the
German, “don’t you even know, what it means to love, to be consumed
with desire and passion, can’t you even imagine what I suffer? Have you
no pity for me?”
“No!” she replied proudly and mockingly, “but I have the whip.”
She drew it quickly from the pocket of her fur-coat, and struck him in
the face with the handle. He rose, and drew back a couple of paces.
“Now, are you ready to paint again?” she asked indifferently. He did
not reply, but again went to the easel and took up his brush and
palette.
The painting is marvellously successful. It is a portrait which as far
as the likeness goes couldn’t be better, and at the same time it seems
to have an ideal quality. The colors glow, are supernatural; almost
diabolical, I would call them.
The painter has put all his sufferings, his adoration, and all his
execration into the picture.
* * * * *
Now he is painting me; we are alone together for several hours every
day. To-day he suddenly turned to me with his vibrant voice and said:
“You love this woman?”
“Yes.”
“I also love her.” His eyes were bathed in tears. He remained silent
for a while, and continued painting.
“We have a mountain at home in Germany within which she dwells,” he
murmured to himself. “She is a demon.”
* * * * *
The picture is finished. She insisted on paying him for it,
munificently, in the manner of queens.
“Oh, you have already paid me,” he said, with a tormented smile,
refusing her offer.
Before he left, he secretly opened his portfolio, and let me look
inside. I was startled. Her head looked at me as if out of a mirror and
seemed actually to be alive.
“I shall take it along,” he said, “it is mine; she can’t take it away
from me. I have earned it with my heart’s blood.”
* * * * *
“I am really rather sorry for the poor painter,” she said to me to-day,
“it is absurd to be as virtuous as I am. Don’t you think so too?”