ARTHUR MERLIN'S GREAT PICTURE.
Arthur Merlin had sketched his great picture of Diana and Endymion a
hundred times. He talked of it with his friends, and smoked scores of
boxes of cigars during the conversations. He had completed what he called
the study for the work, which represented, he said, the Goddess alighting
upon Latmos while Endymion slept. He pointed out to his companions,
especially to Lawrence Newt, the pure antique classical air of the
composition.
"You know," he said, as he turned his head and moved his hands over the
study as if drawing in the air, "you know it ought somehow to seem
silent, and cool, and remote; for it is ancient Greece, Diana, and
midnight. You see?"
Then came a vast cloud of smoke from his mouth, as if to assist the eyes
of the spectator.
"Oh yes, I see," said every one of his companions--especially Lawrence
Newt, who did see, indeed, but saw only a head of Hope Wayne in a mist.
The Endymion, the mountain, the Greece, the antiquity, were all vigorous
assumptions of the artist. The study for his great picture was simply an
unfinished portrait of Hope Wayne.
Aunt Winnifred, who sometimes came into her nephew's studio, saw the
study one day, and exclaimed, sorrowfully,
"Oh, Arthur! Arthur!"
The young man, who was busily mixing colors upon his pallet, and humming,
as he smoked, "'Tis my delight of a shiny night," turned in dismay,
thinking his aunt was suddenly ill.
"My dear aunt!" and he laid down his pallet and ran toward her.
She was sitting in an armchair holding the study. Arthur stopped.
"My dear Arthur, now I understand all."
Arthur Merlin was confused. He, perhaps, suspected that his picture of
Diana resembled a certain young lady. But how should Aunt Winnifred know
it, who, as he supposed, had never seen her? Besides, he felt it was a
disagreeable thing, when he was and had been in love with a young lady
for a long time, to have his aunt say that she understood all about it.
How could she understand all about it? What right has any body to say
that she understands all about it? He asked himself the petulant question
because he was very sure that he himself did not by any means understand
all about it.
"What do you understand, Aunt Winnifred?" demanded Arthur, in a resolute
and defiant tone, as if he were fully prepared to deny every thing he was
about to hear.
"Yes, yes," continued Aunt Winnifred, musingly, and in a tone of profound
sadness, as she still held and contemplated the picture--"yes; yes! I
see, I see!"
Arthur was quite vexed.
"Now really my dear aunt," said he, remonstratingly, "you must be aware
that it is not becoming in a woman like you to go on in this way. You
ought to explain what you mean," he added, decidedly.
"Well, my poor boy, the hotter you get the surer I am. Don't you see?"
Mr. Merlin did not seem to be in the least pacified by this reply. It
was, therefore, in an indignant tone that he answered:
"Aunt Winnifred, it is not kind in you to come up here and make me lose
my time and temper, while you sit there coolly and talk in infernal
parables!"
"Infernal parables!" cried the lady, in a tone of surprise and horror.
"Oh, Arthur, Arthur! that comes of not going to church. Infernal
parables! My soul and body, what an awful idea!"
The painter smiled. The contest was too utterly futile. He went slowly
back to his easel, and, after a few soothing puffs, began again to rub
his colors upon the pallet. He was humming carelessly once more, and
putting his brush to the canvas before him, when his aunt remarked,
"There, Arthur! now that you are reasonable, I'll tell you what I meant."
The artist looked over his shoulder and laughed.
"Go on, dear aunt."
"I understand now why you don't go to our church."
It was a remark so totally unexpected that Arthur stopped short and
turned quite round.
"What do you mean, Aunt Winnifred?"
"I mean," said she, holding up the study as if to overwhelm him with
resistless proof, "I mean, Arthur--and I could cry as I say it--that you
are a Roman Catholic!"
Aunt Winnifred, who was an exemplary member of the Dutch Reformed Church,
or, as Arthur gayly called her to her face, a Dutch Deformed Woman, was
too simple and sincere in her religious faith to tolerate with equanimity
the thought that any one of the name of Merlin should be domiciled in the
House of Sin, as she poetically described the Church of Rome.
"Arthur! Arthur! and your father a clergyman. It's too dreadful!"
And the tender-hearted woman burst into tears.
But still weeping, she waved the picture in melancholy confirmation of
her assertion. Arthur was amused and perplexed.
"My dear aunt, what has put such a droll idea into your head?"
"Because--because," said Aunt Winnifred, sobbing and wiping her eyes,
"because this picture, which you keep locked up so carefully, is a
picture of the Holy Virgin. Oh dear! just to think of it!"
There was a fresh burst of feeling from the honest and affectionate
woman, who felt that to be a Roman Catholic was to be visibly sealed and
stamped for eternal woe. But there was an answering burst of laughter
from Arthur, who staggered to a sofa, and lay upon his back shouting
until the tears also rolled from his eyes.
His aunt stopped, appalled, and made up her mind that he was not only a
Catholic but a madman. Then, as Arthur grew more composed, he and his
aunt looked at each other for some moments in silence.
"Aunt, you are right. It is the Holy Virgin!"
"Oh! Arthur," she groaned.
"It is my Madonna!"
"Poor boy!" sighed she.
"It is the face I worship."
"Arthur! Arthur!" and his aunt despairingly patted her knees slowly with
her hands.
"But her name is not Mary."
Aunt Winnifred looked surprised.
"Her name is Diana."
"Diana?" echoed his aunt, as if she were losing her mind. "Oh! I beg your
pardon. Then it's only a portrait after all? Yes, yes. Diana who?"
Arthur Merlin curled one foot under him as he sat, and, lighting a fresh
cigar, told Aunt Winnifred the lovely legend of Latmos--talking of Diana
and Endymion, and thinking of Hope Wayne and Arthur Merlin.
Aunt Winnifred listened with the utmost interest and patience. Her nephew
was eloquent. Well, well, thought the old lady, if interest in his
pursuit makes a great painter, my dear nephew will be a great man. During
the course of the story Arthur paused several times, evidently lost in
reverie--perhaps tracing the analogy. When he ended there was a moment's
silence. Then Aunt Winnifred looked kindly at him, and said:
"Well?"
"Well," said Arthur, as he uncurled his leg, and with a half sigh, as if
it were pleasanter to tell old legends of love than to paint modern
portraits.
"Is that the whole?"
"That is the whole."
"Well; but Arthur, did she marry him after all?"
Arthur looked wistfully a moment at his aunt.
"Marry him! Bless you, no, Aunt Winnifred. She was a goddess. Goddesses
don't marry."
Aunt Winnifred did not answer. Her eyes softened like eyes that see days
and things far away--like eyes in which shines the love of a heart that,
under those conditions, would rather not be a goddess.