Mr. Walter Anthon had cultivated his little garden of aspirations
industriously and with flattering results. He had lately been taken on
as an occasional writer for the _Standard_ and was intimate with the
younger gods who supported the _New National_ review. To his surprise
his American birth had facilitated his course: it was easier to be
nice to an American (as Lady Dorant had frankly told him) than to one
of your own people, for you weren’t responsible for the stranger if
you took him up. Again to his surprise he had found that the London
world took seriously his newspaper articles on European traits. These
outpourings of his first two years in London had just appeared in book
form. And he had come to his family straight from Norwood, the home of
the great novelist Maxwell.
Neither his family, nor Yvette Guilbert,--nor yet the custom of
showing himself in Paris once in so often,--had brought him across the
channel. He was eager to see Miss Molly Parker, who had occupied his
heart intermittently during his calf years in America. One visit, he
reflected as he waited in the chill salon of the Passy villa, would
probably satisfy whatever sentiment had survived.
“Well, well, it is _so_ nice to see _you_, and here in Europe,” Miss
Parker emitted her welcome as she half ran down the long room. The
clear, soft tones that seemed always to carry a caress, or rather a
pervading sensation of warmth, invigorated the most commonplace words.
Walter Anthon had always felt the immediate charm, but when once away
he recalled the words, it was impossible to find anything not merely
ordinary. The woman created something original out of the simple events
and words of dull life. When she had disappeared the creation fell into
emptiness.
The creating power lay in the slight, well-defined form, in the fine
hair--that just missed being red gold--which waved over the high
brows and played with the ears and neck, and in the little curves of
fulness of the cheeks and neck, above all in the full grey-blue eyes
which took such an absorbing interest in all things. She was a woman,
now and always,--that fact so dominant in her presence eliminated any
discussion of beauty. Some people, unimaginative and literal, called
her plain, and talked about hands and feet and a waist much too ample,
and features too heavy, and many other details, but those who had
suffered her charm and remembered it, smiled--_she_ would inspire a
scarecrow.
“And how do you do, after all these months?” In the warmth of her
special welcome Anthon forgot the little arrangement about his attitude
to Miss Parker which he had made with himself. “I came from London to
see you.”
“No, not really.” Miss Parker laughed as if it were a delicious fib,
but one she would like to believe. “That was very good of you!”
“You were going out?”
“Yes, and we will go together. To the Louvre. Just think, I have been
here six weeks, and I have peeped into the Louvre but once. Mrs.
Ormiston Dexter--she’s my aunt whom I am travelling with--has been so
miserable, and the children all had to go to the dentist’s. But we
shall have such a beautiful time--you will take me to see just what is
best. I like to be shown things so!” Her eager eyes looked out like
a child’s over the prospect of a new toy. “Tell me about your year
in London. What have you been doing? You never sent me any of your
articles.”
Anthon twisted his moustache and evaded the last reproach.
“I’ve met a lot of people, the right kind, who are in things,” and he
detailed a list of names naïvely. “They have been awfully kind and nice
to me.”
“Of course,” Miss Parker responded slyly. She was so sympathetic, Mrs.
Ormiston Dexter declared, that she would hobnob with the devil and take
his views of the universe--for the time.
“So you will be a big literary man, and write books or become an editor
and live in London.”
“Not so fast,” the young man protested. “You will make me poet laureate
before you are done. I’m on the road, that is all. Now I must do
something good, really good, you know, to justify all the belief those
fellows have in me. But I knew enough not to stay in America. It’s the
only way, to come over here and get in, get to be known and have your
work talked about by the world, not write for the provinces.”
“That’s us?” Miss Parker inquired.
“Not you,” Anthon smiled; “you belong to the woods.”
“Thank you! You mean the backwoods.”
“And you?” Anthon asked.
“We’ve done Germany and northern Italy. So many hotels and people and
pictures and towns and cities. It has been _great_!” Anthon could
see her at the Grand Hotel this or that, calling all the lap-dogs by
their pet names, and on good terms with nearly every comer, from the
fat Polish countess to the gentlemanly English loafer. “But Italy was
best,” her eyes softened dreamily. “The dear people, with their fat
little babies, and those stagey mountains. It was like going to the
opera all day long. Shall we start?”
Miss Parker chatted briskly at him, unawed by his importance, while
they crawled down the Champs Elysées on the _imperiale_ of an omnibus.
She had scoffed at the idea of taking a cab, and forced Anthon to run
the risk of being observed by his acquaintances as he swayed to and
fro and clutched at his tall hat. It took them a good while to escape
the importunate guides, the venders of photographs, and the other
obstructions that beset the great palace.
“It’s like a dance-hall outside and a tomb in,” Miss Parker reflected.
“All these bronzes in this heavy-arched room are such a cold welcome.
They seem like a procession of the dead drawn up to receive you.”
When they came to the grand staircase, with its glorious crown of the
Niké, Anthon brought out some classical learning to amuse his companion
with.
“What a lovely body, and what splendid wings, real angels’ wings,” she
exclaimed unheedingly.
They paused before the mutilated Botticelli frescos, and spent some
minutes tracing out the dim outlines of figures, until he persisted in
comparing her with the virgin being led to the altar. Then they idly
sauntered into the neighbouring French rooms, those succeeding caverns
of past echoes, each one with its special manner, its own atmosphere,
its individual way of putting together the minute details of life.
Here and there were copyists, lazily working, chiefly old women and
men,--antiquated professors who had returned to the idols of their
youth. The Madame Le Bruns, the Watteaus, and Chardonels came out on
the new canvases with a metallic lustre, an indecency of corporeal
resurrection.
Anthon made no pretence of looking at pictures. A few schools only
appealed to him, and he liked the National Gallery on pay-days when you
were likely to meet people you knew and had plenty of elbow-room. This
nursery-maid expedition was purely for the girl’s sake; he watched her
as she peered here and there and made audacious remarks. As they came
out into the square hall beyond the Watteaus and Chardonels, Anthon
caught sight of his uncle leaning over to examine a portrait. His
manner was absorbed, as if the place had put a spell upon him and he
was dreaming.
“Let’s go in here,” Walter Anthon said hurriedly. “The old man there is
my uncle, and he is a dreadful bore.”
They found themselves in the bustle of the modern French room. Here
were younger copyists, ragged boys and girls, dowdy women, who idled
about from easel to easel gossiping in loud tones.
“I don’t believe he was a bore,” Miss Parker remarked thoughtfully, “he
looked like such a nice old gentleman, and rather tired.”
“All my family are bores,” Anthon replied deprecatingly. Miss Parker
opened her eyes in surprise. “Except possibly my sister--I don’t know
what she will do with herself. She will probably do something idiotic,
though. You ought to know her; you might do her some good, teach her to
take herself more simply.”
“Do you think so?” Miss Parker asked timidly.
They were standing in a corner near a small Corot that was being
painfully copied by an anæmic-looking young fellow.
“I never come here,” her companion continued irrelevantly, “without
wondering what all these poor devils think they are doing”; he glanced
about at the copyists.
“Perhaps they love it.” Then she changed the topic as if aware that
Anthon did not show himself at his best in his criticism of life. “Do
you know a Mr. Erard?”
“My uncle knows enough about him! Devilish clever, they say. He never
got on well in London, though. Something of a cad, I fancy; but I am
told he knows pictures. What do you know of him?”
“I met a younger brother once. He was in a mill and got sick. I visited
the family and grew to know them. Peter Erard was such a nice fellow;
too good for his place. He was twenty-two and had ten dollars a week.
That was what the family lived on. They talked about this older brother
in Paris, who seemed such a great man in their eyes.”
“My uncle helped him on, I believe. My mother is down on the old man
for spending his money on the fellow. He doesn’t paint so much as he
writes about art.”
The two passed across the great square room with its fervour of
national art, its striking high-pitched tone, and nervous crowd.
“There’s Adela now,” Anthon exclaimed when they had entered the Long
Gallery. Miss Parker looked quickly over to the tall young woman who
was gazing perplexedly at a Titian. A meagre-looking man in eyeglasses
was evidently discussing the picture, his fingers running up and down
before the frame as if he were feeling the thing in its joints. Every
now and then he applied a pair of small opera-glasses to some detail
and then stepped back to his companion.
Walter Anthon walked over and spoke to his sister. She glanced up as
if annoyed at any break in the mental condition, looked over to Miss
Parker, measuring her swiftly, then nodded to her brother. A moment
more they had crossed the room, and Anthon presented his sister.
“You were very good to come.” Miss Parker looked up at the other woman
trustingly, as if to say, “Of course you are bored to be disturbed,
but I want you to like me, and I guess we shall make it all right.”
“You seem so interested over there,” she continued, as Miss Anthon
stood examining her without protesting or indulging in polite phrases.
“Don’t let me break it up.”
“Mr. Erard was explaining to me why the picture is not a Titian. It
is very complex, and I was absorbed. But I am glad to meet you.” She
smiled back at the smaller woman. “Won’t you come over too, if you
are interested in pictures. He took me first to a _real_ Titian, and
we spent nearly an hour over it until I got hold of some of Titian’s
characteristics. Now we are examining this fellow.”
Erard merely nodded to the newcomers, and continued his broken
monologue, largely to himself, partly to Miss Anthon.
“You see how stiffly this arm is drawn. You couldn’t move that arm: it
doesn’t exist. Now in the real Titian I had a feeling in my right arm,
a tightening up of the muscles as if they wanted to grasp the sword.
This is wooden, like a piece of lath. I pass over the dead black: that
may be due to the restorer. But in the application of light, Miss
Anthon, you must feel how much inferior this is to the Titian. There
the light was flecked on, boldly, in points. Here there is a hard,
white line, mechanically traced over the corslet. The effect of the
Titian is dazzling; this is metallic. And the head, Miss Anthon,--this
is half a head. Just as if you should split a skull and veneer the
features to the canvas. There is no back part. Now in the Titian you
could feel the rounded head; you could pat it, and fill it in for
yourself. There is air all about it.”
Miss Anthon followed his least motion, absorbed as over a mathematical
problem in tracing his induction. “Yes, I see,” she murmured.
“Let’s have another look at the real Titian.” Erard moved off.
“Why! they still call _this_ a Titian, too,” Miss Parker exclaimed
incredulously. Erard shrugged his shoulders. “It will take them five
years to get the label off. When I first came to Paris, they used to
call this thing a Giorgione. Only last year they labelled it Bonifazio.”
“Then the labels aren’t right,” Miss Parker remarked naïvely.
“Sometimes,” Erard replied with a smile. Miss Parker remained absorbed
in this new aspect of the world,--that it wasn’t always what it
pretended to be. If a thing was said, printed; if it could be seen in a
book,--why it must be so. If you were to suspect the evidence of your
simple senses, what a bewildering world this would be!
Erard said little more when they came to the Titian. He studied it
thoughtfully with his glasses, remarking at last. “The forefinger isn’t
his, nor the thumb. Some bungler put that on. Well, you have seen
enough for one day, Miss Anthon. Don’t look at any more pictures.”
Miss Parker made a little face of disappointed surprise: she was
greatly interested in this new oracle. But Miss Anthon accepted his
decision as final, though her robust zest had not been appeased. She
turned to reëxamine Miss Parker; the two women chatted, as they passed
down the crowded gallery instinctively testing each other, much as
Erard had tested the pictures. When they reached the Salon Carré,
they paused as if satisfied with their preliminary trial. Miss Anthon
dismissed her companion with unceremonious directness. “I want to see
you again, and I shall try to find you at Passy. Good-by.”
“She’s got pretty thick with him already,” Anthon remarked, as Erard
disappeared with his sister. Miss Anthon was saying to her companion:
“You have made me see so much!”
“Yes, you can see, when you are told to look,” Erard assented
quizzically. “If you can keep on using your eyes and not your
‘intuitions,’ you may know something about pictures some day.”
“If you would--” she began humbly.
“Stuff!” Erard cut her short irritably. “I might teach to-day what I
should deny to-morrow. Use your own wits, and hold your tongue. There
is nothing so wonderful about art--in certain aspects, no Eleusinian
mystery.”
She was afraid to make another remark lest she might blunder. What Mr.
Simeon Erard judged to be stupid was coming to have an immense weight
with her. She felt grateful to him for not snubbing her badly.