As the dinner wore on endlessly, I consoled myself by the thought of the
Balaklava Coronal. There in the toastmaster's seat was Morrison who had
bought it, at my right loomed Vogelstein who had sold it, far across,
towards the foot of the board, sat the critic Brush in whose presence I
understood the infamous sale had been made. I missed only Sarafoff, the
marvellous peasant-silversmith, who wrought the coronal in his prison
workshop in the Viennese ghetto. Now there was nothing strange about
Vogelstein's selling it, nor yet about Morrison's buying it; only the
making of it by the illiterate Sarafoff and the silence of Brush when it
was sold required explanation. Vogelstein, who breathed heavily beside
me, undoubtedly held the secret. I felt so hopeful that time and the
champagne which we were drinking for the sake of art would give him to me
that I took no pains meanwhile to disturb his elaborate indifference to
my presence.
Between him and me little love was lost. As the editor of a moneylosing
art magazine in the interior, it was my duty occasionally to visit his
galleries. After such visits the remnant of my New England conscience
usually forced me to diminish or actually to spoil many a sale of the
dubious or merely fashionable antiquities in which he dealt. But in the
main my power to harm him was slight. He held in a knowing grip the
strings of his patrons' vanity and taste. So he regarded me with
something between scorn and uneasiness--as a pachyderm might take a
predatory bee. For the sake of my steady production of the honey of free
advertising he forgave a sting from which he was after all immune. At the
beginning of the dinner he had greeted me with what was meant for a
civility and then had relapsed into silence. To escape the loquacity of
my other neighbour I gave myself to parallel observation of Vogelstein
and Morrison--the great dealer and his greater customer.
Both plainly belonged to the same species and it pleased my whim to
symbolise them as a mastodon and a rogue elephant. Morrison, the dreaded
agent and operator, was unquestionably the finer creature. He moved more
precisely and with a sense of wieldy power. His phrases cut where
Vogelstein's merely smote. His bigness had something genial about it. He
looked the amateur, and indeed does not the rogue elephant trample down
villages chiefly for the joy of the affray? One felt that something more
than Morrison's preposterous winnings had been involved in the clashes of
railroads and cataclysms on the exchange which had for years past been
his major recreation. Vogelstein, though evidently of coarser fibre,
belonged to the same formidable breed. The mastodon, we must suppose,
lacked much of the finesse of the rogue elephant of later evolution. And
Vogelstein's Semitism was of the archaic, potent, monumental type. His
abundant fat looked hard. For all the sagging double chin, his jaw
retained the character of a clamp. Among the strong race of art dealers
he was feared. Whole collections not single objects were his quarry. He
paid lavishly, foolishly, counting as confidently on the ignorance and
vanity of his clients, as ever Morrison upon the brute expansion of the
national wealth. But Vogelstein looked and was as completely the
professional as Morrison the amateur. There remained this essential
difference that if nothing could be too big to stagger Vogelstein,
nothing likewise could be too small to deter him. I knew his shop, or
rather his palace, and had observed the relish with which he could shame
a timorous art student into giving three prices for a print. It afforded
him no more pleasure, one could surmise, to impose a false Rembrandt at
six figures upon a wavering iron-master, or, indeed to unload an historic
but rather worthless collection upon Morrison himself. For Vogelstein was
after all of primitive stamp, to wit the militant publican. So he took
toll and plenty, it mattered little where or whence.
To Morrison and Vogelstein no better foil could be imagined than Brush.
If they recalled the tusked monsters that charged in the van of Asiatic
armies, his analogue was the desert horse. Small, spare, sensitive, shy,
his every posture suggested race, training, spirit, and docility. His
_flair_ for classical art had become proverbial. By mere touch he
detected those remarkable counterfeits of Syracusan coins. It was he who
segregated the Renaissance intaglios at Bloomsbury only the winter before
he exposed the composite figurines at Berlin. To him the Balaklava
Coronal must have proclaimed its nullity as far as its red gold could be
seen. For that matter the coronal was a bye-word, and why not? The same
dealers who had landed the more famous Tiara in the Louvre had the
selling of it. The greater museums in Europe and America had refused it
at a bargain. On Fifth Avenue and the Rue Lafitte all the dealers were
joking about the Balaklava Coronal. The name of Sarafoff, its maker, had
even become accepted slang. For a season we "Sarafoffed" our intimates
instead of hoaxing them. And in the face of all this Vogelstein had sold
the Coronal to Morrison under Brush's very nose. It seemed so wholly
incredible that I began counting Vogelstein's heavy respirations, to make
sure I was really awake.
Then the pale, tense mask of Brush--so isolated in the apoplectic row
across the table--calmed me. That he was Vogelstein's or anyone's tool
was unthinkable. Mercenary suspicions, to be sure, had been put about,
but those who knew him merely laughed at such a notion. Vogelstein also
laughed, shaking volcanically within, whenever the Coronal, the
genuineness of which he still maintained, was mentioned. And he always
treated Brush with a curious and almost tender condescension, much in
fact as the mastodon might have regarded that fragile ancestor of the
horse, the five-toed protohippos.
I have neglected to explain that the occasion which brought me at one
table with such major celebrities as Morrison, Vogelstein, and Brush was
a public dinner in behalf of civic art. For just as we find the celestial
compromised by the naughty Aphrodite, so we distinguish two antithetical
sorts of art. There is a bad private art which is produced for dealers
and millionaires and takes care of itself, and there is a virtuous public
art which we hope to have some day and meanwhile has to be taken care of
by special societies. It was one of these that was now dining for the
good of the cause. Under the benevolent eye of Morrison, our acting
president, we had put pompano upon a soup underlaid with oysters, and
then a larded fillet upon some casual tidbit of terrapins. Whereupon a
frozen punch. Thus courage was gained, the consecrated sequence of
sherry, hock, claret and champagne being absolved, for the proper
discussion of woodcock in the red with a famous old burgundy--Morrison's
personal compliment to the apostolate of civic art.
At the dessert, Morrison himself spoke a few words. The little speech
came brusquely from him, and no one who knew his rapacity for the
beautiful could doubt his faith in the universal superlatives he now
advocated. Our art, he held, must weigh with our mills and railroads,
else our life is out of balance. We never grudged millions to burrow
beneath New York for light, or for drink or speed, why then should we
grudge them for the beautiful inutilities that might make the surface of
the city splendid. A craving for fine objects was his own dearest
emotion, he wanted to see cities, states, and the nation ready to spend
with equal fervour. It all came apparently to a matter of spending.
Morrison entertained no doubt that an imperious demand would create an
abundant supply of what he called the best art. Whether we were to
transport bodily the great monuments of Europe to America, or merely were
to supply beauty off our indigenous bat, was not clear from Morrison's
address, and possibly was not wholly so in his own mind. But the talk was
solid and forceful, and I could hear Vogelstein grunt with inward joy
when he contemplated the city, the state, and the nation in their
predicted rôle as customers. I too felt that a real if an incoherent
voice had spoken, and that if civic art were indeed to come, it would be
through such neo-Roman visionaries as Morrison.
Then the mood changed and a willowy, hirsute, and earnest reviver of
tapestry weaving rose and pleaded for the "City Beautiful," castigating
the Philistine the while, and looking forward to a time when "the pomp,
and chronicle of our time should be splendidly committed to illumined
window and pictured wall," with some slight allusion to "those ancient
webs through which the Middle Ages still speak glowingly to us."
About midway in the speech Morrison, who had another public dinner down
the avenue slipped away. As he nodded "See you later perhaps" I marked
the adoring eye and smile of Vogelstein, and then the great folds settled
back into their places about his mouth and my neighbour once more gave an
uneasy attention to the weaver of beautiful phrases, meanwhile drinking
repeated glasses of burgundy. Soon his huge form heaved with an
inarticulate discontent, and as the speaker sat down amid perfunctory
applause Vogelstein snorted twice into the air.
"It is rather absurd, as you say," I ventured.
"It's sickening," wheezed Vogelstein. "Why can't he sell his tapestries
without all that talk?"
"Oh, he enjoys the talk and probably believes it, and you and I do better
after all to hear his talk than to see his tapestries." A mastodonic
chuckle welcomed this mild sally. The burgundy was taking effect.
As the diners rose stiffly or alertly, according to their several grades
of repletion, Vogelstein attached himself to me almost affectionately.
"Do stop in the café and talk to me," he urged. "It's queer, here are a
lot of my customers, some of my artists, besides you literary chaps, and
except Morrison, nobody wants to talk to me. Morrison and I, we
understand each other. It's early yet. Come along with me and talk. I've
wanted to talk to you for a long time, but always was too busy in my
place. You see you writers don't buy, in fact those that know almost
never do. It's really queer."
Knowing the might of burgundy when a due foundation of champagne has been
laid, I hardly took this effusion as personal to myself, but I also saw
no reason, too, why I should not profit by the occasion. "I'll gladly
chat with you, Mr. Vogelstein," I answered, "but you must let me choose
the subject. We will talk about the Balaklava Coronal."
As he led me into the elevator by the arm he whispered "All right, Old
Man, but why? You know just as much as I about it."
There was no chance to reply until he had selected his table and ordered
two Scotches and soda. "Yes, I know something about it," I said at last;
"everyone does apparently except Morrison. I know that Sarafoff made the
Coronal, but I don't know who taught him how to make it, nor yet how
Morrison was idiot enough to buy it, when anybody could have told him
what it was, nor yet how Brush came to let it be sold. These are the
interesting parts of the story, and I'll drink no drink of yours unless
you tell."
At the mention of idiocy in connection with Morrison Vogelstein shuddered
and raised a massive deprecating hand. The gesture was arrested by the
entrance of Brush, who with a slight nod to us passed to a distant
corner. Suddenly Vogelstein's expression had become one beaming,
condescending paternalism. "Good man but impracticable," he muttered.
"Thinks knowing it is everything. Knowing it is something, but selling it
is the real thing. Now I hardly know at all, not a tenth as much as
Brush, not a half as much as you even, but so long as I can sell, I don't
really care to know. What's the use?"
"But you did know about the Balaklava Coronal and you sold it too," I
interrupted. "How did you dare?"
"That's my secret--but here are our drinks. A bargain's a bargain. How
funny it is to be talking truth. Why, much of it would make even your job
difficult."
"And yours impossible, but we're not getting to the Coronal," I insisted.
"As for that," responded Vogelstein obligingly, "the first thing was of
course the making. You know all about Sarafoff yourself. Well, he only
did the work. It was Schönfeld who put in the brains. You don't know him?
Few do. Great man though. University professor of archaeology, trouble
with a woman, next trouble with money, now one of us. Yes Schönfeld
thought it out and saw it through."
"And certainly made a good job of it," I admitted.
"As you see, we wanted something unique--something that could not be
compared with anything in the museums."
"Precisely," I interposed, "Product of the local, semi-barbaric school of
the Crimea."
"You've hit it," grinned Vogelstein. "Scythian influence, to take the
professors. Schönfeld said we must have that. And that's why it had to be
found at Balaklava."
"But it had to look Scythian too. How did you manage that?"
"Oh, that was Sarafoff's business. He had been a servant and then a
novice at one of the monasteries of Mount Athos. Could make beautiful
tenth-century Byzantine madonnas. I've sold some. Then he carved ikons
in wood, ivory, silver, or what came. His things really looked Scythian
enough to those who didn't know their modern Greece and Russia. So we
set him to work in a back alley of Vienna at three kroners a day--double
pay for him--and Schönfeld ran down from Petersburg now and then to
coach him."
"You could trust him?" I inquired, recalling how Sarafoff had
subsequently won fame by confessing to his most famous forgery.
"As much as one can anybody. You see he doesn't speak any civilised
language, and at that time we couldn't tell that the Tiara would spoil
him as it did the entire deal."
"But Schönfeld's coaching?" I suggested. Vogelstein here winked solemnly
and drank deeply from his tall glass. "First I want to tell you all about
Sarafoff," he persisted, "of course we had him watched all the same, and
whenever he got an evening off, which was seldom, we had him filled up
with schnapps. He was a quiet drunk which is an excellent thing, Sir." As
I nodded assent to this great truth, he continued: "Yes Schönfeld, as I
was saying, managed everything. Wonderful scholar. You would respect him
I'm sure. Why, every bit of the pattern of the Coronal was taken from
some real antique, every word of the inscription too." "Wasn't that a bit
dangerous?" "With Schönfeld in charge, not so very. Everything was taken
from little Russian museums that even you critics don't visit. Almost no
published thing was used, you see."
"Then there was Sarafoff"--
"To give it all that quaint Scythian look," Vogelstein added joyously.
"Yes, we had just the best brains and the best hands for the job, and it
was beautiful." "Better than the Tiara?"
"Yes, far better. The Tiara was all a mistake, as I told Schönfeld; it
was too big and too good to be true. Except for Steinbach, who fell in
love with its queerness and chipped in some money, we never could have
sold it to a museum. And it was a bad thing to have it there, it aroused
opposition, it was bound to be exposed. I was always against it, and sure
enough it spoiled the game for us. But the Balaklava Coronal that was
just right. It had a sort of well-bred modest beauty. We should have
begun instead of ending with it. Yes, Sir, there never was a more
beautiful thing, a more plausible thing, a finer object to sell than the
Balaklava Coronal."
As he bellowed the word and beat the table in confirmation, Brush looked
over from his corner apprehensively. "Quietly, Mr. Vogelstein," I hinted,
"this is between ourselves, and we might be overheard."
"That's right," he admitted, and moodily lit another cigar. "Where were
we?" he asked uneasily. "Oh yes, we were at the Tiara. Now the Coronal
and what we could have sold on the strength of it was worth ten of the
Tiara, and if it hadn't been for the cursed thing, we could have landed
the Coronal as a starter in any one of half a dozen museums."
"As a matter of fact they were all shy of it."
"Of course. Once the Tiara was being looked into, the museum game was up,
and there was only Morrison left." Vogelstein lurched around nervously.
"He may drop in soon," he explained. "I'd like to make you acquainted."
Ignoring the offer, I persisted, "You've got to the interesting point
at last. Tell me why there was only Morrison left. To begin with
Morrison knows something about such matters, and next he can have the
best advice for the asking. And yet you tell me that Morrison was the
only great collector in the world to whom that notoriously false bauble
could be sold."
Vogelstein swayed uncomfortably in his chair, puffed, swallowed, cleared
his throat, and said, "There are some things one can't say right out; you
know that as well as I, but I can say this: there are many great and
enterprising collectors in America, and Morrison is the only one who
never doubts anything he has once bought."
"An ideal client then."
"Quite so. You see the others get worried by the critics. That means
exchanging, refunding--all sorts of trouble."
"But Morrison never?"
"Never; he's a true sport. He never squeals."
"Doesn't have to because he doesn't know he's hurt."
"That's right," concluded Vogelstein, his face corrugating into one
ample, contented smile.
"Then the big game reduces itself into selling to Morrison."
"That's more or less it, Sir. For a critic you have a business head."
"You will excuse a rather personal question, but how do you feel about
selling your best customer at enormous prices objects which you know to
be false?"
"It's a fair question since we are talking between ourselves, and you
shall have a straight answer. First my business isn't just a nice one. In
the nature of the case it wouldn't do for sensitive people. I suppose you
and Brush, for instance, couldn't and wouldn't make much out of it. Then
as regards Morrison, I'm not so sure he could complain if he knew. I give
him the things he likes and the treatment he likes at the prices he
likes. What more can any merchant do?"
I saw the subject rapidly exhausting itself and tried one more tack.
"Yes, it's simpler than I supposed," I admitted, "but it doesn't seem
quite an every-day thing to sell the Balaklava Coronal to anybody under
Brush's nose."
"It's easier than you think," echoed Vogelstein. "You don't know
Morrison. Hope he'll look in to-night. You ought to meet him."
My last bolt was shot. It was my turn to sit silent and drink. What could
be this strange infatuation of the hardheaded Morrison, this avowedly
simple magic of the grossly cunning Vogelstein? As I pondered the case I
noticed Brush give a startled glance towards the entrance, heard heavy
steps behind us, and then a deep voice saying, "Hallo again, Vogelstein,
I'm lucky not to be too late to catch you."
Vogelstein lumbered to his feet and muttered an introduction. We all took
our seats, as the headwaiter bustled obsequiously up to take Morrison's
order of champagne. As if also obeying Morrison's nod, but reluctantly,
Brush crawled over from his corner, a scarcely deferential attendant
transporting his lemonade.
While casual greetings and some random talk went on I tried to picture
the scene we must present. Neither Brush nor myself is contemptible
physically or in other ways, yet we both seemed curiously the inferiors
of these troglodytic giants. Our scruples, the voluntary complication of
our lives, seemed to constitute at least a disadvantage when measured
against the primitiveness, perhaps the rather brutal simplicity, of our
companions.
It was Morrison who cut these reflections short. "You will excuse me,
gentlemen," he said, "for introducing a matter of business here, but the
case is pressing and it may even interest you as critics of art." We
nodded permission and he continued, "It's about the Bleichrode Raphael,
as of course you know, Vogelstein. I like it, I want it, but I hear all
sorts of things about it, and frankly it strikes me as dear at the price.
How do you feel about it?"
At the mention of the Bleichrode Raphael, Brush and I started. The
forgery was more than notorious. The Bleichrode panel had begun life
poorly but honestly as a Franciabigio--a portrait of an unknown
Florentine lad with a beretta, the type of which Raphael's portrait of
himself is the most famous example. The picture hung long in a private
gallery at Rome and was duly listed in the handbooks. One day it
disappeared and when it once more came to light it had become the
Bleichrode Raphael. Its Raphaelisation had been effected, as many of us
knew, by the consummate restorer Vilgard of Ghent, and for him the task
had been an easy one. It had needed only slight eliminations and discreet
additions to produce a portrait of Raphael by himself far more obviously
captivating than any of the genuine series. Soon the picture vanished
from Schloss Bleichrode, and it became anybody's guess what amateur had
been elected to become its possessor. The museums naturally were
forewarned.
While this came into Brush's memory and mine, Vogelstein's
countenance had become severe, almost sinister, and he was answering
Morrison as follows:
"Mr. Morrison, I have offered you the Bleichrode Raphael for half a
million dollars. You will hear all sorts of gossip about it. Doubtless
these gentlemen (indicating us) believe it is false and will tell you
so (we nodded feebly). But I offer it not to their judgment but to
yours. You and I know it is a beautiful thing and worth the money. I
make no claims, offer no guarantee for the picture. You have seen it,
and that's enough. If you don't want it, it makes no difference to me,
I can sell it to Theiss (the great Parisian amateur, Morrison's only
real rival), or I will gladly keep it myself, for I shall never have
anything as fine again."
Morrison sat impassively while Vogelstein watched him narrowly. Brush and
I felt for something that ought to be said yet would not come. At the end
of his speech, or challenge, Vogelstein's expression had softened into
one of the most courtly ingenuousness, now it hardened again into a
strange arrogance. His eyes snapped as he continued with affected
indifference, "Since you have raised the question, Mr. Morrison, the
Bleichrode Raphael is yours to take or leave--to-night."
There was a pause as the two giants faced each other. Then Morrison
smiled beamingly, as one who loved a good fighter, and said, "Send it
round tomorrow, of course I want it. Well, that's settled, and if these
gentlemen will spare you, I'll give you a lift down town."
Vogelstein's arrogance melted once more into fulsomeness as he said,
almost forgetting his Goodnight to us, "I'm sure it's very good of you,
Mr. Morrison."
The forms of Morrison and Vogelstein almost blocked the generous
intercolumnar space as shoulder to shoulder they moved away between the
yellow marble pillars and under the green and gold ceiling. The brown
leather doors swung silently behind them, and we were left together with
our amazement.
"Never mind, Old Fellow," said Brush at last. "It's the first time for
you. You'll get used to it. It's my second time; I happened to be there,
you know, when the Balaklava Coronal was sold."