His Masterpiece

While he spoke he seemed to have increased in stature, reaching to the elevated ceiling of the studio, and shaken by such keen emotion that the tears started to his eyes. And he dropped into a chair before his picture, asking with the anxious look of a beginner who has need of encouragement:

‘Then this really seems to you all right? I myself no longer dare to believe anything. My unhappiness springs from the possession of both too much and not enough critical acumen. The moment I begin a sketch I exalt it, then, if it’s not successful, I torture myself. It would be better not to know anything at all about it, like that brute Chambouvard, or else to see very clearly into the business and then give up painting… Really now, you like this little canvas?’

Claude and Jory remained motionless, astonished and embarrassed by those tokens of the intense anguish of art in its travail. Had they come at a moment of crisis, that this master thus groaned with pain, and consulted them like comrades? The worst was that they had been unable to disguise some hesitation when they found themselves under the gaze of the ardent, dilated eyes with which he implored them – eyes in which one could read the hidden fear of decline. They knew current rumours well enough; they agreed with the opinion that since his ‘Village Wedding’ the painter had produced nothing equal to that famous picture. Indeed, after maintaining something of that standard of excellence in a few works, he was now gliding into a more scientific, drier manner. Brightness of colour was vanishing; each work seemed to show a decline. However, these were things not to be said; so Claude, when he had recovered his composure, exclaimed:

‘You never painted anything so powerful!’

Bongrand looked at him again, straight in the eyes. Then he turned to his work, in which he became absorbed, making a movement with his herculean arms, as if he were breaking every bone of them to lift that little canvas which was so very light. And he muttered to himself: ‘Confound it! how heavy it is! Never mind, I’ll die at it rather than show a falling-off.’

He took up his palette and grew calm at the first stroke of the brush, while bending his manly shoulders and broad neck, about which one noticed traces of peasant build remaining amid the bourgeois refinement contributed by the crossing of classes of which he was the outcome.

Silence had ensued, but Jory, his eyes still fixed on the picture, asked:

‘Is it sold?’

Bongrand replied leisurely, like the artist who works when he likes without care of profit:

‘No; I feel paralysed when I’ve a dealer at my back.’ And, without pausing in his work, he went on talking, growing waggish.

‘Ah! people are beginning to make a trade of painting now. Really and truly I have never seen such a thing before, old as I am getting. For instance, you, Mr. Amiable Journalist, what a quantity of flowers you fling to the young ones in that article in which you mentioned me! There were two or three youngsters spoken of who were simply geniuses, nothing less.’

Jory burst out laughing.

‘Well, when a fellow has a paper, he must make use of it. Besides, the public likes to have great men discovered for it.’

‘No doubt, public stupidity is boundless, and I am quite willing that you should trade on it. Only I remember the first starts that we old fellows had. Dash it! We were not spoiled like that, I can tell you. We had ten years’ labour and struggle before us ere we could impose on people a picture the size of your hand; whereas nowadays the first hobbledehoy who can stick a figure on its legs makes all the trumpets of publicity blare. And what kind of publicity is it? A hullabaloo from one end of France to the other, sudden reputations that shoot up of a night, and burst upon one like thunderbolts, amid the gaping of the throng. And I say nothing of the works themselves, those works announced with salvoes of artillery, awaited amid a delirium of impatience, maddening Paris for a week, and then falling into everlasting oblivion!’

‘This is an indictment against journalism,’ said Jory, who had stretched himself on the couch and lighted another cigar. ‘There is a great deal to be said for and against it, but devil a bit, a man must keep pace with the times.’

Bongrand shook his head, and then started off again, amid a tremendous burst of mirth:

‘No! no! one can no longer throw off the merest daub without being hailed as a young “master.” Well, if you only knew how your young masters amuse me!’

But as if these words had led to some other ideas, he cooled down, and turned towards Claude to ask this question: ‘By the way, have you seen Fagerolles’ picture?’

‘Yes,’ said the young fellow, quietly.

They both remained looking at each other: a restless smile had risen to their lips, and Bongrand eventually added:

‘There’s a fellow who pillages you right and left.’

Jory, becoming embarrassed, had lowered his eyes, asking himself whether he should defend Fagerolles. He, no doubt, concluded that it would be profitable to do so, for he began to praise the picture of the actress in her dressing-room, an engraving of which was then attracting a great deal of notice in the print-shops. Was not the subject a really modern one? Was it not well painted, in the bright clear tone of the new school? A little more vigour might, perhaps, have been desirable; but every one ought to be left to his own temperament. And besides, refinement and charm were not so common by any means, nowadays.

Bending over his canvas, Bongrand, who, as a rule, had nothing but paternal praise for the young ones, shook and made a visible effort to avoid an outburst. The explosion took place, however, in spite of himself.

‘Just shut up, eh? about your Fagerolles! Do you think us greater fools than we really are? There! you see the great painter here present. Yes; I mean the young gentleman in front of you. Well, the whole trick consists in pilfering his originality, and dishing it up with the wishy-washy sauce of the School of Arts! Quite so! you select a modern subject, and you paint in the clear bright style, only you adhere to correctly commonplace drawing, to all the habitual pleasing style of composition – in short, to the formula which is taught over yonder for the pleasure of the middle-classes. And you souse all that with deftness, that execrable deftness of the fingers which would just as well carve cocoanuts, the flowing, pleasant deftness that begets success, and which ought to be punished with penal servitude, do you hear?’

He brandished his palette and brushes aloft, in his clenched fists.

‘You are severe,’ said Claude, feeling embarrassed. ‘Fagerolles shows delicacy in his work.’

‘I have been told,’ muttered Jory, mildly, ‘that he has just signed a very profitable agreement with Naudet.’

That name, thrown haphazard into the conversation, had the effect of once more soothing Bongrand, who repeated, shrugging his shoulders:

‘Ah! Naudet – ah! Naudet.’

And he greatly amused the young fellows by telling them about Naudet, with whom he was well acquainted. He was a dealer, who, for some few years, had been revolutionising the picture trade. There was nothing of the old fashion about his style – the greasy coat and keen taste of Papa Malgras, the watching for the pictures of beginners, bought at ten francs, to be resold at fifteen, all the little humdrum comedy of the connoisseur, turning up his nose at a coveted canvas in order to depreciate it, worshipping painting in his inmost heart, and earning a meagre living by quickly and prudently turning over his petty capital. No, no; the famous Naudet had the appearance of a nobleman, with a fancy-pattern jacket, a diamond pin in his scarf, and patent-leather boots; he was well pomaded and brushed, and lived in fine style, with a livery-stable carriage by the month, a stall at the opera, and his particular table at Bignon’s. And he showed himself wherever it was the correct thing to be seen. For the rest, he was a speculator, a Stock Exchange gambler, not caring one single rap about art. But he unfailingly scented success, he guessed what artist ought to be properly started, not the one who seemed likely to develop the genius of a great painter, furnishing food for discussion, but the one whose deceptive talent, set off by a pretended display of audacity, would command a premium in the market. And that was the way in which he revolutionised that market, giving the amateur of taste the cold shoulder, and only treating with the moneyed amateur, who knew nothing about art, but who bought a picture as he might buy a share at the Stock Exchange, either from vanity or with the hope that it would rise in value.

At this stage of the conversation Bongrand, very jocular by nature, and with a good deal of the mummer about him, began to enact the scene. Enter Naudet in Fagerolles’ studio.

‘“You’ve real genius, my dear fellow. Your last picture is sold, then? For how much?”

‘“For five hundred francs.”

‘“But you must be mad; it was worth twelve hundred. And this one which you have by you – how much?”

‘“Well, my faith, I don’t know. Suppose we say twelve hundred?”

‘“What are you talking about? Twelve hundred francs! You don’t understand me, then, my boy; it’s worth two thousand. I take it at two thousand. And from this day forward you must work for no one but myself – for me, Naudet. Good-bye, good-bye, my dear fellow; don’t overwork yourself – your fortune is made. I have taken it in hand.” Wherewith he goes off, taking the picture with him in his carriage. He trots it round among his amateurs, among whom he has spread the rumour that he has just discovered an extraordinary painter. One of the amateurs bites at last, and asks the price.

“‘Five thousand.”

‘“What, five thousand francs for the picture of a man whose name hasn’t the least notoriety? Are you playing the fool with me?”

‘“Look here, I’ll make you a proposal; I’ll sell it you for five thousand francs, and I’ll sign an agreement to take it back in a twelvemonth at six thousand, if you no longer care for it.”

Of course the amateur is tempted. What does he risk after all? In reality it’s a good speculation, and so he buys. After that Naudet loses no time, but disposes in a similar manner of nine or ten paintings by the same man during the course of the year. Vanity gets mingled with the hope of gain, the prices go up, the pictures get regularly quoted, so that when Naudet returns to see his amateur, the latter, instead of returning the picture, buys another one for eight thousand francs. And the prices continue to go up, and painting degenerates into something shady, a kind of gold mine situated on the heights of Montmartre, promoted by a number of bankers, and around which there is a constant battle of bank-notes.’

Claude was growing indignant, but Jory thought it all very clever, when there came a knock at the door. Bongrand, who went to open it, uttered a cry of surprise.

‘Naudet, as I live! We were just talking about you.’

Naudet, very correctly dressed, without a speck of mud on him, despite the horrible weather, bowed and came in with the reverential politeness of a man of society entering a church.

‘Very pleased – feel flattered, indeed, dear master. And you only spoke well of me, I’m sure of it.’

‘Not at all, Naudet, not at all,’ said Bongrand, in a quiet tone. ‘We were saying that your manner of trading was giving us a nice generation of artists – tricksters crossed with dishonest business men.’

Naudet smiled, without losing his composure.

‘The remark is harsh, but so charming! Never mind, never mind, dear master, nothing that you say offends me.’

And, dropping into ecstasy before the picture of the two little women at needlework:

‘Ah! Good heavens, I didn’t know this, it’s a little marvel! Ah! that light, that broad substantial treatment! One has to go back to Rembrandt for anything like it; yes, to Rembrandt! Look here, I only came in to pay my respects, but I thank my lucky star for having brought me here. Let us do a little bit of business. Let me have this gem. Anything you like to ask for it – I’ll cover it with gold.’

One could see Bongrand’s back shake, as if his irritation were increasing at each sentence. He curtly interrupted the dealer.

‘Too late; it’s sold.’

‘Sold, you say. And you cannot annul your bargain? Tell me, at any rate, to whom it’s sold? I’ll do everything, I’ll give anything. Ah! What a horrible blow! Sold, are you quite sure of it? Suppose you were offered double the sum?’

‘It’s sold, Naudet. That’s enough, isn’t it?’

However, the dealer went on lamenting. He remained for a few minutes longer, going into raptures before other sketches, while making the tour of the studio with the keen glances of a speculator in search of luck. When he realised that his time was badly chosen, and that he would be able to take nothing away with him, he went off, bowing with an air of gratitude, and repeating remarks of admiration as far as the landing.

As soon as he had gone, Jory, who had listened to the conversation with surprise, ventured to ask a question:

‘But you told us, I thought – It isn’t sold, is it?’

Without immediately answering, Bongrand went back to his picture. Then, in his thundering voice, resuming in one cry all his hidden suffering, the whole of the nascent struggle within him which he dared not avow, he said:

‘He plagues me. He shall never have anything of mine! Let him go and buy of Fagerolles!’

A quarter of an hour later, Claude and Jory also said good-bye, leaving Bongrand struggling with his work in the waning daylight. Once outside, when the young painter had left his companion, he did not at once return home to the Rue de Douai, in spite of his long absence. He still felt the want of walking about, of surrendering himself up to that great city of Paris, where the meetings of one single day sufficed to fill his brain; and this need of motion made him wander about till the black night had fallen, through the frozen mud of the streets, beneath the gas-lamps, which, lighted up one by one, showed like nebulous stars amidst the fog.

Claude impatiently awaited the Thursday when he was to dine at Sandoz’s, for the latter, immutable in his habits, still invited his cronies to dinner once a week. All those who chose could come, their covers were laid. His marriage, his change of life, the ardent literary struggle into which he had thrown himself, made no difference; he kept to his day ‘at home,’ that Thursday which dated from the time he had left college, from the time they had all smoked their first pipes. As he himself expressed it, alluding to his wife, there was only one chum more.

‘I say, old man,’ he had frankly said to Claude, ‘I’m greatly worried – ’

‘What about?’

‘Why, about inviting Madame Christine. There are a lot of idiots, a lot of philistines watching me, who would say all manner of things – ’

‘You are quite right, old man. But Christine herself would decline to come. Oh! we understand the position very well. I’ll come alone, depend upon it.’

At six o’clock, Claude started for Sandoz’s place in the Rue Nollet, in the depths of Batignolles, and he had no end of trouble in finding the small pavilion which his friend had rented. First of all he entered a large house facing the street, and applied to the doorkeeper, who made him cross three successive courtyards; then he went down a passage, between two other buildings, descended some steps, and tumbled upon the iron gate of a small garden. That was the spot, the pavilion was there at the end of a path. But it was so dark, and he had nearly broken his legs coming down the steps, that he dared not venture any further, the more so as a huge dog was barking furiously. At last he heard the voice of Sandoz, who was coming forward and trying to quiet the dog.

‘Ah, it’s you! We are quite in the country, aren’t we? We are going to set up a lantern, so that our company may not break their necks. Come in, come in! Will you hold your noise, you brute of a Bertrand? Don’t you see that it’s a friend, fool?’

Thereupon the dog accompanied them as far as the pavilion, wagging his tail and barking joyously. A young servant-girl had come out with a lantern, which she fastened to the gate, in order to light up the breakneck steps. In the garden there was simply a small central lawn, on which there stood a large plum tree, diffusing a shade around that rotted the grass; and just in front of the low house, which showed only three windows, there stretched an arbour of Virginia creeper, with a brand-new seat shining there as an ornament amid the winter showers, pending the advent of the summer sun.

‘Come in,’ repeated Sandoz.

On the right-hand side of the hall he ushered Claude into the parlour, which he had turned into a study. The dining-room and kitchen were on the left. Upstairs, his mother, who was now altogether bedridden, occupied the larger room, while he and his wife contented themselves with the other one, and a dressing-room that parted the two. That was the whole place, a real cardboard box, with rooms like little drawers separated by partitions as thin as paper. Withal, it was the abode of work and hope, vast in comparison with the ordinary garrets of youth, and already made bright by a beginning of comfort and luxury.

‘There’s room here, eh?’ he exclaimed. ‘Ah! it’s a jolly sight more comfortable than the Rue d’Enfer. You see that I’ve a room to myself. And I have bought myself an oaken writing-table, and my wife made me a present of that dwarf palm in that pot of old Rouen ware. Isn’t it swell, eh?’

His wife came in at that very moment. Tall, with a pleasant, tranquil face and beautiful brown hair, she wore a large white apron over her plainly made dress of black poplin; for although they had a regular servant, she saw to the cooking, for she was proud of certain of her dishes, and she put the household on a footing of middle-class cleanliness and love of cheer.

She and Claude became old chums at once.

‘Call him Claude, my darling. And you, old man, call her Henriette. No madame nor monsieur, or I shall fine you five sous each time.’

They laughed, and she scampered away, being wanted in the kitchen to look after a southern dish, a bouillabaisse, with which she wished to surprise the Plassans friend. She had obtained the recipe from her husband himself, and had become marvellously deft at it, so he said.

‘Your wife is charming,’ said Claude, ‘and I see she spoils you.’

But Sandoz, seated at his table, with his elbows among such pages of the book he was working at as he had written that morning, began to talk of the first novel of his series, which he had published in October. Ah! they had treated his poor book nicely! It had been a throttling, a butchering, all the critics yelling at his heels, a broadside of imprecations, as if he had murdered people in a wood. He himself laughed at it, excited rather than otherwise, for he had sturdy shoulders and the quiet bearing of a toiler who knows what he’s after. Mere surprise remained to him at the profound lack of intelligence shown by those fellows the critics, whose articles, knocked off on the corner of some table, bespattered him with mud, without appearing as much as to guess at the least of his intentions. Everything was flung into the same slop-pail of abuse: his studies of physiological man; the important part he assigned to circumstances and surroundings; his allusions to nature, ever and ever creating; in short, life – entire, universal life – existent through all the animal world without there really being either high or low, beauty or ugliness; he was insulted, too, for his boldness of language for the conviction he expressed that all things ought to be said, that there are abominable expressions which become necessary, like branding irons, and that a language emerges enriched from such strength-giving baths. He easily granted their anger, but he would at least have liked them to do him the honour of understanding him and getting angry at his audacity, not at the idiotic, filthy designs of which he was accused.

‘Really,’ he continued, ‘I believe that the world still contains more idiots than downright spiteful people. They are enraged with me on account of the form I give to my productions, the written sentences, the similes, the very life of my style. Yes, the middle-classes fairly split with hatred of literature!’

Then he became silent, having grown sad.

‘Never mind,’ said Claude, after an interval, ‘you are happy, you at least work, you produce – ’

Sandoz had risen from his seat with a gesture of sudden pain.

‘True, I work. I work out my books to their last pages – But if you only knew, if I told you amidst what discouragement, amidst what torture! Won’t those idiots take it into their heads to accuse me of pride! I, whom the imperfection of my work pursues even in my sleep – I, who never look over the pages of the day before, lest I should find them so execrable that I might afterwards lack the courage to continue. Oh, I work, no doubt, I work! I go on working, as I go on living, because I am born to it, but I am none the gayer on account of it. I am never satisfied; there is always a great collapse at the end.’

He was interrupted by a loud exclamation outside, and Jory appeared, delighted with life, and relating that he had just touched up an old article in order to have the evening to himself. Almost immediately afterwards Gagniere and Mahoudeau, who had met at the door, came in conversing together. The former, who had been absorbed for some months in a theory of colours, was explaining his system to the other.

‘I paint my shade in,’ he continued, as if in a dream. ‘The red of the flag loses its brightness and becomes yellowish because it stands out against the blue of the sky, the complementary shade of which – orange – blends with red – ’

Claude, interested at once, was already questioning him when the servant brought in a telegram.

‘All right,’ said Sandoz, ‘it’s from Dubuche, who apologises; he promises to come and surprise us at about eleven o’clock.’

At this moment Henriette threw the door wide open, and personally announced that dinner was ready. She had doffed her white apron, and cordially shook hands, as hostess, with all of them. ‘Take your seats! take your seats!’ was her cry. It was half-past seven already, the bouillabaisse could not wait. Jory, having observed that Fagerolles had sworn to him that he would come, they would not believe it. Fagerolles was getting ridiculous with his habit of aping the great artist overwhelmed with work!

The dining-room into which they passed was so small that, in order to make room for a piano, a kind of alcove had been made out of a dark closet which had formerly served for the accommodation of crockery. However, on grand occasions half a score of people still gathered round the table, under the white porcelain hanging lamp, but this was only accomplished by blocking up the sideboard, so that the servant could not even pass to take a plate from it. However, it was the mistress of the house who carved, while the master took his place facing her, against the blockaded sideboard, in order to hand round whatever things might be required.

Henriette had placed Claude on her right hand, Mahoudeau on her left, while Gagniere and Jory were seated next to Sandoz.

‘Francoise,’ she called, ‘give me the slices of toast. They are on the range.’

And the girl having brought the toast, she distributed two slices to each of them, and was beginning to ladle the bouillabaisse into the plates, when the door opened once more.

‘Fagerolles at last!’ she said. ‘I have given your seat to Mahoudeau. Sit down there, next to Claude.’

He apologised with an air of courtly politeness, by alleging a business appointment. Very elegantly dressed, tightly buttoned up in clothes of an English cut, he had the carriage of a man about town, relieved by the retention of a touch of artistic free-and-easiness. Immediately on sitting down he grasped his neighbour’s hand, affecting great delight.

‘Ah, my old Claude! I have for such a long time wanted to see you. A score of times I intended going after you into the country; but then, you know, circumstances – ’

Claude, feeling uncomfortable at these protestations, endeavoured to meet them with a like cordiality. But Henriette, who was still serving, saved the situation by growing impatient.