Part 38 (1/2)
”When will you come? To-morrow?”
”I will come at three o'clock. Have your things on by that time, and we will go for a ramble.”
Rene Caillard came into Cuthbert's room at nine o'clock the next morning.
”I came round yesterday evening, Cuthbert, and heard from the concierge that you had arrived and had gone out again. As she said you had driven off in a fiacre, it was evidently of no use waiting. I thought I would come down and catch you the first thing this morning. You look well and strong again, your native air evidently suits you.”
”I feel quite well again, though not quite so strong. So things have turned out just as I antic.i.p.ated, and the Reds are the masters of Paris.”
Rene shrugged his shoulders. ”It is disgusting,” he said. ”It does not trouble us much, we have nothing to lose but our heads, and as these scoundrels would gain nothing by cutting them off, I suppose we shall be allowed to go our own way.”
”Is the studio open again?”
”Oh, yes, and we are all hard at work, that is to say, the few that remain of us. Goude has been fidgeting for you to come back. He has asked several times whether I have news of you, and if I was sure you had not left Paris forever. I know he will be delighted when I tell him that you have returned; still more so if you take the news yourself.”
”I suppose Minette has resumed her duties as model?”
”Not she,” Rene said scornfully, ”she is one of the priestesses of the Commune. She rides about on horseback with a red flag and sash.
Sometimes she goes at the head of a battalion, sometimes she rides about with the leaders. She is in earnest but she is in earnest theatrically, and that fool, Dampierre, is as bad as she is.”
”What! Has he joined the Commune?”.
”Joined, do you say? Why, he is one of its leaders. He plays the part of La Fayette, in the drama, harangues the National Guards, a.s.sures them of the sympathy of America, calls upon them to defend the freedom they have won by their lives and to crush back their oppressors, as his countrymen crushed their British tyrants. Of course it is all Minette's doing; he is as mad as she is. I can a.s.sure you that he is quite a popular hero among the Reds, and they would have appointed him a general if he had chosen to accept it, but he said that he considered himself as the representative of the great Republic across the sea, that he would accept no office, but would fight as a simple volunteer. He, too, goes about on horseback, with a red scarf, and when you see Minette you may be sure that he is not far off.”
”Without absolutely considering Dampierre to be a fool, I have always regarded him as being, well, not mad, but different to other people. His alternate fits of idleness and hard work, his infatuation for Minette, his irritation at the most trifling jokes, and the moody state into which he often fell, all seem to show as the Scots say, 'a bee in his bonnet,' and I can quite fancy the excitement of the times, and his infatuation for that woman may have worked him up to a point much more nearly approaching madness than before. I am very sorry, Rene, for there was a good deal to like about him, he was a gentleman and a chivalrous one. In Minette he saw not a clever model, but a peerless woman, and was carried away by enthusiasm, which is, I think, perfectly real: she is in her true element now, and is, I should say, for once not acting. Well, it is a bad business. If the Commune triumphs, as I own that it seems likely enough, it will do, he will in time become disgusted with the adventurers and ambitious scoundrels by whom he is surrounded, and will, like the Girondists, be among the first victims of the wild beasts he has helped to bring into existence. If the troops prove faithful, the Commune will be crushed, and all those who have made themselves conspicuous are likely to have but a short shrift of it when martial law is established. Well, Rene, as there is nothing that can be done in the matter, it is of no use troubling about it. None of the others have gone that way, I suppose.”
”Of course not,” Rene exclaimed indignantly. ”You don't suppose that after the murder of the generals any decent Frenchman would join such a cause, even if he were favorable to its theories. Morbleu! Although I hate tyrants I should be tempted to take up a rifle and go out and defend them were they menaced by such sc.u.m as this. It is not even as it was before; then it was the middle cla.s.s who made the Revolution, and there was at least much that was n.o.ble in their aims, but these creatures who creep out from their slums like a host of obnoxious beasts animated sorely by hatred for all around them, and by a l.u.s.t for plunder and blood, they fill one with loathing and disgust. There is not among them, save Dampierre, a single man of birth and education, if only perhaps you except Rochefort. There are plenty of Marats, but certainly no Mirabeau.
”No, no, Cuthbert, we of the studio may be wild and thoughtless. We live gayly and do not trouble for the morrow, but we are not altogether fools; and even were there nothing else to unite us against the Commune, the squalor and wretchedness, the ugliness and vice, the brutal coa.r.s.eness, and the foul language of these ruffians would band us together as artists against them. Now, enough of Paris, what have you been doing in England, besides recovering your health?”
”I have been recovering a fortune, too, Rene. A complicated question concerning some property that would, in the ordinary course of things, have come to me has now been decided in my favor.”
”I congratulate you,” Rene said, ”but you will not give up art, I hope?”
”No, I intend to stick to that, Rene. You see I was not altogether dependent on it before, so that circ.u.mstances are not much changed.”
”You finished your pictures before you went away, did you not? The temptation to have a peep at them has been very strong, but I have resisted--n.o.bly it was heroic, was it not?”
”It must have been. Yes, I put the finis.h.i.+ng touches to them before I went away, and now I will show them to you Rene; it is the least I can do after all your kindness. Now go and look out of the window until I fix the easels in a good light, I want your first impressions to be favorable. There,” after a pause, ”the curtain is drawn up and the show has begun.” He spoke lightly, but there was an undertone of anxiety in his voice. Hitherto no one but Mary had seen them, and her opinion upon the subject of art was of little value. He, himself, believed that the work was good, but yet felt that vague dissatisfaction and doubt whether it might not have been a good deal better, that most artists entertain as to their own work. In the school Rene's opinion was always sought for eagerly; there were others who painted better, but none whose feeling of art was more true or whose critical instinct keener.
Rene looked at the pictures for a minute or two in silence, then he turned to Cuthbert and took one of his hands in his own. ”My dear friend,” he said, ”it is as I expected. I always said that you had genius, real genius, and it is true; I congratulate you, my dear friend.
If it were not that I know you English object to be embraced, I should do so, but you are cold and do not like a show of feeling. These pictures will place you well in the second rank; in another year or two you will climb into the first. They will be hung on the line, that goes without saying. They are charming, they are admirable, and to think that you are still at the school. I might paint all my life and I should never turn out two such canvases; and it is a sin that one who can paint like that should expose himself to be shot at by Prussians. Now, do you sit down and let me look at them.”
”Do so, Rene, and please remember that I want not praise, but honest criticism; I know they have defects, but I want you to point them out to me, for while I feel that they might be improved, I have my own ideas so strongly in my head, that I cannot see where the faults are as you can.
Remember, you can't be too severe, and if possible to do so, without entirely having to repaint them, I will try to carry out your suggestions.”
Rene produced a pipe, filled and lighted it, then placed a chair so that he could sit across it and lean upon the back. He sat for upwards of a quarter of an hour puffing out clouds of tobacco-smoke without speaking.