Part 6 (2/2)

”I have seen Thy mercy, show me then Thy thunder, O Lord,” said Leon.

”What's going on here,” the Howard boy said.

Darthamae said, ”Someone should help poor Ralph.”

Ralph was looking sadly up the hill toward the graveyard.

”Cheer up,” Leon said, ”he's going to inherit the earth.”

VLEMK.

THE BOX-PAINTER.

1.

There once was a man who made pictures on boxes. Snuff boxes, jewel boxes, match boxes, cigar boxes, whatever kinds of boxes people used in that country, for keeping their treasures in or giving as presents to friends and loved ones, the people would take their boxes to this man, who was called Vlemk the box-painter-or they'd buy one of the boxes the man had made-and he would paint pictures on them. Though he was not old and stooped, though old enough by several years to grow a moustache and a beard that reached halfway down his chest, he was a master artist, as box-painters go. He could paint a tiny picture of a grandfather's clock that was so accurate in its details that people sometimes thought, listening very closely, that they could make out the noise of its ticking. He painted flowers so precisely like real ones that one would swear that they were moving just perceptibly in the breeze, and swear that, pressing one's nose to the picture, one could detect a faint suggestion of rose smell, or lilac, or foxglove.

As is sometimes the way with extremely good artists, this Vlemk the box-painter was unfortunately not all he might be when it came to matters not pertaining to his art. When he was painting, up in his bright, sunlit studio that looked down over the houses and streets of the city, he was a model of industry and good sense. He kept his brushes, paints, glazes, and thinners as carefully and neatly as a fussy old widow keeps her dishes and spoons, and he worked with the deep concentration of a banker or lawyer studying his books in the hope of growing richer. But when his work was finished, whenever that might be, since sometimes he worked all night, sometimes all day, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for a week and a half without an hour out for rest-this Vlemk changed completely, so that people who had seen him at work would swear now that he was not the same person, surely not even that person's brother, but someone else entirely.

When the artist wasn't working, it was as if some kind of demon got into him. He would go to the tavern at the end of his street, where he talked very loudly and waved his arms wildly, knocking over beerpots and sometimes tipsy old men, and though many people liked him and were interested in his talk, since none of them had the knack of painting pictures as he did, sooner or later he was too much for even the most kindly and sympathetic, and they would call the police or throw him out into the alley by the collar of his s.h.i.+rt and the seat of his trousers. Sometimes he had dealings with unsavory characters, drunkards, pickpockets and pilferers, even a certain murderer who took his axe with him everywhere he went.

The artist was not proud of himself, needless to say. Often, sitting up in his studio high above the city, he would moan and clutch his head between his hands, saying, ”Woe is me! Oh, what's to become of me?” But moaning was no solution. As soon as he'd finished his work for that day, or that week, as chance would have it, down he would go into the city again, and his fall to dissolution would be as shameful as before. ”What a box I'm in!” he would cry, looking up from the gutter the next morning. It had long been his habit to think in terms of boxes, since boxes were his joy and occupation.

One morning when this happened-that is, as he was crying ”What a box I'm in” and struggling to get himself up out of the gutter, where he was lying among bottles, old papers, and the remains of a cat-a carriage was pa.s.sing, driven by a uniformed man in a top hat. The driver was elegant-when his boots caught the sunlight they shone like polished onyx-and the carriage on which he sat was more elegant still, like a splendid box of black leather and polished golden studs. When the carriage was right alongside the poor artist, a voice cried out ”Stop!” and at once the carriage stopped. A small hand parted the window curtains, and a pale white face looked out. ”Driver,” said the person in the carriage, ”who is that unfortunate creature in the gutter?”

”That, I am sorry to say,” said the driver, ”is the famous box-painter Vlemk.”

”Vlemk, you say?” said the person in the carriage. ”Surely you're mistaken! I once visited his studio, and I'm certain I'd know him anywhere! That creature in the gutter is some miserable, pitiful wretch without a talent in the world!”

”I a.s.sure you, Princess,” said the carriage driver sadly, ”that the filthy thing you see in the gutter is Vlemk the box-painter.”

In horror, Vlemk covered his face with his hands and arms, for now he recognized that the person in the carriage was indeed the Princess, soon to be Queen of the Kingdom, people said, since her mother had been dead for years and her father was declining. Vlemk was so ashamed to be seen by such a person in his present condition that he fervently wished himself dead.

”Shall I throw the poor devil a coin?” asked the driver. ”I a.s.sure you he can use it, for if rumor be believed he squanders all he earns by his art on his life of dissolution.”

”Heavens no!” said the Princess, parting the curtains more widely in order to get a closer look at Vlemk. ”What earthly good would a coin do him? He'd spend it on further debauchery!” So saying, she closed the window curtains and ordered the driver to drive off.

”Heartless monster!” cried Vlemk, clumsily rising and staggering a few steps in the direction of the swiftly departing carriage. He was so angry he raised both fists to the sky and shook them.

But secretly, Vlemk did not blame her for her words. All she'd said was true, and if he was wise, he knew, he would thank her for her righteous severity. ”Woe is the kingdom,” he said to himself, ”whose rulers are dismayed by every sniffle.” Besides, when she'd parted the curtains wide, he'd gotten a very clear look at her face, and with the force of a knife in the back or an arrow in the chest it had struck him that the Princess was the most beautiful creature he'd ever set eyes on.

When he returned to his studio that day he found he was incapable of painting. His brushes had a malevolent will of their own, dabbing too deeply, as if angrily, into the paints, so that every stroke he made in the picture was slightly off its. .h.i.t and inefficient, like the work of an amateur, so that he had to wipe it off and start over. By midafternoon he understood that his case was hopeless. He'd lost the will to do perfect paintings of animals or flowers or rural landscapes, paintings of the kind that had made him famous. Indeed, he'd lost the will to paint at all. Carelessly, irritably, he put away his materials, hardly noticing that the brushes were less clean than usual, the paints not well capped, one bottle of thinner tipped sideways and dripping on the floor. ”What a box I'm in!” he said, but dully, without feeling.

In the tavern he discovered that nothing the establishment had to offer was exactly what he wanted. The wine, he knew without tasting it, was bitter, the beer too full of froth, the brandy too sugary and thick. ”What is it I want?” he thought, sitting with his mouth open, hands clasped in front of his chin, eyes rolled upward, staring without interest at the cracks in the old, sagging ceiling. All of the regulars of the tavern threw puzzled, slightly irritable glances in his direction, perplexed at his seeming so unlike himself. By this time, people grumbled, he should be singing, if not kicking up his heels or starting arguments. One might have thought they would be pleased, since Vlemk could be a nuisance when behaving in his normal way, but in general this was not the case. Even the laziest and most base of the regulars-not including three who were all in some sense artists themselves-were simple people who led complicated lives, and Vlemk's disruption of what little routine they could persuade themselves they kept was distressing.

”What is it I want?” Vlemk asked over and over, inaudibly, sitting by himself at his table by the window.

”Why doesn't he drink?” grumbled the regulars, or all except the three. ”Why doesn't he do something?”

The three or, rather, four-the barmaid and three glum men who wore their hats low and went about armed-said nothing, hardly noticing. The flaxen-haired one, formerly a poet, was fast asleep with his eyes open. The one in the gla.s.ses, an ex-violinist, was picking the pocket of the laborer just behind him. The third one only stared, like a cat before a mousehole. He was the axe-murderer.

Secretly, of course, Vlemk had known from the beginning what it was that he wanted, and when he came to full awareness of what that something was, he was filled with such misery that he could no longer stay indoors. He rose without a word to anyone, not so much as a glance at the sullen, fat barmaid, and with his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his painter's frock, which in his misery he'd neglected to leave behind in the studio, he walked to the door and, after a moment's hesitation, out onto the street.

He walked quickly, like a man with some urgent purpose, though in fact he had nowhere in particular to go and nothing much in mind. If someone had asked of him the time of day, he would have had to look around to determine that it was evening, almost nightfall. He walked from street to street and from bridge to bridge in this dejected state until, to his surprise, as the last glow of sunset was fading from the clouds, he found himself standing at the gates of the royal palace.

The Princess, as it happened, was at just that moment returning from walking her greyhounds on the palace grounds. At sight of the box-painter, the greyhounds set up a terrific rumpus and jerked fiercely at their leashes in an attempt to get at him and scare him away, with the result that the Princess was drawn, w.i.l.l.y-nilly, to where Vlemk stood gazing in morosely at the palace door. When they reached the iron gates between Vlemk and themselves, the dogs leaped and snapped, dancing on their hind feet and lunging at the bars, all to so little avail that the painter hardly noticed. At last, at a word from their mistress, the dogs fell silent, or, rather, fell to whimpering and sniffing and running around in circles. The Princess, cautiously keeping well back lest Vlemk be some dangerous anarchist, leaned forward at the waist and, holding the leashes with one hand, shaded her eyes with the other, trying to make out whether she knew him. Suddenly she gave a start and cried, ”Vlemk the box-painter!” Whether or not she had actually recognized him Vlemk could not tell. At very least, she had recognized his frock.

Vlemk sadly nodded. ”Yes, Your Highness,” he said, ”it's Vlemk.”

”For heaven's sake what are you doing here?” asked the Princess. ”Surely you don't think we give hand-outs!”

”No,” said Vlemk, ”I have no reason to think that.”

”What is it, then?” asked the Princess, a little more kindly.

For a long moment Vlemk said nothing, so sunk in misery that he could barely draw a breath. At last he pulled himself together and said: ”I will tell you the truth, since then at least I will have it off my chest. It's not that I expect any good to come of it.”

”Very well,” said the Princess, and abruptly, as if at a premonition, dropped her gaze and went slightly pale.

”I have come,” said Vlemk, ”to ask for your hand in marriage.” He was so abashed at having said the words, though he couldn't help saying them, that he wrung his hands and stared fixedly at the k.n.o.bs of his shoes.

To her credit, the Princess did not laugh. ”That is an exceedingly odd request,” she said, and glanced up at him, then away. ”As a man who's had dealings with wealthy aristocrats, you must surely be aware that it's unusual for members of the royal family to marry box-painters.”

Even the dogs seemed to notice that something was taking place. They abruptly stopped their antics and stood motionless, their heads raised crookedly, like the heads of jurors.

”Yes,” said Vlemk, ”I'm aware of that.”

”No doubt you're also aware,” the Princess continued, her voice slightly husky, as if her heart were beating too fast, ”that I saw you this morning in the gutter with some bottles and papers and the remains of a cat.” Now she too c.o.c.ked her head, studying him. Whether or not she was smiling Vlemk could not be sure in the enfolding darkness.

”Yes, I'm aware of that too,” Vlemk said. The memory so abashed him that he was unable to say another word.

But as luck would have it, the Princess took over his argument for him. ”I suppose you will say,” she said, ”that you are nevertheless an aristocrat, in your way, and worthy of any princess alive, since no one in the world is your equal at painting little boxes.”

Poor wretched Vlemk could only nod and wring his hands and make his knuckles hurt. In the palace behind the Princess the windows were now all lighted-so many lighted windows it was like snow in the air. Above the highest tower, the moon was just breaking free of clouds.

”An interesting argument,” the Princess said, though the argument was her own. She touched her forehead with the tips of three fingers and gave her head a queer, just perceptible jerk. ”But I'm afraid I'm not persuaded. How can I know that, living as you do, you haven't lost all your former ability?”

At this, Vlemk's gift of speech rushed back. ”Believe me,” he said recklessly, ”I could paint you a picture of your face so real it seems to speak!”

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