Part 15 (2/2)
Great Grief went to see him in his studio, and returned to the den to say: ”Gaunt is working in his sleep. Somebody ought to set fire to him.”
It was then that the others went over and smoked, and gave their opinions of a drawing. Wrinkles said: ”Are you really looking at it, Gaunt? I don't think you've seen it yet, Gaunt?”
”What?”
”Why don't you look at it?”
When Wrinkles departed, the model, who was resting at that time, followed him into the hall and waved his arms in rage. ”That feller's crazy. Yeh ought t' see--” and he recited lists of all the wrongs that can come to models.
It was a superst.i.tious little band over in the den. They talked often of Gaunt. ”He's got pictures in his eyes,” said Wrinkles. They had expected genius to blindly stumble at the perface and ceremonies of the world, and each new flounder by Gaunt made a stir in the den. It awed them, and they waited.
At last one morning Gaunt burst into the room. They were all as dead men.
”I'm going to paint a picture.” The mist in his eyes was pierced by a Coverian gleam. His gestures were wild and extravagant. Grief stretched out smoking on the bed, Wrinkles and little Pennoyer working at their drawing-boards tilted against the table--were suddenly frozen. If bronze statues had come and danced heavily before them, they could not have been thrilled further.
Gaunt tried to tell them of something, but it became knotted in his throat, and then suddenly he dashed out again.
Later they went earnestly over to Gaunt's studio. Perhaps he would tell them of what he saw across the sea.
He lay dead upon the floor. There was a little grey mist before his eyes.
When they finally arrived home that night they took a long time to undress for bed, and then came the moment when they waited for some one to put out the gas. Grief said at last, with the air of a man whose brain is desperately driven: ”I wonder--I--what do you suppose he was going to paint?”
Wrinkles reached and turned out the gas, and from the sudden profound darkness, he said: ”There is a mistake. He couldn't have had pictures in his eyes.”
A STREET SCENE IN NEW YORK.
The man and the boy conversed in Italian, mumbling the soft syllables and making little, quick egotistical gestures. Suddenly the man glared and wavered on his limbs for a moment as if some blinding light had flashed before his vision; then he swayed like a drunken man and fell.
The boy grasped his arm convulsively, and made an attempt to support his companion so that the body slid to the side-walk with an easy motion like a corpse sinking into the sea. The boy screamed.
Instantly people from all directions turned their gaze upon that figure p.r.o.ne upon the side-walk. In a moment there was a dodging, peering, pus.h.i.+ng crowd about the man. A volley of questions, replies, speculations flew to and fro among all the bobbing heads.
”What's th' matter? what's th' matter?”
”Oh, a jag, I guess!”
”Aw, he's got a fit!”
”What's th' matter? what's th' matter?”
Two streams of people coming from different directions met at this point to form a great crowd. Others came from across the street.
Down under their feet, almost lost under this ma.s.s of people, lay a man, hidden in the shadows caused by their forms, which, in fact, barely allowed a particle of light to pa.s.s between them. Those in the foremost rank bended down eagerly, anxious to see everything. Others behind them crowded savagely like starving men fighting for bread. Always, the question could be heard flying in the air. ”What's th' matter.” Some, near to the body, and perhaps feeling the danger of being forced over upon it, twisted their heads and protested violently to those unheeding ones who were scuffling in the rear: ”Say, quit yer shovin', can't yeh?
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