Eyes Like the Sea Part 2

"I mean to be."

"Indeed! And what sort of beasts will you tame?"

"Men!"

Not one of them understood me.

"Well, Mr. Poet," joked Muki Bagotay, "the ballad was a success; now let us see whether the picture also will be superlative."

"How do you want to see it?"

"So!" and with that he stuck his eye-gla.s.s into the corner of his nose.

"Then you're just mistaken!" said I, "for when I paint a portrait n.o.body is allowed in the room except myself and the sitter."

The whole company was amazed. Every one fancied that it would have been a public exhibition, and so they had all congregated together to see how a person's eye, mouth and ear came out. A large round table had been prepared for me, in order that a whole lot of them might sit around it with their hands on their elbows, and give me general directions as I went along: That eye a bit higher! that ringlet a little lower! A little more red here, and a little more white there! However, I declared plainly that I would not paint before a crowd; it was the rule in painting, I said. When portraits were being painted, n.o.body must be in the atelier but the painter and his model. Barabas,[11] too, always made that a rule.

[Footnote 11: Michael Barabas, a famous Hungarian painter, born at Markosfalu in 1810.]

My resolution produced an imposing effect on the company. It's a very nice thing when a man can do something which n.o.body else can! They had to agree that Bessy and I should sit alone in a little side room, which had only one window, and the lower part of even this window had to be covered by a Spanish screen so as to get a proper light. And n.o.body was to disturb us so long as the sitting lasted.

The first sitting did not last long. In oil painting, the image should first of all be painted _under_, that is to say, with dull neutral colours. In those days I had never heard of such a thing as a first coating; while it is in this stage the picture is not fit to be looked at. It is absolutely hideous, and the better the likeness, the worse it looks. I allowed n.o.body to look at it, not even Bessy. I locked up the first essay in my painter's knapsack; it was a miniature. At this stage it was quite sufficient if the _insetting_ had succeeded, with the figure in profile, but the countenance quite _en face_; the shadows piled up, but the background merely thrown out tentatively, and the fundamental colours of the dress just insinuated. Every one will see that this last part is the hardest of all.

The company was very much deceived in its expectations when it was informed that I had nothing to show it. Every one had expected that in an hour and a half I should have finished the eye or the mouth at any rate; they now thought to themselves that nothing at all would come of it.

"Well, but will Bessy look pretty in this dress?" asked her mother.

What could I do at such a question as this but look silly? As if I knew whether Bessy had had a pretty dress on or not! All I knew was that I had had to use for it a little "English lake," some "Neapolitan yellow,"

"Venetian white," and just a scrinch of "burnt ochre."

"I can tell you that it was a very tiresome amus.e.m.e.nt," said Bessy. "The face a little more that way--Not so serious--Not so smiling--Don't sit so stiffly--Raise your finger--Don't move about so much.--And you've laid so much licorice-juice on my portrait that they'll fancy I'm a gipsy girl."

I hastened to a.s.sure her that this was only laying the ground work, and that on the morrow it would be a much merrier business.

The next day I was there again after an early dinner. In the forenoon I was with my chief at the office. Thus before dinner I was a lawyer, and after dinner I was artist, poet, and reciter.

This time there was no company. The picture proceeded briskly, and the members of the family were allowed to come in from time to time, one by one, and have a peep at it.

I had now begun to study the face more in detail. It was an interesting head. The face was almost heart-shaped, terminating below in a little chin which was delicately divided by a single dimple. There were spiral-like lips of dazzling red enamel; a slightly _retrousse_ nose, with vibrating nostrils; round, rosy-red cheeks, with little beauty spots here and there, which I christened "black stars in the ruddy dawning heavens!" Her densely thick hair curled naturally, and gleamed like golden enamel, diminis.h.i.+ng, after the manner of Phidias' ideal Venus, the smoothest of foreheads, and fluttering the most roguish of little ringlets over the blue-veined temples. (How could I help learning by heart such minute details when every one of them pa.s.sed beneath my brush?) But what my brush could not possibly reproduce was her marvellous pair of eyes. They drove me entirely to despair. I really believe that even if I had been a true artist instead of a wretched dilettante, I should never have been able to conjure forth their secrets. Just when I was thinking I had fixed them, her eyes would flash, and my whole work was thrown away. At last I had to be content with a dreamy expression, which pleased _me_, at any rate, best. The inspecting family trio said that they had never seen such an expression on Bessy's face; nevertheless they acknowledged, with one voice, that it was a speaking likeness.

The head was now ready, the dress was to remain till to-morrow.

On that day there was a _preference_ party in town at the General's.

Bessy's mother was an enthusiastic _preference_ player.... Consequently she was not at home. The aunt alone remained as the guardian of maidens, and she used generally to take a nap in the afternoon, or play patience.

I don't know who presided over Bessy's toilet on this occasion, perhaps n.o.body. That clean-cut, pale pink bodice on other days had given full scope to her charming figure; but on this particular day it was more insinuating than ever. It seemed to me as if the frill of English tulle had crept considerably lower down the shoulder, nay, lower still.

One cannot imagine a lovelier masterpiece of a creative hand than that bust. And it is a painter's right, nay, his duty, not merely to look, but to observe. A dangerous privilege. My hand trembled, I seemed to freeze, and yet beads of sweat stood out upon my forehead.... She, too, seemed to remark my agitation. A roguish flame sparkled in her eye. She was now not a bit like her yesterday's portrait. She seemed to be flouting me. And I was putting that treacherous frill of tulle to rights in the picture, putting it where it _ought_ to have been. That is what I really call "_corriger la fortune_."

At this sitting the face was completely finished, and the dress also was painted. I thanked the fair self-sacrificing victim, and told her that she might now look at the picture; it was ready. The girl rose from her chair and peeped over my shoulder. She looked at the picture and laughed in my face.

"Why, you've readjusted the frill of my dress, haven't you?" said she.

"So you wore it like that purposely, eh?"

"Then was there something you didn't want to see?"

"There was something I didn't want other people to see."

"Well, now, I've been looking at you for days and days, and I've observed something _on you_ which is very nasty, and which I don't like at all."

"I had no idea you gave me so much of your attention."

"It is only a mere speck, no bigger than the eye of a bean."

"What can it be?"

"The wart on your right hand."

And, indeed, on my right hand, just below the thumb, was a not very ornamental excrescence, which everybody could see when I was writing or painting.

"I cannot cut it out, because it is just above the artery. I showed it to a doctor, and he said it would be a rather dangerous operation."

"What does the doctor know about it? I'll destroy it for you; it won't hurt you. I learned it at school from my school-fellows. I'll destroy it in a moment."

"By incantations, eh?"

"Oh, dear no! It will smart dreadfully. But if a girl can stand it, you can."

I consented.

She lit a candle forthwith, and placed it on the table beside me. Then she produced a darning-needle from somewhere (I thought of the other darning-needle), took firm hold of it, shoved it right down to the very roots of the wart, held up my hand, and placed the head of the needle in the candle flame till it was heated to a white heat. And all the time her wondrous eyes were opened round and wide, and looked straight into my eyes with irises turned downwards. It is thus that the demons of h.e.l.l must look upon those whom they are roasting!

"Does it hurt?" she hissed between her teeth. She appeared to be in a state of ecstatic delight.

"It hurts, but it is not the needle."

"Well, now you can take your wart away with you."

Two days after, the calcined wart fell from my hand, leaving behind it a little speck no bigger than a lentil; and that speck is there still, and is of a whiteness which contrasts strongly with the colour of the rest of the hand. And every day I set to work writing, I must needs look at this little white spot, and when I have looked at it long, it seems to me as if _her_ face were appearing before me in the midst of this tiny circle just as it looked then; and then that face runs through all its variations down to that last shape of all, which still startles me from my slumbers.

CHAPTER III

MY MASTERPIECE AND MY HUT

In the later stages of the painting we could converse. Indeed, conversation is necessary for completing one's study of one's subject, and prevents, besides, the constraint of sitting from becoming too tiresome.