Читать книгу In Paradise - Paul Heyse - Страница 18

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In Jansen's studio, too, there was more talking than working going on this morning.

Edward Rossel had, at last, in spite of the heat, summoned up sufficient energy to undertake the short walk thither. A gigantic Panama hat, over which he also held a sunshade, protected his head; besides this he wore a summer suit of snow-white piqué, and light shoes of yellow leather.

He was in a very good humor, praised Felix for the assiduity with which he continued to study his skeleton, and then stepped up to the Dancing Girl, to which Jansen had just put the finishing touches.

He stood silently before it for some time, then he drew up a chair near it and begged Jansen to turn the stand so that he would be able to view the work from all sides.

His friends declared that it was a pleasure to see him look at anything. His glances seemed to fairly fasten upon the form, or rather to take it all in; all the muscles of his face became animated, and an intellectual tension curved his somewhat languid mouth.

"Well," asked Jansen, at last, "how does it strike you? You know I can bear anything."

"Est, est, est! What is there to be said about it, especially? Naturally, it has gained and lost, as is always the case. The innocent audacity, the Pompeian abandon, that charmed me in the little sketch has, as a whole, suffered in the execution. You might do better, perhaps, to disguise your respect for Nature a little more. And, by-the-way--with all respect for this Nature--what sort of a model did you have? Of course it is very strongly idealized?"

"Not in the least. A pure facsimile."

"What? This neck and breast, these shoulders, arms--"

"A conscientious copy, without any additions."

Fat Rossel stood up.

"I should have to see that to believe it," he said. "Look here, compared with this the conventionalities of Canova are mere wretched sugar-work. And that is what I was just going to say to you--the Grecian element that was in the sketch is gone. In its place there are a grace, an esprit, an elegance of form--and that, too, of a spontaneous sort. Don't you find it so, my dear baron? You are a lucky man, Hans, to have such a being run into your hands. In what garden did this little slip grow?"

Jansen shrugged his shoulders.

"Come, out with it, old Jealousy! You need not lend her to me for any length of time--only for one forenoon. I happen to have a composition in mind, for which this little one--"

"You will have to run after luck more persistently than the law of your laziness permits," added Jansen, quietly. "I myself didn't catch it by the forelock this time without some trouble; and, although this forelock is very thick, and shone before me in the most beautiful red--"

"Red hair? Now no dodges will help you, Jansen, you must hand her over to me. Something of this sort has floated before my fancy for weeks past--something of the wood-nymph, water-nymph nature."

"Hand her over! But it isn't in my power. Friend Felix happened to drop in, the second time she was with me. She took this so to heart that, since then, she has disappeared, leaving no traces behind her."

"Is there virtue under this beautiful exterior? So much the better. Nature will enjoy her natural bounds all the longer, and so virtue will also tend to the benefit of art. Tell me where she lives--the rest shall be my care."

He noted down the address, which was written in charcoal on the wall near the window, and then advanced toward the large, veiled group in the middle of the studio.

"How far have you got with the Eve?"

"Unfortunately, I can't show her to you to-day," replied Jansen, quickly. "She is just at a stage--"

"What the devil!" laughed Fat Rossel; "this looks very dangerous! How long is it since you have fastened your cloths down with safety pins? Don't you want the priests to snuff around here when they wander in from the saint-factory?"

A knock on the door relieved Jansen from the evident embarrassment of answering. The door opened, and Angelica, in her painting-jacket and with her brush behind her ear, just as she had come from her easel, appeared on the threshold.

"Good-day, Herr Jansen," she said. "Ah! I am disturbing you. You have company. I will come again later--I merely had a favor to ask."

"And you hesitate to give utterance to this request before a colleague and old admirer?" cried Rossel, going up to the artist and gallantly kissing her hand. "If you only knew, Fräulein Angelica how this undeserved slight hurt my tender heart!"

"Herr Rossel," continued the artist, "you are a scoffer, and, as a punishment for boasting of a tender heart, which you do not possess, you shall not be given a chance to see something beautiful. I simply wished to request Herr Jansen to come and look at my picture, for I have just had my last sitting, and my friend has given me permission. She knows how important his judgment is to me."

"But if I vow to be very good, and not to open my mouth--"

"You have such a deprecating way of screwing up the corners--"

"I will hold my hat before my face--only my eyes shall peep over the rim."

"For Heaven's sake, come then! although I don't place much confidence in your most solemn vows. I place myself under Herr Jansen's protection; and if the Herr Baron would perhaps like to come too?"

Jansen had not spoken a word, but, with conspicuous haste had exchanged his frock for a coat and had washed the dust from his hands.

When they entered the studio above, they found Rosenbusch already engaged in the most enthusiastic admiration of the picture, while, at the same time, he endeavored in his chivalrous way, to bestow at least half of his enthusiasm upon the original.

Julie had risen and gone toward his chair. When she saw Angelica return with a triple escort, instead of the one she expected, she seemed slightly confused. But the next moment she greeted the gentlemen, whom Angelica introduced to her, with easy grace.

A pause followed. Jansen had stepped before the picture, and, with the great authority which he enjoyed in this circle, not even Edward himself dared to say a word before he had expressed his opinion. It was Jansen's way not to reduce his impression immediately to words. But, on this occasion, he remained silent unusually long.

"Tell me frankly, dear friend," Angelica began at last, "that I have once more undertaken something that deserves the palm for no other reason than for its audacity. If you only knew what contemptuous epithets I have heaped upon myself while I was painting! I have made myself out so bad, have so run myself down, that Homo would not take a piece of bread from me if he had heard me. And yet, in the midst of my dejection, I still took such unheard-of pleasure in my daubery that, do what I would, I could not let my courage sink. If my friend were not present, I should be able to explain to you the reason for this. As it is, it would seem in very bad taste if I should forthwith make her a declaration of love in the presence of witnesses."

The sculptor still remained silent. At last he said, dryly,

"You may set your mind at rest, Angelica. Don't you know very well that this is not only your best picture, but, moreover, a most excellent performance, such as one only too seldom meets with nowadays?"

A deep blush of joyful embarrassment suffused the good-natured, round face of the painter.

"Is that your candid opinion?" cried she. "Oh, my dear Jansen! if it only is not meant as a salve for the goadings of my own conscience--"

Jansen did not answer. He was once more deeply absorbed in the contemplation of the picture. Now and then he cast a critical glance at the original, who stood quietly by and appeared to be thinking of other things.

In the mean while Edward labored zealously to efface the bad opinion that Angelica had formed of his love for critical mockery. He praised the work highly in detail--the drawing, the arrangement, the successful coloring, and the simple light effects, and what he found to criticise in the details of the technique only served to heighten the worth of his commendation as a whole.

"But, do you know," he said, enthusiastically, "this is only one way to do it, a very skillful and talented way, but by no means the only one. What do you say, for instance, to dark-red velvet, a light golden chain around the neck, a dark carnation in the hair--à la Paris Bordone? or a gold brocade--I happen to have a magnificent genuine costume at home, that was sent to me last week from Venice? or shall we have simply the hair disheveled, a dark dress, behind it a laurel-bush--"

"And so on, with graces in infinitum!" laughed the painter. "You must know, Julie, this gentleman has already painted thousands of the most magnificent pictures--unfortunately nearly all in imagination. No, my dear Rossel, we are obliged to you. We are only too glad to have accomplished it in this very modest way, and to have received so favorable a criticism. My dear friend, although she is an angel of patience, has had quite enough to do with the fine arts for some time to come."

"O, Angelica!" sighed Rossel with comical pathos, "you are merely jealous: you will vouchsafe to no other person the good fortune that has been accorded to you. Now, what if I had always been waiting for just such a task, so that I, too, might produce something immortal?"

"You?--your laziness is all that is immortal about you!" replied the painter.

They continued for a while to chaff and plague one another, Rosenbusch and Felix also contributing their share. Jansen alone did not jest, and Julie, too, took advantage of her slight acquaintance to take no further part in the conversation than common politeness demanded.

After the men had gone, a long silence followed between the two friends. The artist had taken up her palette again, in order that she might, after all, make use of Rossel's hints. Suddenly she said:

"Well, how did he please you?"

"Who?"

"Why, of course, there can be only one in question: the one who exerted himself least to please anybody, not even you."

"Jansen? Why, I scarcely know him!"

"One knows such men in the first quarter of an hour, when one is as old as we two are. It is just that which distinguishes the great men and the thorough artists from the petty and the half-way ones--one knows the lion by his claws. Just one look, and you will believe him capable of the most incredible and superhuman things."

"I really believe, my dear, you are in--"

"Love with him! No. I am, at all events, sensible enough not to let anything so nonsensical as that enter my head. But, if he were to say to me: 'I should take it as a favor, Angelica, if you would just eat this bladder-full of flake-white for your breakfast,' or, 'if you would try to paint with your foot, it would afford me a personal pleasure,' I believe I should not hesitate a moment. I should think he must undoubtedly have his reasons for it, and that I was only too stupid to comprehend them. Don't you see, such is my immovable faith in this unprecedented man, so impossible does it seem to me that he could do anything small, foolish, or even commonplace. Something horrible--yes, something monstrous and insane--I could believe him capable of, and who knows whether he has not really done something of the sort? He has something about him like a little Vesuvius, that stands there in the sun peacefully enough, and yet everybody knows what is boiling inside. His friends say of Jansen that, if the Berserker once breaks out in him, he is a bad man to deal with. I felt this from the first, with an unerring instinct, and I hardly dared to sneeze in his presence. Then I chanced to meet him in the garden, near the fountain, where he was combing his Homo, and showing himself pretty awkward at it. He struck me then as being so helpless that I could not help laughing and offering myself as a lady's maid for the dog, at which he showed great delight. That broke the ice between us, and, since then, I take the most inconceivable liberties with him, although my heart still continues to thump if he chances to look at me in his quiet, steady way, for a minute at a time."

Julie was silent. After some time she said, suddenly:

"It is true he has eyes such as I have never before seen in a man. One can read in those eyes that he is not happy; all his genius cannot make him glad. Don't you find it so, too? Wonderfully lonely eyes! Like a man who has lived long, years in a desert, and has seen no living soul--nothing but earth and sun. Do you know anything of his life?"

"No. He himself never speaks of it. Nor do any of the others know what he may not have gone through before he came to Munich. That was about five years ago. But now, if you will just sit still a moment longer--so!--it's only for the reflection in the left eye, and the retouching about the mouth."

Then the painting went on for another hour in silence.