Ay me, for one hour we were happy,
and for many hours thereafter. But when your
heart is glad, when you drink the wine of joy, there
is Madame Circumstance keeping the score, and she
brings in the bill at the end of the banquet, and
you pay it in coin of sorrow. She is my old enemy,
this Madame Circumstance, as I have told you.
It is not always that I can defy her. Who is
it that is always brave? Not I. But I shall be
brave again in the morning, and the battle will begin
again, and I shall win. Pah! I have won
already. I have smoked my pipe, and the incense
of victory curls about my head just now, at this moment.
There is no friend like your pipe. None.
Ten minutes ago I was despondent when;
I sat down to write. I broke off and smoked,
and I am my own man again. (Regard once more the beautiful
English idiom, and the smiling soul which so soon after
battle can take delight in verbal felicities.)
Now I will go on with my story.
It takes a long time to write. It will be twelve
months to-morrow since I last looked at the pages of
this narrative. I may not touch it again after
to-day for a year. Who knows?
I went to Mr. Gregory’s house
in West-bourne Terrace on Friday, and I continued
to go there on Friday evenings until the close of the
season. Mr. Gregory is no more my patron, only:
he is now my friend, and his friendship is firm and
true. I shall be honest in saying that to me
those Friday evenings were very beautiful. It
was so great a change from the hungry and lonely nights
in my attic, to find myself back again with ladies
and gentlemen, myself well dressed and at home, and
no longer hungry. There I was admired and feted,
and all people made much of me. I played and
sang, and the people talked of my pictures, and everywhere
I was asked out, until I could have spent my every
hour in those calm social dissipations which make
up so large a share of life in all refined societies.
For my friend Gregory is a man of refinement-within
himself-and his friends are all artistic
and literary.. But why should I talk about him?
Everybody knows him. Gregory the millionaire;
Gregory the connoisseur in wines, in pictures, in
old violins, in pottery; the Connoisseur in humanity
at whose gatherings the wisest and the most charming
meet each other. Gregory the ship-builder, iron-master,
coal-owner; architect of himself-a splendid
edifice. That such a man should have bought my
pictures was of itself a fortune to me. I am on
my way to get riches, and my balance at-the bank is
already respectable. Why, then, should I be at
battle with Madame Circumstance? You shall see.
One day at the beginning of this year
he called to see me. I was hard at work making
the best of the few hours of light. He sat and
watched for a full hour, talking very little.
At last he said-
‘I can trust you, Calvotti.
I want you to do me a service.’
‘I am very heartily glad to hear it,’
I answered.
’You won’t understand
what I want you to do unless I tell you the whole
story,’ he said, after a pause. Then he
remained silent for some time.
‘Put down your brushes and listen,’ he
went on.
I obeyed him. He lit a cigar,
poured out a glass of claret, crossed his legs, and
talked easily, though at times I could see that he
felt strongly.
’I have had a good many friendly
acquaintances in my life, and one friend: he
died five years ago. I was abroad at the time,
in Russia, laying down a railway. My friend,
whom everybody supposed to be fairly well-to-do, died
poor. There was one lump sum of money in my hands,
placed there by him for investment, and that was almost
all he had. By some terrible mischance, the acknowledgment
I had given for this lump sum was lost, and his relatives
were in ignorance of it. Six months after his
death I came home, and finding that nothing had been
said of the money he had entrusted to my care, I went
to his lawyer and spoke to him about it. My friend
had been a widower for the last dozen years. He
had three children, and no other relatives in the world.
After the sale of his effects, poor fellow, the two
girls disappeared utterly. The son, who was a
reckless, good-for-nothing scamp, was my poor friend’s
favourite, and whatever the old man died possessed
of went by will to him with a mere injunction to look
after his sisters. He had not been heard of for
more than a year, but was believed to be somewhere
in Italy. The scoundrel professed to be a painter,
and might have made a decent sign-writer, if he hadn’t
been a drunkard. I could not find even him, and
the girls have been advertised for, vainly. Now,
the lawyer has just received a letter from this young
ne’er-do-weel, who wants to borrow money.
I will tell you what I want you to do. If this
scamp learns that ten thousand pounds belong to him,
he will take every penny, though he left the girls
to starve. But I want things so managed that he
shall share with his sisters-a thing he
will be very reluctant to do. Now, will you go
to Naples, find this man out, get to know from him
the whereabouts of his sisters, manoeuvre him, and,
if possible, induce him to accept half? Will
you remember that there is absolutely no receipt in
existence for the money which lies in my hand-that
I am not legally bound to pay a penny of it?
That is my only power over this fellow. Keep
my name dark. Let him know there is a certain
sum of money-never mind telling him how
much-in the hands of a certain person in
London, who is willing, on his written undertaking
to divide with his sisters whatever his father may
have left, to pay over to him his moiety. Let
him understand distinctly that the person in whose
hands the money lies will not pay him one farthing
without this bond unless he produces the receipt given
to his father. When you have secured his written
undertaking, will you bring him to me? I will
be answerable for all your charges in the matter.’
I had listened attentively to this
story, and I said Yes, at once. I added, that
it seemed to me a very easy task and an honourable
one.
‘I want it done at once,’
he said, ’because I know the girls must be in
a very poor position wherever they are. When can
you start? There is a tidal train at eight o’clock
this evening, and the man is now in Naples. I
have the papers here all ready: you can study
them on the way.’
‘I will start to-night,’ I answered.
‘Thank you, Calvotti, thank
you,’ he said heartily. ’Do you remember
how I excused myself for overturning that little girl
who was carrying the first picture I ever saw of yours
to your estimable uncle round the corner, as you called
him?’
’Yes. There was a man in
the street you were anxious to speak to, and you jumped
from a cab to catch him, and lost sight of him through
the accident.’
‘That was the man I want you to see-Charles
Grammont.’
I had only time to catch at the name
and weave Cecilia and her sister into this romance
with one throw of the shuttle, when there came a knock
at the door.
‘Come in,’ I said.
The door opened, and a man entered. Seeing my
patron and myself, he drew back.
‘I have made a mistake,’
he murmured awkwardly. ’I wish to find Miss
Grammont. I was told she lived here.’
‘Talk of the devil!’ cried my patron.
‘Charles Grammont!’
‘That is my name,’ said
the new-comer, standing awkwardly in the doorway.
‘You have the advantage of me, sir.’
‘H’m!’ said my patron,
returning to the manner he had first worn in my presence.
’Likely to keep it too. Good-day, Calvotti.
You’ll remember that little commission.
Things may perhaps be easier than I thought they would
be.’ He muttered this to himself so that
the new-comer did not hear him. He pushed uncourteously
past the young man and went out.
‘You will find Miss Grammont
upstairs, sir,’ I said. ’If you are
Mr. Charles Grammont, the brother of the ladies upstairs,
I shall be glad to speak to you in an hour’s
time, on a matter of much advantage to you.’
The young man had a disagreeable swagger
and a bloated face. His swagger was intended
to hide the discomfiture in the midst of which that
sort of man’s soul lives always.
‘If you have any thing to say
to me,’ he answered, still holding the handle
of the door, ’you can say it now, or save yourself
the trouble of saying it at all.’
‘Sir,’ I replied with
some asperity, ’it is not a matter which concerns
me at all, but you.
Your late father left some money in
which you are interested, that is all.’
He looked bewildered.
‘My father left no money,’ he stammered.
‘Your father left a considerable
sum,’ I answered, ’and if you will call
upon me in one hour from now I will inform you of the
conditions attached to your receipt of it. Meantime,
the stairs are dark, and I will give you a light.’
‘No, thank you,’ he said.
’I won’t trouble my sisters until I’ve
heard what you have to say, I’ll call again
in an hour’s time.’
He went away, closing the door behind
him. I, sitting there, and listening to his footsteps,
heard him speak to somebody on the stairs, and heard
two sets of footsteps blunder down the ill-lighted
staircase together. I took the papers Mr. Gregory
had left behind him and looked them through.
They were short and simple, and I mastered them in
five minutes. Then I went back to my painting
and worked until I heard a knock at the door and admitted
my new acquaintance. He had a companion with
him, and, since I must do him justice, I must say that
his companion was sevenfold worse than he. He
was a countryman of my own, as I knew by his face
and voice. They had both been drinking.
‘You know my name, it seems,’
said young Grammont, ’and I shall be glad to
know yours.’
I was decided that nobody but our
two selves should be present when I spoke to him,
lest any slip of mine before a witness should blunder
the matter I had in charge.
’My business with you, Mr. Grammont,
is of a private nature, and I cannot discuss it in
the presence of a third party.’ I was plain
and outspoken, because this kind of man does not comprehend
innuendo.
‘This is a chum of mine,’
he answered. ’He’s quite welcome to
hear anything about me.’
‘Pardon me, sir,’ I told
him quietly; ’but I can only discuss this matter
in private.’
‘All right,’ he hiccoughed.
’You’d better slide, Jack. Evado,
you blackguard! Hidi! git! chabouk!’
‘You are merry, my friend,’
said my unwholesome countryman, who was very drunk
indeed. ‘But I am not a Hamal that you speak
to me so.’
‘There’s half-a-crown,’
said young Grammont, throwing a coin on the carpet.
‘Wait at the Red Lion. It’s all right.’
My unwholesome countryman took himself
out of the room with the half-crown, and went downstairs
in a series of dangerous slides and tumbles.
‘Now, then,’ said my client,
throwing himself insolently upon the sofa and lighting
a pipe. ’You can say what you have; to say,
and get it over as soon as you like.’
One is not angry with this kind of
person. ’If you are in a fit condition
to listen, sir, you may know all about the matter in
five minutes. Your father just before his death
invested a large sum of money. The receipt for
that sum of money was lost, but the gentleman with
whom he invested it is honourable and is ready to pay
it. He will only pay it on one condition, and
that is that it be divided into equal portions between
your two sisters and yourself.’
He sat up with the pipe between his finger and thumb.
‘Whatever my father left,’ he said, ‘belongs
to me.’
‘Then,’ I answered, ‘claim it!’
He lay down again as suddenly as if I had shot him.
‘You will remember,’ I
said, ’that the receipt is lost, and that you
have no legal claim upon the gentleman who now holds
the money. He is willing to pay it over at once,
provided you divide it with your sisters.’
‘Who is he?’
I made no answer.
’What right has he, whoever
he is, to dictate terms to me? What right has
he to suppose that I shouldn’t make fair terms
with my sisters, and make them a decent allowance,
and all that sort of thing, if I had the money?’
‘I know nothing of the matter,
sir,’ I answered, ’except that on your
written undertaking to divide whatever property your
father may have left, you can take half of it, and
that without such an undertaking you can get nothing.’
‘I’ll sign no such undertaking!’
he cried angrily. ’Why should I be juggled
out of money which belongs to me? If I choose
to make my sisters a present, why, I’ll do it,
and if I don’t, I won’t.’
‘Very good, sir,’ I said;
’when you have changed your mind, and wish to
draw the money, you can apply to me again.’
‘What’s the amount?’ he asked sulkily,
after a time.
‘I am requested not to mention
the amount,’ I answered, ’but it is considerable.’
‘How do you come to be
mixed up with my affairs?’ he asked. ’I
don’t even know your name. You’re
not a lawyer. How do I know that the whole thing
isn’t a stupid joke? How do I know there’s
not a trap of some sort in it?’
‘All these things are for your
own consideration, sir,’ I answered, as coolly
as I could. ’I am acting to oblige a friend,
and if it were not for my desire to oblige a friend-’
There I stayed. He glared at
me, and rose-to his feet.. ‘Well!’
he said, ‘what then?’.
’I should take no trouble at
all in the matter, and should be glad to be rid of
you.’
‘Oh!’ he said jeeringly,
and then sat down again. By-and-by he looked
up and shook a forefinger at me with an air of drunken
perspicacity and resolution which was amusing.
‘Don’t think,’ he
said, ’that I can’t see through your
little game. You’re living in the same
house, are you? You’ve got my sister’s
affairs into your own dirty fingers, eh, my boy?
She’s getting to a nice manageable age, isn’t
she? And you’ve found out that some money
is coming to me after all, and you think me idiot
enough to sign away half of it for you and that young-’
’Stop, sir, if you please.
You shall commit what folly you like in respect to
the business in hand, but I have no time or taste for
a drunken brawl. You may call upon me in the
morning. You will forgive me if I suggest that
you are not quite fit for business at present.
I have the honour to bid you a good afternoon.’
‘Oh!’ said he, ’I’m
quite fit for business, if there is any business to
be done. Have you any objection to my consulting
a lawyer before I sign?’
I disregarded the sneer, and said
that I could have no objection to such a course.
‘Will you come with me?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I told him.
There was the case already in his hands. I was
powerless to alter its conditions. He could tell
the story to his lawyer for himself.
’I will give you a reply to-morrow, he said.
I gave him my card, and he went away.
I had no doubt of his final acceptance of the terms
offered to him, and when on the morrow he returned,
he proclaimed himself willing to accept one-half of
the sum left in Mr. Gregory’s hands. The
lawyer he had consulted was the man who had acted
professionally for his father during the latter’s
lifetime, and it was he also to whom my directions
ordered me. I telegraphed to Mr. Gregory at his
offices in the city, and then drove to Russell Square
with young Grammont. At the lawyer’s we
were detained for a few minutes, and before wo
could get to business Mr. Gregory arrived. The
matter was then gone into, and everything was over
in half-an-hour. Mr. Gregory gave young Grammont
a cheque for five thousand pounds, and took the receipt
for it. Then we bade the lawyer good-day and went
out together. Young Grammont took a cab and went
away in high feather, whilst Mr. Gregory and I went
to my rooms, and sent a message to Miss Grammont.
In a few minutes we were admitted, and it was my felicity
to make the announcement of the pleasant change in
their fortunes. Miss Grammont recognised Mr.
Gregory at once, and both she and Cecilia accepted
this stroke of good fortune with a calm gladness.
‘Why did you hide yourself in
this way?’ asked Mr. Gregory.
‘What could we do?’ Miss
Grammont answered him. ’We have never been
in actual want, and you know that we were always very
foolishly proud-we Grammonts.’
‘Very foolishly proud, the lot
of you,’ said Mr. Gregory. ’You knew
very well how much I owed to your father’s help
and advice when I was a young man. You know that
Lizzie would have given you a home, and have thought
herself more than paid by your society and friendship.’
(Lizzie was the late Mrs. Gregory.) ‘Forgive
me,’ he said a minute later. ’Had
I been in your place, I should probably have done
as you have done. But now to business. Fifteen
thousand pounds remain in my hands. Of this sum
only ten thousand honestly belongs to you two.’
‘How is this?’ asked Miss Grammont.
’Mr. Calvotti told me just now
that my father had left but ten thousand pounds in
all.’
’For investment, madam-for
investment. I am a business man and I have invested
it and doubled it. That graceless brother of yours
who has gone away with his five thousand now will
be back in a year’s time to borrow. He
will still have five thousand to draw upon, but I hold
his discharge in full, and I shall cheat him for his
own good and button him down tightly to a weekly allowance.
Money is cheap just now, Miss Grammont-dirt
cheap-and you can’t do better than
leave this in my hands at five per cent, interest.
That’s five hundred a year. But all that
we’ll talk about, in future. Meantime, that’s
the first half-year’s allowance’-laying
a cheque upon the table-’and the first
thing to be done is to leave this place and come straightway
to my house until you can look about you and settle
where to live.’
‘You are just as generous and
just as imperious as you always were,’ said
Miss Grammont. ‘We will come this day week.’
‘Come now,’ said Mr. Gregory.
’My sister will make you comfortable. Poor
Jane’s an old maid still, and lives with me.’
‘Not now,’ she said.
’There are many things to be seen to before we
can leave here.’
I saw her glance at her own shabby
dress, and he saw that also.
‘When you like,’ he said
cheerfully. ’But this day week is a bargain.
At what time? Say two o’clock. I’ll
be there to meet you. Good-day, Calvotti; good-day,
Miriam.’ Then he turned and kissed Cecilia.
’Good-day, Baby. God bless my soul! it seems
only the other day since you were a baby.
And now I suppose you’ll be getting married in
a week or two.’
Cecilia blushed and laughed, and Mr.
Gregory turned round with a droll look to me, and
then took his hat and went in his own solid and determined
way out of the room. Even in his walk the determination
of his character declared itself. He was strong
and square and firm, but within very gentle.
Oh, you English! you English! you are a great people!
Great in your stolidity and solidity, before which
I, who know what lives beneath them, can only bow
in a fluttering, butterfly respect! Great in
your passions, which you repress so splendidly that
to the superficial eye they look only like affections!
Solid, stolid, much-enduring people, with corners
all over you, accept my profoundest veneration!
Now it befalls me that I am impelled
to tell why, with a reputation already considerable
and fast increasing, and with a balance at the banker’s
in the same beautiful conditions, I yet remained in
that poor studio of mine, and in those unfashionable
apartments. It was not that I am penurious, although
I have changed my old harum-scarum habits with
regard to money.
It was not-but why should
I go on saying what it was not to pave the way to
saying what it was? It was, then, that in that
house had lived that little English angel who is a
woman, and Cecilia. I will set it down in one
line. She is all the joy I have and all the sorrow.
And now I will set down one thing more that I may
see it in plain black and white, and study it there
until I drive its meaning into my thick head and my
sore heart, and can at last smoke calm pipes over it,
and be once more contented. There is no hope
for me-there is no hope for me: none
in the world. For my little Cecilia is in love
already, and I would not for twenty thousand times
my own sake have her in one thought untrue.
I was walking upstairs one night a
month before the events I have just related, when
I met a man coming down in the dark. I did not
at all know who he was, but I knew that he had been
to Miss Grammont’s rooms, because I was already
near my own door, and nobody but Miss Grammont lived
above me. The stranger said Good-night as he passed
me, and I returned his salutation. He stopped
short.
‘Have I the honour to address Mr. Calvotti?’
he asked.
‘That is my name,’ I answered, in some
astonishment.
‘Ah, then,’ he said, turning
back again, ’if you can spare me just a minute,
I will deliver a letter I have for you.’
We went upstairs together, and into
my studio. I lighted the gas and took the letter.
It came from Miss Grammont, and introduced Mr. Arthur
Clyde, an old friend who had found them out by accident,
and who had an especial desire to know me.
‘This is not a good time at
night to make a call,’ he said, with a frank
and winning smile; ’but I’m an artist myself.
I’ve seen your work, and I’ve heard so
much about you, that when I found that Miss Grammont
knew you I couldn’t deny myself the pleasure
of making your acquaintance.’
He was very frank and pleasant in
his manner, very fresh and English in his look, very
handsome and self-possessed. Not self-possessed
in the sense that he had assurance, but in the sense
that he did not seem to think about himself at all,
which is the most agreeable kind of self-possession,
both for those who have it and for those who meet them.
We talked about indifferent things
for a minute or two, and then he lit a cigar and rose
to go.
‘I have heard of your kindness
to Miss Grammont and little Cecilia,’ he said,
turning at the door. ’You’ll forgive
me for saying a word about it, but they’re such
dear old friends of mine, that I can’t help
thanking anybody who has been good to them. Good-night,
I’ll run in to-morrow, if I may. Good-night.’
He came again next evening, and we
dined together. He is a fine young fellow, and
I got to like him greatly. He is fiery and enthusiastic
and impulsive, and all his adjectives are superlatives,
after the manner of earnest youth. But he is
good-hearted and honourable to the core. We took
to each other naturally, and he used to run up to my
studio every evening at dusk. Very frequently
we used to go upstairs and spend an evening with the
ladies. Then we had music, and sometimes young
Clyde would sing, and we would all laugh at him, for
he knew no more of music than a crow. And yet
I could see that it was to him Cecilia played and
sang, and to her he listened as though she had been
an angel out of heaven. When I played he had
no great joy in the music, but when she played-
ah! it was plain enough-then Love gave him
ears, and the music she created had power over him.
This was hard for me, but I have my consolations.
I can stand up and say one or two
things which it is well for a man to say. It
is one of them that I do not whine like a baby because
I cannot have my own way. It is another that
I have strangled jealous hate and buried deep the
baseness which would have led me to endeavour to estrange
these hearts for my own purpose. I tell myself
at times, ’You have done well, my friend, and
some day you will have your reward. And if the
reward should not come, or if it should not be worth
having, why-you have still done well.’
For it came to pass one night when I was quite convinced,
that I came downstairs to my own room, and sat down
and pulled a certain dream-house to pieces and beat
the sawdust out of the foolish dolls who had had their
abiding place in it. But, oh me, my friends,
it is hard to pull down dream-houses; and Madame Circumstance
exults over the bare rafters and the dismantled walls.
And, ah! I loved her, and I love her still, and
I shall love her till the day I die. But I am
going to be an Italian old bachelor, with no wife but
my pipe and no family but my canvas children.
Do you triumph, madame? Do you triumph?
Over my subdued heart? No! Over my broken
life? No! Over any cowardly complaint of
mine? Over any envy of this good young Englishman?
No! no! no! No! madame, I was not born a
cad, and you shall not remould me. Accept, once
more, my defiance!
Young Clyde came on the evening of
the day on which the good fortune of the ladies’
had been declared. He received the news very joyfully,
but after a while he sobered down greatly, and when
we took our leave together he was very depressed,
and had grown unlike himself, I asked no questions,
but he turned into my room and sat down and lit a cigar
and held silence for a few minutes. Then he said-
’I say, Calvotti, old man, have
you noticed that I have never once asked you to my
rooms?’
I had never thought about it, and I told him so.
’Will you come up to-morrow,
in the daytime? Don’t say No. I do
particularly want you to come. Say twelve o’clock.
Will you?’
He seemed strangely eager about this
simple matter, and I promised to go. He went
away a minute later, and next morning I walked to the
address he had given me. He met me at the door,
and I saw that he was pale and perturbed. I learned
afterwards that he had not been to bed, but had sat
up all night harassing himself with groundless misgivings.
He led me to his studio, a fine spacious room, with
a high north light. He had a chair set in the
middle of the room, and on the easel a large veiled
picture.
‘Now, Calvotti,’ he said,
speaking with a nervous haste which was altogether
foreign to him, ’I have asked you here to settle
a question which I cannot settle for myself.
Sometimes I’m brimfull of faith and hope, and
sometimes I’m in a perfect abyss of despair.
You know I’ve been painting all my life, but
I’ve never sold anything. Everything I
paint goes to the governor. Some of the things
he hangs about his own place, you know, and some of
them-more than half, I suppose-he
has cut into strips and sent back to me. He’s
a very singular man, and has extraordinary ideas about
pictures. But I’ve been working on one subject
now for some months past, and now I’ve finished
it, and- Look here, Calvotti, I’ll
tell you everything. When I got here last night,
I found a letter from my governor telling me that
my allowance is stopped after next quarter-day, and
that I must get a living by painting. He always
said he would give me the chance to make a living,
and then leave me to make it. Well, I’m
not afraid of that, but I want a candid judgment,
because-because-Well, I’m
engaged to be married, old man, and I can’t
live on my wife, you know. And I want you to tell
me candidly whether there’s any good stuff in
me, and whether I can ever do anything, you know.’
‘You are engaged to Cecilia?’ I asked
him.
‘Yes,’ he said simply,
’I am engaged to Cecilia, and I want to begin
work in earnest now.’
‘Let me look at your picture,’
I said, and took my seat in the chair he had placed
ready for me.
He paused a minute as though he would
have spoken, but checking himself, he turned to the
picture, drew away the cloth by which it was covered,
and passed behind me. The picture represented
a garret room, through the window of which could be
seen the far-reaching roofs of a great city.
Against the window rose the figure of a girl who was
seated at an old grand piano. Her fingers rested
on the keys, and her eyes were looking a great way
off. The face and figure were Cecilia’s,
the garret was that in which I myself had lived, and
the piano was mine. The outer light of the picture
was so subdued and calm that the face was allowed to
reveal itself quite clearly. I looked long and
carefully, guarding myself from a too rapid judgment.
Arthur, as by this time I had begun to call him, stood
at the back of my chair. At last he laid a hand
upon my shoulder-
‘What do think about it?’
‘Do you want my candid opinion?’ I asked
him.
‘Yes, your candid opinion.’
‘You will not be offended at anything I shall
say?’
‘No. I want an honest judgment, and I can
trust yours.’
I used the common slang of criticism.
’Suppose, then, I were to say
that the: composition is bad, the colour crude,
the whole work amateurish, the modelling thin and in
places, false, the-’
’Don’t say any more, Calvotti.
I’ve been a fool, and the governor has been
right all the time.’
‘If I said these things, you would believe them?’
‘If you said them?’
he cried, coming from-behind my chair. ’But
do you say them?’
‘Stand off!’ I said, laughing.
A man can rarely endure praise and blame with equal
fortitude. My young friend, you will some day
paint great pictures. In four or five hundred
years’ time great painters will look at this
and will reverently point out in it the faults of early
manner; but they will read the soul in it-as
I do now. You are a creature of a hundred years-a
painter, an artist. This is not paint, but a face-a
face of flesh and blood, with soul behind. And
this is not paint, but a faded brown silk. And
this is not paint, but solid mahogany. You have
done more than paint a picture. You have made
concrete an inspiration. Your technique is all
masterly, but it does not overpower. It gives
only fitting body to a beautiful idea-its
soul!’
He blushed and trembled whilst I spoke.
Englishmen do not often talk poetry-off
the stage. He answered-
’No, really, Calvotti, old man,
that’s rot, you know. But do you like it?’
I spoke gravely then.
’My dear young friend, so surely
as that is your work, so surely will you be a great
artist if you choose.’
‘You bet I choose,’ this
young genius answered. He would sooner have died,
I suppose, than have put his emotions at that moment
into words. This is another characteristic of
you English. You will sooner look like fools
than have it appear that you feel. You wear the
rags of cynicism over the pure gold of nature.
This is a foolish pride, but it is useless to crusade
against national characteristics.
I was a little chilled, and I said in a business tone-
‘Well, we will see about selling this at once.’
‘No,’ he answered. ‘I will
not sell this.’
‘No?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he said again; ‘not
this picture,’ And for one minute he regarded
it, and then shook his head and once more said ‘No.’
‘Well,’ I answered, not
trying to persuade him, ’I will ask Mr. Gregory
to look at it, and he will give you a commission for
a work, and then you will be fairly afloat.’
‘Oh, thank you, Calvotti. What a good fellow
you are!’
I was unsettled for work. My
praise was hysterical and hyperbolical. I could
have wept whilst I uttered it. For though I had
given up all hope, and though I was glad to find that
in art he was worthy as in manhood he was worthy,
yet it was still hard to endorse a rival’s triumph
and to cut out all envy and stifle all pain.
And now I had to go home and to live beneath the same
roof with Cecilia, and to see her sometimes, and to
talk and look like a friend. If you resist the
Devil, will he always fly from you? Is it not
sometimes safer to fly from him? And is there
anywhere a baser fiend than that which prompted me
to throw myself upon my knees before her and tell
her everything, and so barter honour for an impulse?
Brave or not, I know that I was wise when that afternoon
I packed up everything and went to say good-bye.
‘I am ill,’ so I excused
myself, ’and I am a child of impulse. Impulse
says to me “Go back to Italy-to the
air of your childhood-to the scenes you
love best.” And I obey.’
‘But you do not leave England
in this way?’ asked Cecilia.
‘No, mademoiselle, I shall return.
But, for a time, good-bye.’
They both bade me good-bye sorrowfully,
and I went away. And whatever disturbance my
soul made within its own private residence, it was
too well-bred to let the outside people know of it.
And so it came to pass that I continue
this narrative at Posilipo, in my native air, within
sight of smoking Vesuvius and the glittering city and
the gleaming bay-old friends, who bear comfort
to the soul.