CHAPTER XVII.
“Pardon my intrusion, Mrs. Gerome, and ascribe it to Elsie’s anxiety concerning your health. In compliance with her request, I have come to ascertain whether you really require my attention.”
Dr. Grey placed his hat and gloves on the piano, and established himself comfortably in a large chair near the arch, where Mrs. Gerome, palette in hand, sat before her easel.
“Elsie’s nerves have run away with her sound common sense, and filled her mind with vagaries. She imagines that I need medicine, whereas I only require quiet and peace, which neither she nor you will permit me to enjoy.”
She did not even glance at the visitor, but mixed some colors rapidly, and deepened the rose-tints in a cluster of apple-blossoms she was scattering in the foreground of a picture.
“If it is not of vital importance that those pearly petals should be finished immediately, I should be glad to have you turn your face towards me for a few moments. There,—thank 216 you. Mrs. Gerome, do I look like a nervous, whimsical man, whose fancy mastered his professional judgment, or blunted his acumen?”
“You certainly appear as phlegmatic, as utterly unimaginative, as any lager-loving German, whom Teniers or Ostade ever painted ‘Unter den linden.’”
“Then my words should possess some influence when they corroborate Elsie’s statement, that you are far from well. Do not be childishly incredulous, and impatiently shake your head; from a woman of your age and sense one expects more dignity and prudence.”
“Sir, your rudeness has at least a flavor of stern honesty that makes it almost palatable. Do you propose to take my case into your skilful hands?”
“I merely propose to expostulate with you upon the unfortunate and ruinous course of life you have decided to pursue. No eremite of the Thebaid, or the Nitroon, is more completely immured than I find you; and the seclusion from society is quite as deleterious as the want of out-door air and sunshine. Your mind, debarred from communion with your race and denied novel and refreshing themes, centres in its own operations and creations, broods over threadbare topics until it has grown morbid; and, instead of deriving healthful nourishment from the world that surrounds it, exhausts and consumes itself, like fabled Araline, spinning its substance into filmy nothings.”
“Filmy nothings! Thank you. I flatter myself, when I am safely housed under marble, the world will place a different estimate upon some things I shall leave behind to challenge criticism.”
“How much value will public plaudits possess for ears sealed by death? Mrs. Gerome, you are too lonely; you must have companionship that will divert your thoughts.”
“Not I, indeed! All that I require, I have in abundance,—music, books, and my art. Here I am independent, for remember that he was a petted son of fame, who said, ‘Books are the true Elysian fields, where the spirits of the dead converse, and into these fields a mortal may venture unappalled. 217 What king’s court can boast such company,—what school of philosophy such wisdom?’ Verily if you had ever examined my library you would not imagine I lacked companionship. Why sir, yonder,—
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‘The old, dead authors throng me round about, And Elzevir’s gray ghosts from leathern graves look out.’ |
Count Oxenstiern spoke truly, when he declared, ‘Occupied with the great minds of antiquity, we are no longer annoyed by contemporaneous fools.’”
She rose and pointed to the handsome cases in the rear room, filled with choice volumes; and, while she stood with one arm resting on the easel, Dr. Grey looked searchingly at her.
To-day there was a spirituelle beauty in the white face that he had never seen before; and the large eloquent eyes were full of dreamy sunset radiance, unlike their wonted steely glitter. A change, vague and indefinable, but unmistakable, had certainly passed over that countenance since its owner came to reside at “Solitude,” and, instead of marring, had heightened its loveliness. The features were thinner, the cheeks had lost something of their pure oval moulding, and the delicate nostrils were almost transparent in their waxen curves; but the arch of the lip was softened and lowered, and the face was like that of some marble goddess on which mid-summer moonshine sleeps.
Her white mull robe was edged at the skirt and up the front with a rich border of blue morning-glories, and a blue cord and tassel girded it at her waist, while the broad braids of hair at the back of her head were looped and fastened with a ribbon of the same color. Her sleeves were gathered up to keep them clear of the paint on the palette, and the dimples were no longer visible in her arms. The ivory flesh was shrinking closer to the small bones, and the diaphanous hands were so thin that the sapphire asp glided almost off the slender finger around which it was coiled.
“Mrs. Gerome, you have lost twenty pounds of flesh within the last two months, and your extreme pallor alarms me.”
“All things look pallid in these rooms, for the light is bluish, reflected from carpet, furniture, and curtains.”
“I have noticed that you invariably wear blue, to the exclusion of all other colors.”
“Yes. Throughout the Levant it is considered a mortuary color; and, moreover, I like its symbolism. The Mater dolorosa often wears blue vestments; also the priests during Lent; and even the images of Christ are veiled in blue, as holy week approaches. Azure, in its absolute significance, represents truth, and is the symbol of the soul after death; so, as I walk the earth,—a fleshy ‘death in life,’—I clothe myself symbolically. In pagan cosmogonies the Creator is always colored blue. Jupiter Ammon, Vischnou, Cneph, Krischna,—all are azure. And because it is a solemn, consecrated color, mystic and mournful, I wear it.”
“My dear madam, this is a morbid whimsicality that trenches closely upon monomania, and would be more tolerable in a lackadaisical school-girl, than in a mature, intelligent, and gifted woman. Some of your fantasies would be positively respectable in a Bedlamite, and you seem an anomalous compound of eccentricities peculiar to extreme youth and to advanced age.”
“I believe, sir, that you are entirely correct in your analysis. I stand before you, young in years, but forsaken by that ‘blue-eyed Hope’ who frolics hand in hand with youth; and yet utterly devoid of that philosophy and wisdom which justly belong to the old age of my heart.”
Her tone was indescribably weary, and, as she laid aside her brush and folded her hands together on the cross-beam of the easel, the transient light died out of her countenance, and the worn, tired look, came back and settled on every feature.
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... “The soft, sad eyes,
Set like twilight planets in the rainy skies,— With the brow all patience, and the lips all pain,” |
wove a strange spell over the visitor, whose gaze was riveted on the only woman who had ever aroused even temporary interest in his heart.
She was always beautiful, but to-day there was a helpless, hopeless abandonment in her listless demeanor, that appealed successfully to the manly tenderness and chivalry of his nature; and into his strong, true, noble soul, came a longing to cheer, and guide, and redeem this strange, desolate woman, whose personal loveliness would have made her regnant over the gay circles of fashionable life, yet whose existence was more lonely than that of an eaglet in some mountain eyrie.
Rising, he leaned against the easel and looked down into the colorless face that possessed such a wondrous charm for him.
“Mrs. Gerome, for natures diseased like yours, the only remedy, the only cure, is earnest, vigorous labor; and the regimen you really require is mournfully at variance with your present habits and modes of thought.”
“I do labor incessantly; more indefatigably than any plowman, or mason, or carpenter. Your prescription has been thoroughly tested, and found worthless, as an antidote to my malady,—hopelessness.”
“Unfortunately the labor has all been mental; heart and soul have stood aloof, while the brain almost wore itself out. This canvas is destroying you; your creations are too rapid, too exhausting.”
“Dr. Grey, you grievously misapprehend the whole matter, for my work reminds me of what Canova once said of West’s pictures, ‘He groups; he does not compose.’”
Dr. Grey put his hand on her wrist, and counted the rapid, feeble, irregular pulse.
She made an effort to throw off his fingers, but they clung tenaciously to the polished arm.
“How many hours do you sleep, during the twenty-four?”
“Sometimes three, occasionally one, frequently none.”
“How much longer do you suppose your constitution will endure such merciless taxation?”
“I know very little about these things, and care still less, but as Horne Tooke said, when a foreigner inquired how much treason an Englishman might venture to write without 220 being hanged, ‘I cannot inform you just yet, but I am trying.’”
“Has life become such an intolerable burden that you are impatient to shake it off?”
“Even so, Dr. Grey. When Elsie dies the last link will have snapped, and I trust I shall not long survive her. If I prayed at all, it would be for speedy death.”
“If you prayed at all, existence would not prove so wearisome; for resignation would cure half your woes.”
“Confine your prescriptions to the body,—that is tangible, and may be handled and scrutinized; but venture no nostrums for a heart and soul of which you know nothing. Once I was almost a Moslem in the frequency and fervor of my prayers; but now, the only petition I could force myself to offer would be that prayer of Epictetus, ‘Lead me, Zeus and Destiny, whithersoever I am appointed to go; I will follow without wavering; even though I turn coward and shrink, I shall have to follow, all the same.’”
Dr. Grey sighed heavily, and answered,—
“It is painful to hear from feminine lips a fatalism so grim as to make all prayer a mockery; and it would seem that the loss of those dear to you, would have insensibly and unavoidably drawn your heart heavenward, in search of its transplanted idols.”
He knew from the sudden spasm that seized her calm features, and shuddered through her tall figure, that he had touched, perhaps too rudely, some chord in her nature which—
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“Made the coiled memory numb and cold, That slept in her heart like a dreaming snake, Drowsily lift itself, fold by fold, And gnaw, and gnaw hungrily, half-awake.” |
“Ah, indeed, my heart was drawn after them,—but not heavenward! No, no, no! My idols were not transplanted,—they were shattered!—shattered!”
She leaned forward, looking up into his face; and, raising her hand impressively, she continued in a voice so mournful, so hopelessly bitter, that Dr. Grey shivered as he listened.
“Oh, sir, you who stand gazing down in sorrowful reproach upon what you regard as my unpardonable impiety, little dream of the fiery ordeal that consumed my childlike, beautiful faith, as flames crisp and blacken chaff. I am alone, and must ever be, while in the flesh; and I hoard my pain, sparing the world my moans and tears, my wry faces and desperate struggles. I tell you, Dr. Grey,—
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‘None know the choice I made; I make it still. None know the choice I made, and broke my heart, Breaking mine idol; I have braced my will Once, chosen for once my part. I broke it at a blow, I laid it cold, Crushed in my deep heart where it used to live. My heart dies inch by inch; the time grows old, Grows old in which I grieve.’” |
He did not comprehend her, but felt that her past must have been melancholy indeed, of which the bare memory was so torturing.
“At least, Mrs. Gerome, let us thank God, that beyond the grave there remains an eternal reunion with your idol, and—”
“God forbid! You talk at random, and your suggestion would drive me mad, if I believed it. Let me be quiet.”
She walked away, and seemed intently watching the sea, of whose protean face she never wearied; and, puzzled and tantalized, Dr. Grey turned to examine the unfinished picture.
It represented an almost colossal woman, kneeling under an apple-tree, with her folded hands lifted towards a setting sun that glared from purple hills, across waving fields of green and golden grain. The azure mantle that enveloped the rounded form, floated on the wind and seemed to melt in air, so dim were its graceful outlines; and on one shoulder perched a dove with head under its wing, nestling to sleep,—while a rabbit nibbled the grass at her feet, and a squirrel curled himself comfortably on the border of her robe. In the foreground were scattered sheaves of yellow wheat, full ears of corn, bunches of blue, bloom-covered grapes, clusters 222 of olives, and various delicate flowers whose brilliant hues seemed drippings from some wrung and broken rainbow.
The face was unlike flesh and blood,—was dim, elfish, wan, with large, mild eyes, as blue and misty as the nebulæ that Herschel found in Southern skies,—eyes that looked at nothing, but seemed to penetrate the universe and shed soft solemn light over all things. Back from the broad, low brow, floated a cloud of silky yellow hair, that glittered in the slanting rays of sunshine as if powdered with gold dust; and over its streaming strands fluttered two mottled butterflies, and a honey-laden bee. On distant hill-slopes cattle browsed, and at the right of the kneeling woman a young lamb nibbled a cluster of snowy lilies, while a dappled fawn watched the gambols of a dun kid; and on the left, in a tuft of bearded grass, a brown snake arched its neck to peer at a brood of half-fledged partridges.
“Mrs. Gerome, will you be so kind as to explain this mythologic design?”
She came back to the easel, and took up her palette.
“If it requires an explanation it is an egregious failure, and shall find a vacant corner in some rubbish garret.”
“It is exceedingly beautiful, but I do not fully comprehend the symbolism.”
“If it does not clearly mean the one thing for which it was intended, it means nothing, and is worthless. Look, sir, she—
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‘Forgets, remembers, grieves, and is not sad; The quiet lands and skies leave light upon her eyes; None knows her weak, or wise, or tired, or glad.’” |
Dr. Grey bit his lip, but shook his head.
“You must read me your painted riddle more explicitly. Is it Ceres?”
“No, sir; a few sheaves do not make a harvest. I am a stupid bungler, spoiling canvas and wasting paint, or else you are as obtuse as the critics who may one day hover hungrily over it. Try the aid of one more clew, and if you fail to catch my purpose, I will dash my brush all loaded with ochre, 223 right into those mystic, prescient eyes, and blur them forever. Listen, and guess,—
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‘This is my lady’s praise; God after many days Wrought her in unknown ways, In sunset lands; This was my lady’s birth, God gave her might and mirth And laid his whole sweet earth Between her hands.’” |
“Pray do not visit the sin of my stupidity upon that fascinating picture. I am not familiar with the lines you quote, but know that you have represented Nature, have embodied an ideal Isis, or Hertha, or Cybele; though I can not positively name the phase of the Universal Mother, which you have seized and perpetuated.”
He caught her arm, and removed from her fingers the palette and brushes.
“Dr. Grey, it is more than either or all of the three you mention; for Persian mythology, like Persian wines and Persian roses, is richer, more subtle, more fragrant, more glowing than any other. That woman is ‘Espendérmad.’”
“Thank you; now I comprehend the whole. God has endowed you with wonderful talent. The fruit and flowers in that foreground must have cost you much labor, for indeed you seem to have faithfully followed the injunction of Titian, ‘Study the effect of light and shade on a bunch of grapes.’ That luscious amber cluster lying near the poppies is tantalizingly suggestive of Rhineland, and of the vines that garland the hills of Crete and Cyprus.”
A shade of annoyance and disappointment crossed the artist’s face.
“Now, I quite realize what Cespedes felt, when, finding that visitors were absorbed by the admirable finish of some jars and vases in the foreground of the ‘Last Supper,’ upon which he had expended so much time and thought, he called his servant and exclaimed in great chagrin, ‘Andres, rub me 224 out these things, since, after all my care and study, people choose to see nothing but these impertinences.’”
“If Zeuxis’ grandest triumph consisted in painting grapes, you assuredly should not take umbrage at my praise of that fruit on your canvas, which hints of Tokay and Lachrima Christi. I am not an artist, but I have studied the best pictures in Europe and America, and you must acquit me of any desire to flatter when I tell you that background yonder is one of the most extraordinary successes I have ever seen, from either amateur or professional painters.”
Mrs. Gerome arched her black brows slightly, and replied,—
“Then the success was accidental, and I stumbled upon it, for I bestow little study on the backgrounds of my work. They are mere dim distances of bluish haze, and do not interest me, and, since I paint for amusement, I give most thought to my central figure.”
“Have you forgotten the anecdote of Rubens, who, when offered a pupil with the recommendation that he was sufficiently advanced in his studies to assist him at once in his backgrounds, laughed, and answered, ‘If the youth was capable of painting backgrounds he did not need his instruction; because the regulation and management of them required the most comprehensive knowledge of the art.’”
“Yes, I am aware that is one of the dogmata of the craft, but Rubens was no more infallible than you or I, and his pictures give me less pleasure than those of any other artist of equal celebrity. Dr. Grey, if I am even a tolerable judge of my own work, the best thing I have yet achieved is the drapery of that form. Perhaps I am inclined to plume myself upon this point, from the fact that it was the opinion of Carlo Maratti that ‘The arrangement of drapery is more difficult than drawing the human figure; because the right effect depends more upon the taste of the artist than upon any given rules.’ That sweep of blue gauze has cost me more toil than everything else on the canvas.”
“Pardon the expression of my curiosity concerning your modes of composition in these singular and quaint creations, 225 for which you have no models; and tell me how this ideal presented itself to your imagination.”
“Dr. Grey, I am not a great genius like Goethe, and unfortunately can not candidly echo his declaration, that, ‘Nothing ever came to me in my sleep.’ I can scarcely tell you when this idea was first born in my busy, tireless brain, but it took form one evening after I had read Charlotte Bronté’s ‘Woman Titan,’ in ‘Shirley,’ and compared it with that glowing description of Jean Paul Richter, ‘And so the Sun stands at the border of the Earth, and looks back on his stately Spring, whose robe-folds are valleys, whose breast-bouquet is gardens, whose blush is a vernal evening, and who, when she rises, will be Summer.’ Still it was vague, and eluded me, until I found somewhere in my most desultory reading, an account of ‘Espendérmad,’ one of the six angels of Ormuzd, to whom was entrusted the guardianship of the earth. That night I dreamed that I stood under a vine at Schiraz, gathering golden-tinted grapes, when a voice arrested me, and, looking over my shoulder, I saw that face peeping at me across a hedge of crimson roses. Next day I sketched the features as they had appeared in my dream, but I was not fully satisfied, and waited and pondered. Finally, I read ‘Madonna Mia,’ and then all was as you see it now, startlingly distinct and palpable.”
“Why did you not select some dusky-haired, dusky-eyed, olive-tinted oriental type, instead of a blonde who might safely venture into Valhalla as a genuine Celtic Iduna?”
“With the exception of the yellow locks, I suspect the face of my ‘Espendérmad’ might easily be matched among the maidens of the Caucasus, who furnish the most perfect types of Circassian beauty. You know there is a tradition that when Leonardo da Vinci chanced to meet a man with an expression of character that he wished to make use of in his work, he followed him until he was able to delineate the face on canvas; but, on the contrary, the countenances I paint present themselves to my imagination, and pursue me inexorably until I put them into pigment. I do not possess ideals,—they seize and possess me, teasing me for form and 226 color, and forcing me to object them on canvas. Such is the modus operandi of whims that give me my ‘Espendérmad’ praying to the Sun for benisons on the Earth, which she is appointed to guard. Ah, if like the lambkins and birds, I, too, could creep to the starry border of her azure robe, and lay my weary head down and find repose. Some day, if my mind ever grows calm enough, I want to paint a picture of Rest, that I can hang on my wall and look upon when I am worn out in body and soul, when, indeed,—
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‘My feet are wearied, and my hands are tired, My heart oppressed, And I desire, what I long desired, Rest,—only Rest.’” |
“My dear madam, unless you speedily change your present mode of life, you will not paint that contemplated picture, for a long rest will soon overtake you.”
A gleam that was nearer akin to joy than any expression he had yet seen, passed from eye to lip, and she answered, almost eagerly,—
“If that be true, it offers a premium for the continuance of habits you condemn so strenuously; but I dare not hope it, and I beg of you not to tantalize me with vain expectations of a release that may yet be far, far distant.”
Dr. Grey’s heart stirred with earnest sympathy for this lonely hopeless soul, who, standing almost upon the threshold of life, stretched her arms so yearningly to woo the advance of death.
The room was slowly filling with shadows, and, leaning there against her easel, she looked as unearthly as the pearly forms that summer clouds sometimes assume, when a harvest-moon springs up from sea foam and fog, and stares at them. When she spoke again, her voice was chill and crisp.
“My malady is beyond your reach, and baffles human skill. You mean only kindness, and I suppose I ought to thank you, but alas! the sentiment of gratitude is such a stranger in my heart, that it has yet to learn an adequate language. 227 Dr. Grey, the only help you can possibly render me is to prolong Elsie’s life. As for me, and my uncertain future, give yourself no charitable solicitude. Do you recollect what Lessing wrote to Claudius? ‘I am too proud to own that I am unhappy. I shut my teeth, and let the bark drift. Enough that I do not turn it over with my own hands.’ Elsie is signalling for me. Do you hear that bell? Good-night, Dr. Grey.”