FIFTH REFLECTION
If it had not been for the sandwiches the Belletaille served with her tea and the suppers to which she had him invited, Ventrillon might have starved. But in the smart company at those suppers in fashionable restaurants he had begun to wonder how he had ever been able to endure the shabbiness of the Closerie des Lilas. And every day he could glimpse his image in the shop windows as he wore the hat of eight reflections along the boulevards to the doorway of the greatest singer in Paris.
She had arranged with Volland for a public exhibition of the portrait in his celebrated galleries on the day after it was finished. Volland well knew that the portrait of such a woman could not fail to bring tout Paris in crowds to his doors. After the cachet of a commission from the Belletaille and an exhibition at Volland’s, other commissions would begin to pour in to Ventrillon, and complete success would follow rapidly. He who now wore a hat of eight reflections with bravado could then wear it with authority. Ventrillon would be a personage of tout Paris. Cannot one well bear one’s hunger for that?
Enthroned in a tall-backed Spanish chair draped with cloth of gold, the Belletaille sat in emerald green and all her make-up. She insisted upon the make-up.
“Without it,” she said, “the portrait would not be decent. You might as well paint me in the nude.”
Ventrillon worked in rapt absorption. He was doing the most brilliant bit of painting he had ever done, and this youth with the bright face of an archangel could paint like the devil himself. “It is my chance,” he said to himself as the composition took form on the canvas with which the Belletaille had supplied him, “and I am going to startle the natives.”
She refused to look at the portrait.
“The Belletaille is beautiful,” she said, “and an unfinished painting is not. I shall wait until it is hung in a good light at Volland’s.”
During the repos she would sing to him, or feed him with sandwiches and tea. The number of sandwiches he ate astonished and delighted her. “He is a true original,” she thought. “They always eat like that. Besides, he has such nice eyes.”
She sang for him, without accompaniment, songs which she said she reserved from the public for her dearest friends alone. It was a curious collection of unknown things: strange, wild songs of the Sicilian peasants, weird, lonesome songs of Siberian slaves; and sad, earthy songs from the Hebrides, all unwritten, and passed down by tradition.
“These songs are old; God knows how old,” she would say. “They are ageless, cosmic things. That is why they are so amusing.”
“One must confess,” thought Ventrillon, “that it is better than hearing Pinettre squeal ‘O Sole mio!’ at the Closerie. And to think that I am hearing it all free! Evidently I was born for this.”
They worked in the music room, and whenever she sang she opened the windows, all of which faced the street.
“It is for my children,” she would say, “the people of Paris. Sometimes they gather in crowds beneath my windows, and it is touching to hear their applause. You will not envy them the crumbs of your feast.”
On the last day Ventrillon placed a slender high light down the length of the nose, and heightened the green reflection of her gown under the curve of the chin. With these two strokes the portrait sprang into solidity and completion. Ventrillon stood back, astonished.
“Nom de dieu!” he swore, completely forgetting how far he had risen out of the atmosphere of the Closerie des Lilas. “I shall not only startle the natives, but, ma foi, I have startled myself!”
“Is it really like that!” cried the Belletaille, eagerly, and ran to the easel. But she restrained herself, covering her eyes with her hands. “No, I shall not look! My children must see me when I look upon it for the first time at Volland’s. I must give them that privilege. But I know that you have done me a great portrait. I said at the beginning that you had the eyes. I shall sing for you. I shall sing for you a song I almost never sing. It was written for me by Rimsky-Korsakof himself. Even Rimsky had no copy. ‘It is for you alone,’ he said to me; but, my friend, I shall sing it for you!” She opened the windows, and went to stand in the curve of her piano.
“Ah,” she said, “but this song is bitter! Bitter, bitter. You will hear how bitter it is.” She thrust one bony knee forward, and clasped her long thin hands upon her head, crushing her hair down into her eyes. Her rouged lips taut, she sang through her teeth, and her eyes became malignant slits under her hair. Slowly, in the deepest, the most troubling tones of all her extraordinary range, she began:
“Tr-r-r-r-a...................... la! La!
Tr-r-r-r-a...................... la! La!
I will not allow my heart to br-reak!
Tra-la-la! Tra-la-la!”
She stopped.
“Now, do you hear? Is it not bitter? Is there anything else so bitter in all the world? But wait until you hear the A in altissimo at the end! That is the bitterest of all. I give it my full voice, and it is terrible. You will never hear anything like it as long as you live. Never! Listen!
“Her lamplight shines upon his face, Tra-la-la!
His mouth is hot against her throat, Tra-la-la!
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! I do not care! Tr-r-r-r-a-la-la!
Tra!—La!—LA!”
Her full voice, loud, hard, and colourless, cut the last syllable out of its shrill heights like an ominous, sharp-edged knife. Shiver followed shiver down Ventrillon’s spine. He sat spellbound. When she sang she was truly great.
Outside the windows rose a burst of applause from a crowd which had gathered in the street.
“Listen!” cried the Belletaille, shaking her widespread, long white fingers above her head with joy. “My children!” She darted to a window.
As she stood in the window, holding the draperies apart with her hands, the radiance upon her face flickered and died. Her chin thrust steadily forward from between her thin shoulders, and the cords of her neck stood out like wires under her skin.
“Ah-h-h-h!” she gasped, hoarse with rage, “the cow! the camel! the pig! the poiasse! The’—the—agh-h-h-h-h-h!” She could not think of words terrible or scorching enough to soothe the hot desire of her throat for exacerbation. Ventrillon felt like stopping his ears against what she would say next. “The—the species of indelicate!” she cried at last, and subsided, thwarted by the French language.
Ventrillon went to her side and looked out. One side of the street was packed with a mass of excited people, gesticulating, laughing, applauding. The other was deserted save for a little Dresden-china figure in a ridiculous frilly frock, with a tiny absurdity of a hat cocked down above her impertinent, tip-tilted nose, and the two huge black leopards she was promenading through the streets of Paris on a leash. The muscles of the black beasts slid like snakes beneath their sleek hides, their soft muzzles slobbered, their red tongues lolled, and their jade-green eyes shifted uneasily as they dragged the foolish little creature behind them along the pavement on her stilted heels. She was laughing with delight, and flicking them frivolously with a jewelled riding whip. It was Fanny Max.
Four gendarmes stood in the street, consulting in whispers. The one with the longest moustache took his courage in his hands and advanced with his chest out. The others gallantly followed. The crowd cheered again. Fanny Max touched her beasts toward the gendarmes. One leopard snarled. The gendarmes ignominiously fell back. Fanny Max laughed a silvery little “ha! ha!” and continued her triumphant progress. The crowd cheered wildly and howled with delight. The Belletaille burst into wild tears.
“T-to think,” she sobbed, “that she would have the impudence to come here! In my street! She does it purposely! I know she does it purposely. Oh, but she is vulgar! And her notoriety! How it is disgusting! How I ab-b-bominate n-n-notoriety!”
Suddenly the Belletaille straightened. She turned to clutch both Ventrillon’s arms with hands like steel fetters.
“Tell me,” she demanded hungrily, “it is true that this portrait is great, is it not? It is something incredible, it is an amazing portrait, it is true that it will startle them, is it not?”
“Mademoiselle,” said Ventrillon, “have I not said that it startles even me?”
“Ah,” murmured the Belletaille, reassured, “then to-morrow! To-morrow! I will not look. I could not recapture the emotion. I must give them that emotion to-morrow! To-morrow at Volland’s! Let me kiss you upon your forehead—like a mother.”
Ventrillon had not fully realized that no more than a single day lay between him and his triumph. Thus far, to tout Paris, he had been only a protégé of the Belletaille. That in itself was no small distinction. But within twenty-four hours, to-morrow, to-morrow at Volland’s, he would be Ventrillon, the most celebrated portrait-painter in Paris. As the Belletaille pressed her painted lips to his forehead, the remunerative applause of tout Paris already resounded in his youthful ears. His heart began to beat faster, and his blood throbbed in his temples.
“To-morrow!” he said, with eyes like stars. “To-morrow at Volland’s!”