"If it comes only as a necessary accompaniment, that may alter the matter greatly," I said. "But still I am not sure that anything in which the pain predominates can be useful in the best way."
"Perhaps not," he returned.—"Will you look at the daub?"
"With much pleasure," I replied, and we rose and stood before the easel. Percivale made no remark, but left us to find out what the picture meant. Nor had I long to look before I understood it—in a measure at least.
It represented a garret-room in a wretchedly ruinous condition. The plaster had come away in several places, and through between the laths in one spot hung the tail of a great rat. In a dark corner lay a man dying. A woman sat by his side, with her eyes fixed, not on his face, though she held his hand in hers, but on the open door, where in the gloom you could just see the struggles of two undertaker's men to get the coffin past the turn of the landing towards the door. Through the window there was one peep of the blue sky, whence a ray of sunlight fell on the one scarlet blossom of a geranium in a broken pot on the window-sill outside.
"I do not wonder you did not like to show it," I said. "How can you bear to paint such a dreadful picture?"
"It is a true one. It only represents a fact."
"All facts have not a right to be represented."
"Surely you would not get rid of painful things by huddling them out of sight?"
"No; nor yet by gloating upon them."
"You will believe me that it gives me anything but pleasure to paint such pictures—as far as the subject goes," he said with some discomposure.