“You are no longer my friend. You have despised and injured me. Superior as I am to you, you have thought it your part as a gentleman to try to keep me in my place. You have treated me as a kind of animal. You cannot see that as an artist I am the equal of all men, the highest and the lowest. My own poor people I do not expect to know this, but of an educated man I do expect it. You cannot see this, and I count you lower than the lowest, and as such I am prepared to know you, and not otherwise. I have changed completely. I no longer believe in the Detmold or in Calthrop or in any of the things I reverenced as a student. I prefer the Academy, for it does not pretend to be advanced, and is honest though asleep. I am no longer a student. I am an artist. You will always be an art student, and so I say good-bye to you, as one says good-bye to friends on a station-platform. The train moves and all their affectionate memories and longings cannot stop it. The train moves and I am in it, and I say good-bye to you without even looking out of the window.”
This done, he sat down to work at a portrait of his father and mother, with which he was designing to eclipse his first exhibiting success. It seemed to him important that it should be finished. Hearing Issy come in, he shouted to him to come and sit instead of his father, who had given out that he was unwell and was indulging in a sleeping bout.
Issy came shambling in, pale, tired, and unhappy. He sat as he was told, and said:—
“I wish Harry would come back; the business is being too much for me.”
“Oh! I shall soon be rich and then I’ll help you.”
“There’s not much help for me,” said Issy. “I’m like father. There’s always something against me to keep me down. It seems funny to me that people will give you so much money for something they don’t really want.”
“Come and look at it,” said Mendel.
Issy obeyed.
“I don’t think it’s really like them. Why should anybody buy them who doesn’t know them?”