The butler appeared presently and conducted him upstairs to a vast apartment all crystal and cloth of gold. In the far corner sat a group of people, among whom, in his confusion, Mendel could only distinguish Maurice Birnbaum and a small, wrinkled, bald old man with a beard, whose eyes were quick and black, peering out from under the yellow skull, peering out and taking nothing in. For the purposes of taking in his nose seemed more than sufficient. It was like a beak, like an inverted scoop. And yet his features were not so very different from those of the old men at home whom Mendel reverenced. There was a strange dignity in them, yet not a trace of the fine quality of the old faces he loved that looked so sorrowfully out on the world, and through their eyes and through every line seemed to absorb from the world all its suffering, all its vileness, and to transmute it into strong human beauty. There were some women present, but they made no impression whatever on Mendel, who was entirely occupied with Sir Julius and with resisting the feeling of helplessness with which he was inspired in his presence. He heard Maurice Birnbaum talking about him, describing his life, his mother’s kitchen, the street where he lived, and then he was told to exhibit his pictures. A footman appeared and put out a chair for him, and on this, one after another, he placed his drawings and pictures. Not a word was said. Even the apples were received in silence. Sir Julius gave a grunt and began to talk to one of the women. Maurice gave Mendel to understand that the interview was over, and the poor boy was conducted downstairs by the butler. He had not a penny in his pocket and had to walk all the way home with his parcel, which his arms were hardly long enough to hold.
[VII
THE DETMOLD]
FLUNG into the art school, he was like a leggy colt in a new field, very shy of it at first, of the trees in the hedges, of the shadows cast by the trees. This place was very different from the Polytechnic. There were fewer old ladies, and more boys of his own age. The teachers were Professors, and the pupils held them in awe and respect. There were real models in the life-class, male and female, and the students, male and female, worked together. No ginger-beer bottles here, where art was a practical business. The school existed for the purpose of teaching the craft of making pictures, and its law was that the basis of the mystery was drawing.
Mendel’s first attitude towards the other students was that he was there to beat them all. He would swell with eagerness and enthusiasm, and tell himself that he had something that they all lacked. He would watch their movements, their heads bending over their work, their hands scratching away at the paper, and he could see that they had none of them the vigour that was in himself. And by way of showing how much stronger he was he would use his pencil almost as though it were a chisel and his paper a block of stone out of which he was to carve the likeness of the model. He was rudely taken down when the Professor stood and stared with his melancholy eyes at his production and said:—
“Is that the best you can do?”
“Yes.”
“Why do it?”
This was a stock phrase of the Professor’s, but Mendel did not know that, and he was ashamed and outraged when the class tittered.