IV
It was a gay scene over at the art school next morning. Even before the accustomed hour the big barnlike room, with a few prize pictures of former classes scattered about the walls, and with the old academy easels standing about like a caravan of patient camels ever loaded with new burdens but ever traveling the same ancient sands of art—even before nine o'clock the barnlike room presented a scene of eager healthy animal spirits. On the easel of every youthful worker, nearly finished, lay the portrait of the mother. In every case it had been differently done, inadequately done; but in all cases it had been done. Hardly could any observer have failed to recognize what was there depicted. Beyond smearings and daubings of paint, as past the edges of concealing clouds, one caught glimpses of a serene and steadfast human radiance. There one beheld the familiar image of that orb which in dark and pathless hours has through all ages been the guardian light of the world—the mother.
The best in them had gone into the painting of this portrait, and the consciousness of our best gives us the sense of our power, and the consciousness of our power yields us our enthusiasm; hence the exhilaration and energy of the studio scene.
The interest of the members of the class was not concerned solely with the portrait, however: a larger share went to the model herself. They had become strongly bound to her. All the more perhaps because she held them firmly to the understanding that her life touched theirs only at the point of the stranger in need of a small sum of money. Repulsed and baffled in their wish to know her better, they nevertheless became aware that she was undergoing a wonderful transformation on her own account. The change had begun after the ordeal of the first morning. When she returned for the second sitting, and then at later sittings, they had remarked this change, and had spoken of it to one another—that she was as a person into whose life some joyous, unbelievable event has fallen, brightening the present and the future. Every day some old cloudy care seemed to loose itself from its lurking-place and drift away from her mind, leaving her face less obscured and thus the more beautifully revealed to them. Now, with the end of the sit tings not far off, what they looked forward to with most regret was the last sitting, when she, leaving her portrait in their hands, would herself vanish, taking with her both the mystery of her old sorrows and the mystery of this new happiness.
Promptly at nine o'clock the teacher of the class entered, greeted them, and glanced around for the model. Not seeing her, he looked at his watch, then without comment crossed to the easels, and studied again the progress made the previous day, correcting, approving, guiding, encouraging. His demeanor showed that he entered into the mounting enthusiasm of his class for this particular piece of work.
A few minutes were thus quickly consumed. Then, watch in hand once more, he spoke of the absence of the model:
"Something seems to detain the model this morning. But she has sent me no word and she will no doubt be here in a few minutes."
He went back to the other end of the studio and sat down, facing them with the impressiveness which belonged to him even without speech. They fixed their eyes on him with the usual expectancy. Whenever as now an unforeseen delay occurred, he was always prompt to take advantage of the interval with a brief talk. To them there were never enough of these brief talks, which invariably drew human life into relationship to the art of portraiture, and set the one reality over against the other reality—the turbulence of a human life and the still image of it on the canvas. They hoped he would thus talk to them now; in truth he had the air of casting about in his mind for a theme best suited to the moment.