“Do you see it?” said Paul, pointing at it with his brush. “And but for your profane little story there would never have been exactly that expression on your face. We wait for our moments, we artists, and we catch them—sometimes. And now,” he continued, “you can have a stick of chocolate and brown your face up to the eyebrows with it. I have finished your portrait, and therefore done with you. I don’t care what happens to you now."
That was Paul. During the time of painting he sought for intimate knowledge of his subjects. Every tiniest characteristic, every fleeting expression, were noted and stored up in his memory. He could almost have told you their life history from his minute observation of faces. He knew his subjects as few of their intimate friends knew them. He guessed their hidden secrets with a power that was almost uncanny—secrets known only to their own souls—and put the secrets on his canvas. And it was for this reason that many people did not consider the portraits to be likenesses. He painted the real person, not merely the mask they wore to the world at large.
This fact had been particularly emphasized in his portrait of a certain statesman—one Lord St. Aubyn. The statesman has nothing to do with the rest of this story, but the incident as far as Paul is concerned is interesting.
St. Aubyn was a man who was much before the public, and no less than five portraits of him had been commissioned by different societies as a token of their personal gratitude. Four of these, but for the individuality of technique, might have been replicas one of the other, and gave instant satisfaction alike to donors and public.
They showed a man with regular features and deep-set eyes, leaning to the accepted military type, a resolute mouth, and a certain air of distinction and command. One felt that a sculptor of the “classic convention” would have expressed the type even more admirably. Reserve was there, but with no hint of mystery or evasion; intellectuality, but little imagination.
The fifth portrait by Paul was, one would have said, of another man. It was a picture that seemed alive with a strange and slightly repellent magnetism, for the eyes smiled at a stranger with a baffling mockery; they seemed to invite and yet defy his judgment—to taunt him with his impotence and read the soul behind them.
It had been received on exhibition with a storm of outspoken criticism; while the Benevolent Trustees who had commissioned it, though refraining from audible dissatisfaction, had maintained so eloquent a silence at their private view, glancing at each other with liftings of eyebrows and pursing of lips, that Paul had flung round upon them and relieved their embarrassment by declaring the contract to be null and void. No reasons were asked for or given; the action was taken as a tacit admission of failure. Yet Paul himself had seemed not ill-satisfied, and had met the chaff which had greeted him from many of his circle with equanimity.
Landor, one of the circle, whose portrait of St. Aubyn in the previous Academy had been hailed as a most masterly piece of work, had ventured a serious protest.
“My dear fellow,” he had said one evening, “you’re letting your imagination play tricks with you. It’s becoming an absolute disease. I made a most careful study of the man—made him give me innumerable sittings, and I pledge you my word that I put everything into the face that I could find. You had three sittings, and God only knows what you’ve put there.”
Paul had smoked for a few moments in silence.