“I met a younger brother once. He was in a mill and got sick. I visited the family and grew to know them. Peter Erard was such a nice fellow; too good for his place. He was twenty-two and had ten dollars a week. That was what the family lived on. They talked about this older brother in Paris, who seemed such a great man in their eyes.”
“My uncle helped him on, I believe. My mother is down on the old man for spending his money on the fellow. He doesn’t paint so much as he writes about art.”
The two passed across the great square room with its fervour of national art, its striking high-pitched tone, and nervous crowd.
“There’s Adela now,” Anthon exclaimed when they had entered the Long Gallery. Miss Parker looked quickly over to the tall young woman who was gazing perplexedly at a Titian. A meagre-looking man in eyeglasses was evidently discussing the picture, his fingers running up and down before the frame as if he were feeling the thing in its joints. Every now and then he applied a pair of small opera-glasses to some detail and then stepped back to his companion.
Walter Anthon walked over and spoke to his sister. She glanced up as if annoyed at any break in the mental condition, looked over to Miss Parker, measuring her swiftly, then nodded to her brother. A moment more they had crossed the room, and Anthon presented his sister.
“You were very good to come.” Miss Parker looked up at the other woman trustingly, as if to say, “Of course you are bored to be disturbed, but I want you to like me, and I guess we shall make it all right.”
“You seem so interested over there,” she continued, as Miss Anthon stood examining her without protesting or indulging in polite phrases. “Don’t let me break it up.”
“Mr. Erard was explaining to me why the picture is not a Titian. It is very complex, and I was absorbed. But I am glad to meet you.” She smiled back at the smaller woman. “Won’t you come over too, if you are interested in pictures. He took me first to a real Titian, and we spent nearly an hour over it until I got hold of some of Titian’s characteristics. Now we are examining this fellow.”
Erard merely nodded to the newcomers, and continued his broken monologue, largely to himself, partly to Miss Anthon.
“You see how stiffly this arm is drawn. You couldn’t move that arm: it doesn’t exist. Now in the real Titian I had a feeling in my right arm, a tightening up of the muscles as if they wanted to grasp the sword. This is wooden, like a piece of lath. I pass over the dead black: that may be due to the restorer. But in the application of light, Miss Anthon, you must feel how much inferior this is to the Titian. There the light was flecked on, boldly, in points. Here there is a hard, white line, mechanically traced over the corslet. The effect of the Titian is dazzling; this is metallic. And the head, Miss Anthon,—this is half a head. Just as if you should split a skull and veneer the features to the canvas. There is no back part. Now in the Titian you could feel the rounded head; you could pat it, and fill it in for yourself. There is air all about it.”