The humour of Germany

by Unknown

The portrait brought me much honour. In the delight of his heart the Inspector showed it to my comrades, and now they all wanted to be painted. With all sorts of devices we wheedled the Inspector into letting one or two of my friends come in to me. My painter’s work-shop was as good as any other; the light came from above, and it was the coolest north-light a painter could wish to have. Besides, I had an advantage over and above my colleagues in the art: the people that sat to me were used to sitting still, and could stand it for any length of time, and when I shoved my table up close upon them, and G. moved his chair to within half a foot of theirs, they sat as in a vice, and there was no escaping; they had to bear it.

Here I’ll have to confess that during this time I sinned more than once against the image of God; I painted faces that never were, and never could be, and I painted them with colours that don’t occur anywhere else in life. The black-headed ones I managed to do to my satisfaction, but when a flaxen-head happened along then it was pretty bad. I had got the habit—more’s the pity—of shading flaxen hair with green, and as I was given to working over the face pretty freely with sienna, my flaxen-haired portraits seen at a little distance looked for all the world like a pine-apple, especially when it so happened that there was a green coat below.

My pictures were mostly sent to old fathers and mothers, or sisters and brothers, for their birthday or for Christmas; and if any of these good folks should be alive now, I will take this opportunity of asking their forgiveness if I gave them a fright for the holidays about the looks of their relatives. I know that my old father wrote me, when I sent him my own portrait, which was very like, that it gave him a heart-sinking to see how horribly I had changed.

Be that as it may, it gave us the opportunity of visiting each other, and though D. did not take kindly to this innovation, and threw a wet blanket over our enterprise whenever he could, he always relented a little after a fresh pound of tobacco; and when I caught him helping himself from the box of cigars that a good friend in Lübeck had sent to my friend G., and when the Major in person wanted to be painted by me, then his severity disappeared, and he walked up and down the long corridor like a cherubim that has put his flaming sword into the sheath for fear he might scorch his wing-feathers.

Painting the portrait of the Major was the crown of my artistic activity at M. I was invited to leave my cell and betake myself to the Inspector’s room, for here the great feat was to be accomplished. I came with all of my artistic belongings. I had mounted a sheet that had a remarkably fine greenish tint, and all my pastels were sharp; but as I stepped into the room I stood aghast, for my fine skylight that I had grown accustomed to was missing—the room had a large natural window. I began by taking the Major around into all the corners to find the right light, but it was all wrong until we tied the blanket from off the Inspector’s bed to the lower part of the window.

Unfortunately the Major had flaxen hair and no eyebrows, and I, poor fellow, had a way of always beginning with the eyebrows. What now? At other times I would daub in a pair of eyebrows first and then hitch on the nose, long or short, as it might happen to be. But what now? He had no eyebrows, and I had nothing to begin on, and his nose was, from an artist’s point of view, but so-so at best. I had measured all the proportions, but there seemed to be no way of getting out of my difficulty. I must needs begin, and I must needs have something hairy to begin on. I was too completely wedded to the habit, so I began with the moustache.

I never regretted it; and if one of my colleagues in the trade should ever find himself in a similar fix he may confidently follow my example, for it was not long before the Inspector, who was looking over my shoulder all the time, said that it was going to be very like, and the man was something of a connoisseur, and had trustworthy opinions on the subject, for he had often watched me, and had been educated up to the point by my pictures.

In a short time the face was all done, very handsome too, only with a peculiar green light, but it may be that was in the paper. Now came the uniform, blue with a red collar, and then the gilt epaulets and the bright buttons. Any one who has never tried his hand at that will find it no easy job, I can tell him. That was the way I felt. I had French blue and chrome yellow in my box, and I was in for it. Having read somewhere or other, “The accessories of a portrait should be treated with a certain sketchy cleverness,” I acted accordingly. Sketchy enough it was, but as far as the cleverness was concerned I got stuck; for when I was through with it they both said, the Inspector and the Major, that it was no good. The French blue for the coat might possibly do, but the epaulets and the buttons looked as if they hadn’t been polished up for seven years; and as for the collar, they said it was no major’s collar, but an ordinary Prussian postmaster’s collar. I was dreadfully put out, of course, but it was true; it did look sort of yellowish. I must have been cheated with the vermilion; it was unadulterated red lead, and I had been at the shadows again with that confounded sienna.

But I had learned enough of the art not to let them snub me, and so I said I would take the picture with me, and in a day or two we would talk about it again. And then I tried one kind of light after another, and polished up the Herr Major’s epaulets and buttons until G. was moved to pity and told me they were bright enough. But that collar! To this hour, when I see one of those collars of the Prussian infantry, I remember my sins. It wasn’t right, and it wouldn’t come right! At last an accident put me on the right track; G.’s canary spattered a drop of his water down upon the collar, and on the spot where it fell it immediately turned a bright scarlet. If I could get a kind of varnish over it to make it look like that, I said to myself. But no, varnish is too oily; it might make it look like a grease spot. How would gum arabic do? But I didn’t happen to have any handy. I mused and mused, and at last I hit upon sugar. That might do. I melted a couple of lumps of sugar in a little water, and began cautiously testing it along the edges. Beautiful! I struck out boldly, and it wasn’t long before the collar would have passed muster for a first-rate Prussian soldier’s collar.

G. said, to be sure, that the collar was too bright for the rest of the picture, but what did G. know about painting? I stood my major on the table, went to bed, and lay looking and looking at him until it struck nine and the sentinel shouted, “Lights out!” I shouldn’t wonder if Raphael looked at his Madonna for a long time when she was done, but I don’t believe that he was as much in love with her as I was with the Herr Major. I lay awake for ever so long. I couldn’t sleep for delight. A Prussian officer in full uniform; that is something to be proud of, gentlemen! At last I fell asleep, and slept far into the next day.