Of Human Bondage
Liberty silk and so was the chimney-piece. Mrs. Otter followed his
wandering eye.
“In the evening when we close the shutters one might really feel one
was in England.”
“And we have our meals just as if we were at home,” added her mother.
“A meat breakfast in the morning and dinner in the middle of the day.”
When he left Mrs. Otter Philip went to buy drawing materials; and next
morning at the stroke of nine, trying to seem self-assured, he
presented himself at the school. Mrs. Otter was already there, and she
came forward with a friendly smile. He had been anxious about the
reception he would have as a nouveau, for he had read a good deal of
the rough joking to which a newcomer was exposed at some of the
studios; but Mrs. Otter had reassured him.
“Oh, there’s nothing like that here,” she said. “You see, about half
our students are ladies, and they set a tone to the place.”
The studio was large and bare, with gray walls, on which were pinned
the studies that had received prizes. A model was sitting in a chair
with a loose wrap thrown over her, and about a dozen men and women were
standing about, some talking and others still working on their sketch.
It was the first rest of the model.
“You’d better not try anything too difficult at first,” said Mrs.
Otter. “Put your easel here. You’ll find that’s the easiest pose.”
Philip placed an easel where she indicated, and Mrs. Otter introduced
him to a young woman who sat next to him.
“Mr. Carey—Miss Price. Mr. Carey’s never studied before, you won’t mind
helping him a little just at first will you?” Then she turned to the
model. “La Pose.”
The model threw aside the paper she had been reading, La Petite
Republique, and sulkily, throwing off her gown, got on to the stand.
She stood, squarely on both feet with her hands clasped behind her
head.
“It’s a stupid pose,” said Miss Price. “I can’t imagine why they chose
it.”
When Philip entered, the people in the studio had looked at him
curiously, and the model gave him an indifferent glance, but now they
ceased to pay attention to him. Philip, with his beautiful sheet of
paper in front of him, stared awkwardly at the model. He did not know
how to begin. He had never seen a naked woman before. She was not young
and her breasts were shrivelled. She had colourless, fair hair that
fell over her forehead untidily, and her face was covered with large
freckles. He glanced at Miss Price’s work. She had only been working on
it two days, and it looked as though she had had trouble; her paper was
in a mess from constant rubbing out, and to Philip’s eyes the figure
looked strangely distorted.
“I should have thought I could do as well as that,” he said to himself.
He began on the head, thinking that he would work slowly downwards,
but, he could not understand why, he found it infinitely more difficult
to draw a head from the model than to draw one from his imagination. He
got into difficulties. He glanced at Miss Price. She was working with
vehement gravity. Her brow was wrinkled with eagerness, and there was
an anxious look in her eyes. It was hot in the studio, and drops of
sweat stood on her forehead. She was a girl of twenty-six, with a great
deal of dull gold hair; it was handsome hair, but it was carelessly
done, dragged back from her forehead and tied in a hurried knot. She
had a large face, with broad, flat features and small eyes; her skin
was pasty, with a singular unhealthiness of tone, and there was no
colour in the cheeks. She had an unwashed air and you could not help
wondering if she slept in her clothes. She was serious and silent. When
the next pause came, she stepped back to look at her work.
“I don’t know why I’m having so much bother,” she said. “But I mean to
get it right.” She turned to Philip. “How are you getting on?”
“Not at all,” he answered, with a rueful smile.
She looked at what he had done.
“You can’t expect to do anything that way. You must take measurements.
And you must square out your paper.”
She showed him rapidly how to set about the business. Philip was
impressed by her earnestness, but repelled by her want of charm. He was
grateful for the hints she gave him and set to work again. Meanwhile
other people had come in, mostly men, for the women always arrived
first, and the studio for the time of year (it was early yet) was
fairly full. Presently there came in a young man with thin, black hair,
an enormous nose, and a face so long that it reminded you of a horse.
He sat down next to Philip and nodded across him to Miss Price.
“You’re very late,” she said. “Are you only just up?”
“It was such a splendid day, I thought I’d lie in bed and think how
beautiful it was out.”
Philip smiled, but Miss Price took the remark seriously.
“That seems a funny thing to do, I should have thought it would be more
to the point to get up and enjoy it.”
“The way of the humorist is very hard,” said the young man gravely.
He did not seem inclined to work. He looked at his canvas; he was
working in colour, and had sketched in the day before the model who was
posing. He turned to Philip.
“Have you just come out from England?”
“Yes.”
“How did you find your way to Amitrano’s?”
“It was the only school I knew of.”
“I hope you haven’t come with the idea that you will learn anything
here which will be of the smallest use to you.”
“It’s the best school in Paris,” said Miss Price. “It’s the only one
where they take art seriously.”
“Should art be taken seriously?” the young man asked; and since Miss
Price replied only with a scornful shrug, he added: “But the point is,
all schools are bad. They are academical, obviously. Why this is less
injurious than most is that the teaching is more incompetent than
elsewhere. Because you learn nothing….”
“But why d’you come here then?” interrupted Philip.
“I see the better course, but do not follow it. Miss Price, who is
cultured, will remember the Latin of that.”
“I wish you would leave me out of your conversation, Mr. Clutton,” said
Miss Price brusquely.
“The only way to learn to paint,” he went on, imperturbable, “is to
take a studio, hire a model, and just fight it out for yourself.”
“That seems a simple thing to do,” said Philip.
“It only needs money,” replied Clutton.
He began to paint, and Philip looked at him from the corner of his eye.
He was long and desperately thin; his huge bones seemed to protrude
from his body; his elbows were so sharp that they appeared to jut out
through the arms of his shabby coat. His trousers were frayed at the
bottom, and on each of his boots was a clumsy patch. Miss Price got up
and went over to Philip’s easel.
“If Mr. Clutton will hold his tongue for a moment, I’ll just help you a
little,” she said.
“Miss Price dislikes me because I have humour,” said Clutton, looking
meditatively at his canvas, “but she detests me because I have genius.”
He spoke with solemnity, and his colossal, misshapen nose made what he
said very quaint. Philip was obliged to laugh, but Miss Price grew
darkly red with anger.
“You’re the only person who has ever accused you of genius.”
“Also I am the only person whose opinion is of the least value to me.”
Miss Price began to criticise what Philip had done. She talked glibly
of anatomy and construction, planes and lines, and of much else which
Philip did not understand. She had been at the studio a long time and
knew the main points which the masters insisted upon, but though she
could show what was wrong with Philip’s work she could not tell him how
to put it right.
“It’s awfully kind of you to take so much trouble with me,” said
Philip.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” she answered, flushing awkwardly. “People did the
same for me when I first came, I’d do it for anyone.”
“Miss Price wants to indicate that she is giving you the advantage of
her knowledge from a sense of duty rather than on account of any charms
of your person,” said Clutton.
Miss Price gave him a furious look, and went back to her own drawing.
The clock struck twelve, and the model with a cry of relief stepped
down from the stand.
Miss Price gathered up her things.
“Some of us go to Gravier’s for lunch,” she said to Philip, with a look
at Clutton. “I always go home myself.”
“I’ll take you to Gravier’s if you like,” said Clutton.
Philip thanked him and made ready to go. On his way out Mrs. Otter
asked him how he had been getting on.
“Did Fanny Price help you?” she asked. “I put you there because I know
she can do it if she likes. She’s a disagreeable, ill-natured girl, and
she can’t draw herself at all, but she knows the ropes, and she can be
useful to a newcomer if she cares to take the trouble.”
On the way down the street Clutton said to him:
“You’ve made an impression on Fanny Price. You’d better look out.”
Philip laughed. He had never seen anyone on whom he wished less to make
an impression. They came to the cheap little restaurant at which
several of the students ate, and Clutton sat down at a table at which
three or four men were already seated. For a franc, they got an egg, a
plate of meat, cheese, and a small bottle of wine. Coffee was extra.
They sat on the pavement, and yellow trams passed up and down the
boulevard with a ceaseless ringing of bells.
“By the way, what’s your name?” said Clutton, as they took their seats.
“Carey.”
“Allow me to introduce an old and trusted friend, Carey by name,” said
Clutton gravely. “Mr. Flanagan, Mr. Lawson.”
They laughed and went on with their conversation. They talked of a
thousand things, and they all talked at once. No one paid the smallest
attention to anyone else. They talked of the places they had been to in
the summer, of studios, of the various schools; they mentioned names
which were unfamiliar to Philip, Monet, Manet, Renoir, Pissarro, Degas.
Philip listened with all his ears, and though he felt a little out of
it, his heart leaped with exultation. The time flew. When Clutton got
up he said:
“I expect you’ll find me here this evening if you care to come. You’ll
find this about the best place for getting dyspepsia at the lowest cost
in the Quarter.”
XLI
Philip walked down the Boulevard du Montparnasse. It was not at all
like the Paris he had seen in the spring during his visit to do the
accounts of the Hotel St. Georges—he thought already of that part of
his life with a shudder—but reminded him of what he thought a
provincial town must be. There was an easy-going air about it, and a
sunny spaciousness which invited the mind to day-dreaming. The trimness
of the trees, the vivid whiteness of the houses, the breadth, were very
agreeable; and he felt himself already thoroughly at home. He sauntered
along, staring at the people; there seemed an elegance about the most
ordinary, workmen with their broad red sashes and their wide trousers,
little soldiers in dingy, charming uniforms. He came presently to the
Avenue de l’Observatoire, and he gave a sigh of pleasure at the
magnificent, yet so graceful, vista. He came to the gardens of the
Luxembourg: children were playing, nurses with long ribbons walked
slowly two by two, busy men passed through with satchels under their
arms, youths strangely dressed. The scene was formal and dainty; nature
was arranged and ordered, but so exquisitely, that nature unordered and
unarranged seemed barbaric. Philip was enchanted. It excited him to
stand on that spot of which he had read so much; it was classic ground
to him; and he felt the awe and the delight which some old don might
feel when for the first time he looked on the smiling plain of Sparta.
As he wandered he chanced to see Miss Price sitting by herself on a
bench. He hesitated, for he did not at that moment want to see anyone,