Of Human Bondage
advice. He talked of art, and literature, and life. He was by turns
devout and obscene, merry and lachrymose. He grew remarkably drunk, and
then he began to recite poetry, his own and Milton’s, his own and
Shelley’s, his own and Kit Marlowe’s.
At last Lawson, exhausted, got up to go home.
“I shall go too,” said Philip.
Clutton, the most silent of them all, remained behind listening, with a
sardonic smile on his lips, to Cronshaw’s maunderings. Lawson
accompanied Philip to his hotel and then bade him good-night. But when
Philip got to bed he could not sleep. All these new ideas that had been
flung before him carelessly seethed in his brain. He was tremendously
excited. He felt in himself great powers. He had never before been so
self-confident.
“I know I shall be a great artist,” he said to himself. “I feel it in
me.”
A thrill passed through him as another thought came, but even to
himself he would not put it into words:
“By George, I believe I’ve got genius.”
He was in fact very drunk, but as he had not taken more than one glass
of beer, it could have been due only to a more dangerous intoxicant
than alcohol.
XLIII
On Tuesdays and Fridays masters spent the morning at Amitrano’s,
criticising the work done. In France the painter earns little unless he
paints portraits and is patronised by rich Americans; and men of
reputation are glad to increase their incomes by spending two or three
hours once a week at one of the numerous studios where art is taught.
Tuesday was the day upon which Michel Rollin came to Amitrano’s. He was
an elderly man, with a white beard and a florid complexion, who had
painted a number of decorations for the State, but these were an object
of derision to the students he instructed: he was a disciple of Ingres,
impervious to the progress of art and angrily impatient with that tas
de farceurs whose names were Manet, Degas, Monet, and Sisley; but he
was an excellent teacher, helpful, polite, and encouraging. Foinet, on
the other hand, who visited the studio on Fridays, was a difficult man
to get on with. He was a small, shrivelled person, with bad teeth and a
bilious air, an untidy gray beard, and savage eyes; his voice was high
and his tone sarcastic. He had had pictures bought by the Luxembourg,
and at twenty-five looked forward to a great career; but his talent was
due to youth rather than to personality, and for twenty years he had
done nothing but repeat the landscape which had brought him his early
success. When he was reproached with monotony, he answered:
“Corot only painted one thing. Why shouldn’t I?”
He was envious of everyone else’s success, and had a peculiar, personal
loathing of the impressionists; for he looked upon his own failure as
due to the mad fashion which had attracted the public, sale bete, to
their works. The genial disdain of Michel Rollin, who called them
impostors, was answered by him with vituperation, of which crapule and
canaille were the least violent items; he amused himself with abuse of
their private lives, and with sardonic humour, with blasphemous and
obscene detail, attacked the legitimacy of their births and the purity
of their conjugal relations: he used an Oriental imagery and an
Oriental emphasis to accentuate his ribald scorn. Nor did he conceal
his contempt for the students whose work he examined. By them he was
hated and feared; the women by his brutal sarcasm he reduced often to
tears, which again aroused his ridicule; and he remained at the studio,
notwithstanding the protests of those who suffered too bitterly from
his attacks, because there could be no doubt that he was one of the
best masters in Paris. Sometimes the old model who kept the school
ventured to remonstrate with him, but his expostulations quickly gave
way before the violent insolence of the painter to abject apologies.
It was Foinet with whom Philip first came in contact. He was already in
the studio when Philip arrived. He went round from easel to easel, with
Mrs. Otter, the massiere, by his side to interpret his remarks for the
benefit of those who could not understand French. Fanny Price, sitting
next to Philip, was working feverishly. Her face was sallow with
nervousness, and every now and then she stopped to wipe her hands on
her blouse; for they were hot with anxiety. Suddenly she turned to
Philip with an anxious look, which she tried to hide by a sullen frown.
“D’you think it’s good?” she asked, nodding at her drawing.
Philip got up and looked at it. He was astounded; he felt she must have
no eye at all; the thing was hopelessly out of drawing.
“I wish I could draw half as well myself,” he answered.
“You can’t expect to, you’ve only just come. It’s a bit too much to
expect that you should draw as well as I do. I’ve been here two years.”
Fanny Price puzzled Philip. Her conceit was stupendous. Philip had
already discovered that everyone in the studio cordially disliked her;
and it was no wonder, for she seemed to go out of her way to wound
people.
“I complained to Mrs. Otter about Foinet,” she said now. “The last two
weeks he hasn’t looked at my drawings. He spends about half an hour on
Mrs. Otter because she’s the massiere. After all I pay as much as
anybody else, and I suppose my money’s as good as theirs. I don’t see
why I shouldn’t get as much attention as anybody else.”
She took up her charcoal again, but in a moment put it down with a
groan.
“I can’t do any more now. I’m so frightfully nervous.”
She looked at Foinet, who was coming towards them with Mrs. Otter. Mrs.
Otter, meek, mediocre, and self-satisfied, wore an air of importance.
Foinet sat down at the easel of an untidy little Englishwoman called
Ruth Chalice. She had the fine black eyes, languid but passionate, the
thin face, ascetic but sensual, the skin like old ivory, which under
the influence of Burne-Jones were cultivated at that time by young
ladies in Chelsea. Foinet seemed in a pleasant mood; he did not say
much to her, but with quick, determined strokes of her charcoal pointed
out her errors. Miss Chalice beamed with pleasure when he rose. He came
to Clutton, and by this time Philip was nervous too but Mrs. Otter had
promised to make things easy for him. Foinet stood for a moment in
front of Clutton’s work, biting his thumb silently, then
absent-mindedly spat out upon the canvas the little piece of skin which
he had bitten off.
“That’s a fine line,” he said at last, indicating with his thumb what
pleased him. “You’re beginning to learn to draw.”
Clutton did not answer, but looked at the master with his usual air of
sardonic indifference to the world’s opinion.
“I’m beginning to think you have at least a trace of talent.”
Mrs. Otter, who did not like Clutton, pursed her lips. She did not see
anything out of the way in his work. Foinet sat down and went into
technical details. Mrs. Otter grew rather tired of standing. Clutton
did not say anything, but nodded now and then, and Foinet felt with
satisfaction that he grasped what he said and the reasons of it; most
of them listened to him, but it was clear they never understood. Then
Foinet got up and came to Philip.
“He only arrived two days ago,” Mrs. Otter hurried to explain. “He’s a
beginner. He’s never studied before.”
“Ca se voit,” the master said. “One sees that.”
He passed on, and Mrs. Otter murmured to him:
“This is the young lady I told you about.”
He looked at her as though she were some repulsive animal, and his
voice grew more rasping.
“It appears that you do not think I pay enough attention to you. You
have been complaining to the massiere. Well, show me this work to which
you wish me to give attention.”
Fanny Price coloured. The blood under her unhealthy skin seemed to be
of a strange purple. Without answering she pointed to the drawing on
which she had been at work since the beginning of the week. Foinet sat
down.
“Well, what do you wish me to say to you? Do you wish me to tell you it
is good? It isn’t. Do you wish me to tell you it is well drawn? It
isn’t. Do you wish me to say it has merit? It hasn’t. Do you wish me to
show you what is wrong with it? It is all wrong. Do you wish me to tell
you what to do with it? Tear it up. Are you satisfied now?”
Miss Price became very white. She was furious because he had said all
this before Mrs. Otter. Though she had been in France so long and could
understand French well enough, she could hardly speak two words.
“He’s got no right to treat me like that. My money’s as good as anyone
else’s. I pay him to teach me. That’s not teaching me.”
“What does she say? What does she say?” asked Foinet.
Mrs. Otter hesitated to translate, and Miss Price repeated in execrable
French.
“Je vous paye pour m’apprendre.”
His eyes flashed with rage, he raised his voice and shook his fist.
“Mais, nom de Dieu, I can’t teach you. I could more easily teach a
camel.” He turned to Mrs. Otter. “Ask her, does she do this for
amusement, or does she expect to earn money by it?”
“I’m going to earn my living as an artist,” Miss Price answered.
“Then it is my duty to tell you that you are wasting your time. It
would not matter that you have no talent, talent does not run about the
streets in these days, but you have not the beginning of an aptitude.
How long have you been here? A child of five after two lessons would
draw better than you do. I only say one thing to you, give up this
hopeless attempt. You’re more likely to earn your living as a bonne a
tout faire than as a painter. Look.”
He seized a piece of charcoal, and it broke as he applied it to the
paper. He cursed, and with the stump drew great firm lines. He drew
rapidly and spoke at the same time, spitting out the words with venom.
“Look, those arms are not the same length. That knee, it’s grotesque. I
tell you a child of five. You see, she’s not standing on her legs. That
foot!”
With each word the angry pencil made a mark, and in a moment the
drawing upon which Fanny Price had spent so much time and eager trouble
was unrecognisable, a confusion of lines and smudges. At last he flung
down the charcoal and stood up.
“Take my advice, Mademoiselle, try dressmaking.” He looked at his
watch. “It’s twelve. A la semaine prochaine, messieurs.”
Miss Price gathered up her things slowly. Philip waited behind after
the others to say to her something consolatory. He could think of
nothing but:
“I say, I’m awfully sorry. What a beast that man is!”
She turned on him savagely.
“Is that what you’re waiting about for? When I want your sympathy I’ll
ask for it. Please get out of my way.”
She walked past him, out of the studio, and Philip, with a shrug of the
shoulders, limped along to Gravier’s for luncheon.
“It served her right,” said Lawson, when Philip told him what had
happened. “Ill-tempered slut.”
Lawson was very sensitive to criticism and, in order to avoid it, never
went to the studio when Foinet was coming.
“I don’t want other people’s opinion of my work,” he said. “I know
myself if it’s good or bad.”
“You mean you don’t want other people’s bad opinion of your work,”
answered Clutton dryly.
In the afternoon Philip thought he would go to the Luxembourg to see
the pictures, and walking through the garden he saw Fanny Price sitting
in her accustomed seat. He was sore at the rudeness with which she had
met his well-meant attempt to say something pleasant, and passed as
though he had not caught sight of her. But she got up at once and came
towards him.
“Are you trying to cut me?” she said.
“No, of course not. I thought perhaps you didn’t want to be spoken to.”
“Where are you going?”
“I wanted to have a look at the Manet, I’ve heard so much about it.”
“Would you like me to come with you? I know the Luxembourg rather well.