Of Human Bondage
I could show you one or two good things.”
He understood that, unable to bring herself to apologise directly, she
made this offer as amends.
“It’s awfully kind of you. I should like it very much.”
“You needn’t say yes if you’d rather go alone,” she said suspiciously.
“I wouldn’t.”
They walked towards the gallery. Caillebotte’s collection had lately
been placed on view, and the student for the first time had the
opportunity to examine at his ease the works of the impressionists.
Till then it had been possible to see them only at Durand-Ruel’s shop
in the Rue Lafitte (and the dealer, unlike his fellows in England, who
adopt towards the painter an attitude of superiority, was always
pleased to show the shabbiest student whatever he wanted to see), or at
his private house, to which it was not difficult to get a card of
admission on Tuesdays, and where you might see pictures of world-wide
reputation. Miss Price led Philip straight up to Manet’s Olympia. He
looked at it in astonished silence.
“Do you like it?” asked Miss Price.
“I don’t know,” he answered helplessly.
“You can take it from me that it’s the best thing in the gallery except
perhaps Whistler’s portrait of his mother.”
She gave him a certain time to contemplate the masterpiece and then
took him to a picture representing a railway-station.
“Look, here’s a Monet,” she said. “It’s the Gare St. Lazare.”
“But the railway lines aren’t parallel,” said Philip.
“What does that matter?” she asked, with a haughty air.
Philip felt ashamed of himself. Fanny Price had picked up the glib
chatter of the studios and had no difficulty in impressing Philip with
the extent of her knowledge. She proceeded to explain the pictures to
him, superciliously but not without insight, and showed him what the
painters had attempted and what he must look for. She talked with much
gesticulation of the thumb, and Philip, to whom all she said was new,
listened with profound but bewildered interest. Till now he had
worshipped Watts and Burne-Jones. The pretty colour of the first, the
affected drawing of the second, had entirely satisfied his aesthetic
sensibilities. Their vague idealism, the suspicion of a philosophical
idea which underlay the titles they gave their pictures, accorded very
well with the functions of art as from his diligent perusal of Ruskin
he understood it; but here was something quite different: here was no
moral appeal; and the contemplation of these works could help no one to
lead a purer and a higher life. He was puzzled.
At last he said: “You know, I’m simply dead. I don’t think I can absorb
anything more profitably. Let’s go and sit down on one of the benches.”
“It’s better not to take too much art at a time,” Miss Price answered.
When they got outside he thanked her warmly for the trouble she had
taken.
“Oh, that’s all right,” she said, a little ungraciously. “I do it
because I enjoy it. We’ll go to the Louvre tomorrow if you like, and
then I’ll take you to Durand-Ruel’s.”
“You’re really awfully good to me.”
“You don’t think me such a beast as the most of them do.”
“I don’t,” he smiled.
“They think they’ll drive me away from the studio; but they won’t; I
shall stay there just exactly as long as it suits me. All that this
morning, it was Lucy Otter’s doing, I know it was. She always has hated
me. She thought after that I’d take myself off. I daresay she’d like me
to go. She’s afraid I know too much about her.”
Miss Price told him a long, involved story, which made out that Mrs.
Otter, a humdrum and respectable little person, had scabrous intrigues.
Then she talked of Ruth Chalice, the girl whom Foinet had praised that
morning.
“She’s been with every one of the fellows at the studio. She’s nothing
better than a street-walker. And she’s dirty. She hasn’t had a bath for
a month. I know it for a fact.”
Philip listened uncomfortably. He had heard already that various
rumours were in circulation about Miss Chalice; but it was ridiculous
to suppose that Mrs. Otter, living with her mother, was anything but
rigidly virtuous. The woman walking by his side with her malignant
lying positively horrified him.
“I don’t care what they say. I shall go on just the same. I know I’ve
got it in me. I feel I’m an artist. I’d sooner kill myself than give it
up. Oh, I shan’t be the first they’ve all laughed at in the schools and
then he’s turned out the only genius of the lot. Art’s the only thing I
care for, I’m willing to give my whole life to it. It’s only a question
of sticking to it and pegging away.”
She found discreditable motives for everyone who would not take her at
her own estimate of herself. She detested Clutton. She told Philip that
his friend had no talent really; it was just flashy and superficial; he
couldn’t compose a figure to save his life. And Lawson:
“Little beast, with his red hair and his freckles. He’s so afraid of
Foinet that he won’t let him see his work. After all, I don’t funk it,
do I? I don’t care what Foinet says to me, I know I’m a real artist.”
They reached the street in which she lived, and with a sigh of relief
Philip left her.
XLIV
But notwithstanding when Miss Price on the following Sunday offered to
take him to the Louvre Philip accepted. She showed him Mona Lisa. He
looked at it with a slight feeling of disappointment, but he had read
till he knew by heart the jewelled words with which Walter Pater has
added beauty to the most famous picture in the world; and these now he
repeated to Miss Price.
“That’s all literature,” she said, a little contemptuously. “You must
get away from that.”
She showed him the Rembrandts, and she said many appropriate things
about them. She stood in front of the Disciples at Emmaus.
“When you feel the beauty of that,” she said, “you’ll know something
about painting.”
She showed him the Odalisque and La Source of Ingres. Fanny Price was a
peremptory guide, she would not let him look at the things he wished,
and attempted to force his admiration for all she admired. She was
desperately in earnest with her study of art, and when Philip, passing
in the Long Gallery a window that looked out on the Tuileries, gay,
sunny, and urbane, like a picture by Raffaelli, exclaimed:
“I say, how jolly! Do let’s stop here a minute.”
She said, indifferently: “Yes, it’s all right. But we’ve come here to
look at pictures.”
The autumn air, blithe and vivacious, elated Philip; and when towards
mid-day they stood in the great court-yard of the Louvre, he felt
inclined to cry like Flanagan: To hell with art.
“I say, do let’s go to one of those restaurants in the Boul’ Mich’ and
have a snack together, shall we?” he suggested.
Miss Price gave him a suspicious look.
“I’ve got my lunch waiting for me at home,” she answered.
“That doesn’t matter. You can eat it tomorrow. Do let me stand you a
lunch.”
“I don’t know why you want to.”
“It would give me pleasure,” he replied, smiling.
They crossed the river, and at the corner of the Boulevard St. Michel
there was a restaurant.
“Let’s go in there.”
“No, I won’t go there, it looks too expensive.”
She walked on firmly, and Philip was obliged to follow. A few steps
brought them to a smaller restaurant, where a dozen people were already
lunching on the pavement under an awning; on the window was announced
in large white letters: Dejeuner 1.25, vin compris.
“We couldn’t have anything cheaper than this, and it looks quite all
right.”
They sat down at a vacant table and waited for the omelette which was
the first article on the bill of fare. Philip gazed with delight upon
the passers-by. His heart went out to them. He was tired but very
happy.
“I say, look at that man in the blouse. Isn’t he ripping!”
He glanced at Miss Price, and to his astonishment saw that she was
looking down at her plate, regardless of the passing spectacle, and two
heavy tears were rolling down her cheeks.
“What on earth’s the matter?” he exclaimed.
“If you say anything to me I shall get up and go at once,” she
answered.
He was entirely puzzled, but fortunately at that moment the omelette
came. He divided it in two and they began to eat. Philip did his best
to talk of indifferent things, and it seemed as though Miss Price were
making an effort on her side to be agreeable; but the luncheon was not
altogether a success. Philip was squeamish, and the way in which Miss
Price ate took his appetite away. She ate noisily, greedily, a little
like a wild beast in a menagerie, and after she had finished each
course rubbed the plate with pieces of bread till it was white and
shining, as if she did not wish to lose a single drop of gravy. They
had Camembert cheese, and it disgusted Philip to see that she ate rind
and all of the portion that was given her. She could not have eaten
more ravenously if she were starving.
Miss Price was unaccountable, and having parted from her on one day
with friendliness he could never tell whether on the next she would not
be sulky and uncivil; but he learned a good deal from her: though she
could not draw well herself, she knew all that could be taught, and her
constant suggestions helped his progress. Mrs. Otter was useful to him
too, and sometimes Miss Chalice criticised his work; he learned from
the glib loquacity of Lawson and from the example of Clutton. But Fanny
Price hated him to take suggestions from anyone but herself, and when
he asked her help after someone else had been talking to him she would
refuse with brutal rudeness. The other fellows, Lawson, Clutton,
Flanagan, chaffed him about her.
“You be careful, my lad,” they said, “she’s in love with you.”
“Oh, what nonsense,” he laughed.
The thought that Miss Price could be in love with anyone was
preposterous. It made him shudder when he thought of her uncomeliness,
the bedraggled hair and the dirty hands, the brown dress she always
wore, stained and ragged at the hem: he supposed she was hard up, they
were all hard up, but she might at least be clean; and it was surely
possible with a needle and thread to make her skirt tidy.
Philip began to sort his impressions of the people he was thrown in
contact with. He was not so ingenuous as in those days which now seemed
so long ago at Heidelberg, and, beginning to take a more deliberate
interest in humanity, he was inclined to examine and to criticise. He
found it difficult to know Clutton any better after seeing him every
day for three months than on the first day of their acquaintance. The
general impression at the studio was that he was able; it was supposed
that he would do great things, and he shared the general opinion; but
what exactly he was going to do neither he nor anybody else quite knew.
He had worked at several studios before Amitrano’s, at Julian’s, the
Beaux Arts, and MacPherson’s, and was remaining longer at Amitrano’s
than anywhere because he found himself more left alone. He was not fond
of showing his work, and unlike most of the young men who were studying
art neither sought nor gave advice. It was said that in the little
studio in the Rue Campagne Premiere, which served him for work-room and
bed-room, he had wonderful pictures which would make his reputation if
only he could be induced to exhibit them. He could not afford a model
but painted still life, and Lawson constantly talked of a plate of
apples which he declared was a masterpiece. He was fastidious, and,
aiming at something he did not quite fully grasp, was constantly
dissatisfied with his work as a whole: perhaps a part would please him,
the forearm or the leg and foot of a figure, a glass or a cup in a
still-life; and he would cut this out and keep it, destroying the rest
of the canvas; so that when people invited themselves to see his work