Of Human Bondage
Montparnasse among all those white tombstones. Philip felt lonely in
the world and strangely homesick. He wanted company. At that hour
Cronshaw would be working, and Clutton never welcomed visitors; Lawson
was painting another portrait of Ruth Chalice and would not care to be
disturbed. He made up his mind to go and see Flanagan. He found him
painting, but delighted to throw up his work and talk. The studio was
comfortable, for the American had more money than most of them, and
warm; Flanagan set about making tea. Philip looked at the two heads
that he was sending to the Salon.
“It’s awful cheek my sending anything,” said Flanagan, “but I don’t
care, I’m going to send. D’you think they’re rotten?”
“Not so rotten as I should have expected,” said Philip.
They showed in fact an astounding cleverness. The difficulties had been
avoided with skill, and there was a dash about the way in which the
paint was put on which was surprising and even attractive. Flanagan,
without knowledge or technique, painted with the loose brush of a man
who has spent a lifetime in the practice of the art.
“If one were forbidden to look at any picture for more than thirty
seconds you’d be a great master, Flanagan,” smiled Philip.
These young people were not in the habit of spoiling one another with
excessive flattery.
“We haven’t got time in America to spend more than thirty seconds in
looking at any picture,” laughed the other.
Flanagan, though he was the most scatter-brained person in the world,
had a tenderness of heart which was unexpected and charming. Whenever
anyone was ill he installed himself as sick-nurse. His gaiety was
better than any medicine. Like many of his countrymen he had not the
English dread of sentimentality which keeps so tight a hold on emotion;
and, finding nothing absurd in the show of feeling, could offer an
exuberant sympathy which was often grateful to his friends in distress.
He saw that Philip was depressed by what he had gone through and with
unaffected kindliness set himself boisterously to cheer him up. He
exaggerated the Americanisms which he knew always made the Englishmen
laugh and poured out a breathless stream of conversation, whimsical,
high-spirited, and jolly. In due course they went out to dinner and
afterwards to the Gaite Montparnasse, which was Flanagan’s favourite
place of amusement. By the end of the evening he was in his most
extravagant humour. He had drunk a good deal, but any inebriety from
which he suffered was due much more to his own vivacity than to
alcohol. He proposed that they should go to the Bal Bullier, and
Philip, feeling too tired to go to bed, willingly enough consented.
They sat down at a table on the platform at the side, raised a little
from the level of the floor so that they could watch the dancing, and
drank a bock. Presently Flanagan saw a friend and with a wild shout
leaped over the barrier on to the space where they were dancing. Philip
watched the people. Bullier was not the resort of fashion. It was
Thursday night and the place was crowded. There were a number of
students of the various faculties, but most of the men were clerks or
assistants in shops; they wore their everyday clothes, ready-made
tweeds or queer tail-coats, and their hats, for they had brought them
in with them, and when they danced there was no place to put them but
their heads. Some of the women looked like servant-girls, and some were
painted hussies, but for the most part they were shop-girls. They were
poorly-dressed in cheap imitation of the fashions on the other side of
the river. The hussies were got up to resemble the music-hall artiste
or the dancer who enjoyed notoriety at the moment; their eyes were
heavy with black and their cheeks impudently scarlet. The hall was lit
by great white lights, low down, which emphasised the shadows on the
faces; all the lines seemed to harden under it, and the colours were
most crude. It was a sordid scene. Philip leaned over the rail, staring
down, and he ceased to hear the music. They danced furiously. They
danced round the room, slowly, talking very little, with all their
attention given to the dance. The room was hot, and their faces shone
with sweat. It seemed to Philip that they had thrown off the guard
which people wear on their expression, the homage to convention, and he
saw them now as they really were. In that moment of abandon they were
strangely animal: some were foxy and some were wolf-like; and others
had the long, foolish face of sheep. Their skins were sallow from the
unhealthy life they led and the poor food they ate. Their features were
blunted by mean interests, and their little eyes were shifty and
cunning. There was nothing of nobility in their bearing, and you felt
that for all of them life was a long succession of petty concerns and
sordid thoughts. The air was heavy with the musty smell of humanity.
But they danced furiously as though impelled by some strange power
within them, and it seemed to Philip that they were driven forward by a
rage for enjoyment. They were seeking desperately to escape from a
world of horror. The desire for pleasure which Cronshaw said was the
only motive of human action urged them blindly on, and the very
vehemence of the desire seemed to rob it of all pleasure. They were
hurried on by a great wind, helplessly, they knew not why and they knew
not whither. Fate seemed to tower above them, and they danced as though
everlasting darkness were beneath their feet. Their silence was vaguely
alarming. It was as if life terrified them and robbed them of power of
speech so that the shriek which was in their hearts died at their
throats. Their eyes were haggard and grim; and notwithstanding the
beastly lust that disfigured them, and the meanness of their faces, and
the cruelty, notwithstanding the stupidness which was worst of all, the
anguish of those fixed eyes made all that crowd terrible and pathetic.
Philip loathed them, and yet his heart ached with the infinite pity
which filled him.
He took his coat from the cloak-room and went out into the bitter
coldness of the night.
L
Philip could not get the unhappy event out of his head. What troubled
him most was the uselessness of Fanny’s effort. No one could have
worked harder than she, nor with more sincerity; she believed in
herself with all her heart; but it was plain that self-confidence meant
very little, all his friends had it, Miguel Ajuria among the rest; and
Philip was shocked by the contrast between the Spaniard’s heroic
endeavour and the triviality of the thing he attempted. The unhappiness
of Philip’s life at school had called up in him the power of
self-analysis; and this vice, as subtle as drug-taking, had taken
possession of him so that he had now a peculiar keenness in the
dissection of his feelings. He could not help seeing that art affected
him differently from others. A fine picture gave Lawson an immediate
thrill. His appreciation was instinctive. Even Flanagan felt certain
things which Philip was obliged to think out. His own appreciation was
intellectual. He could not help thinking that if he had in him the
artistic temperament (he hated the phrase, but could discover no other)
he would feel beauty in the emotional, unreasoning way in which they
did. He began to wonder whether he had anything more than a superficial
cleverness of the hand which enabled him to copy objects with accuracy.
That was nothing. He had learned to despise technical dexterity. The
important thing was to feel in terms of paint. Lawson painted in a
certain way because it was his nature to, and through the imitativeness
of a student sensitive to every influence, there pierced individuality.
Philip looked at his own portrait of Ruth Chalice, and now that three
months had passed he realised that it was no more than a servile copy
of Lawson. He felt himself barren. He painted with the brain, and he
could not help knowing that the only painting worth anything was done
with the heart.
He had very little money, barely sixteen hundred pounds, and it would
be necessary for him to practise the severest economy. He could not
count on earning anything for ten years. The history of painting was
full of artists who had earned nothing at all. He must resign himself
to penury; and it was worth while if he produced work which was
immortal; but he had a terrible fear that he would never be more than
second-rate. Was it worth while for that to give up one’s youth, and
the gaiety of life, and the manifold chances of being? He knew the
existence of foreign painters in Paris enough to see that the lives
they led were narrowly provincial. He knew some who had dragged along
for twenty years in the pursuit of a fame which always escaped them
till they sunk into sordidness and alcoholism. Fanny’s suicide had
aroused memories, and Philip heard ghastly stories of the way in which
one person or another had escaped from despair. He remembered the
scornful advice which the master had given poor Fanny: it would have
been well for her if she had taken it and given up an attempt which was
hopeless.
Philip finished his portrait of Miguel Ajuria and made up his mind to
send it to the Salon. Flanagan was sending two pictures, and he thought
he could paint as well as Flanagan. He had worked so hard on the
portrait that he could not help feeling it must have merit. It was true
that when he looked at it he felt that there was something wrong,
though he could not tell what; but when he was away from it his spirits
went up and he was not dissatisfied. He sent it to the Salon and it was
refused. He did not mind much, since he had done all he could to
persuade himself that there was little chance that it would be taken,
till Flanagan a few days later rushed in to tell Lawson and Philip that
one of his pictures was accepted. With a blank face Philip offered his
congratulations, and Flanagan was so busy congratulating himself that
he did not catch the note of irony which Philip could not prevent from
coming into his voice. Lawson, quicker-witted, observed it and looked
at Philip curiously. His own picture was all right, he knew that a day
or two before, and he was vaguely resentful of Philip’s attitude. But
he was surprised at the sudden question which Philip put him as soon as
the American was gone.
“If you were in my place would you chuck the whole thing?”
“What do you mean?”
“I wonder if it’s worth while being a second-rate painter. You see, in
other things, if you’re a doctor or if you’re in business, it doesn’t
matter so much if you’re mediocre. You make a living and you get along.
But what is the good of turning out second-rate pictures?”
Lawson was fond of Philip and, as soon as he thought he was seriously
distressed by the refusal of his picture, he set himself to console
him. It was notorious that the Salon had refused pictures which were
afterwards famous; it was the first time Philip had sent, and he must
expect a rebuff; Flanagan’s success was explicable, his picture was
showy and superficial: it was just the sort of thing a languid jury
would see merit in. Philip grew impatient; it was humiliating that
Lawson should think him capable of being seriously disturbed by so
trivial a calamity and would not realise that his dejection was due to
a deep-seated distrust of his powers.
Of late Clutton had withdrawn himself somewhat from the group who took
their meals at Gravier’s, and lived very much by himself. Flanagan said
he was in love with a girl, but Clutton’s austere countenance did not
suggest passion; and Philip thought it more probable that he separated
himself from his friends so that he might grow clear with the new ideas
which were in him. But that evening, when the others had left the