Chapter 43
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. 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.
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