By this time I had got a certain start with “Rutland Ramsay,” the first novel in the great projected series; that is I had produced a dozen drawings, several with the help of the Major and his wife, and I had sent them in for approval. My understanding with the publishers, as I have already hinted, had been that I was to be left to do my work, in this particular case, as I liked, with the whole book committed to me; but my connection with the rest of the series was only contingent5. There were moments when, frankly6, it WAS a comfort to have the real thing under one’s hand; for there were characters in “Rutland Ramsay” that were very much like it. There were people presumably as straight as the Major and women of as good a fashion as Mrs. Monarch. There was a great deal of country-house life — treated, it is true, in a fine, fanciful, ironical7, generalised way — and there was a considerable implication of knickerbockers and kilts. There were certain things I had to settle at the outset; such things for instance as the exact appearance of the hero, the particular bloom of the heroine. The author of course gave me a lead, but there was a margin8 for interpretation9. I took the Monarchs into my confidence, I told them frankly what I was about, I mentioned my embarrassments10 and alternatives. “Oh, take HIM!” Mrs. Monarch murmured sweetly, looking at her husband; and “What could you want better than my wife?” the Major inquired, with the comfortable candour that now prevailed between us.
I was not obliged to answer these remarks — I was only obliged to place my sitters. I was not easy in mind, and I postponed12, a little timidly perhaps, the solution of the question. The book was a large canvas, the other figures were numerous, and I worked off at first some of the episodes in which the hero and the heroine were not concerned. When once I had set THEM up I should have to stick to them — I couldn’t make my young man seven feet high in one place and five feet nine in another. I inclined on the whole to the latter measurement, though the Major more than once reminded me that HE looked about as young as anyone. It was indeed quite possible to arrange him, for the figure, so that it would have been difficult to detect his age. After the spontaneous Oronte had been with me a month, and after I had given him to understand several different times that his native exuberance13 would presently constitute an insurmountable barrier to our further intercourse14, I waked to a sense of his heroic capacity. He was only five feet seven, but the remaining inches were latent. I tried him almost secretly at first, for I was really rather afraid of the judgment15 my other models would pass on such a choice. If they regarded Miss Churm as little better than a snare16, what would they think of the representation by a person so little the real thing as an Italian street-vendor of a protagonist17 formed by a public school?
If I went a little in fear of them it was not because they bullied18 me, because they had got an oppressive foothold, but because in their really pathetic decorum and mysteriously permanent newness they counted on me so intensely. I was therefore very glad when Jack19 Hawley came home: he was always of such good counsel. He painted badly himself, but there was no one like him for putting his finger on the place. He had been absent from England for a year; he had been somewhere — I don’t remember where — to get a fresh eye. I was in a good deal of dread20 of any such organ, but we were old friends; he had been away for months and a sense of emptiness was creeping into my life. I hadn’t dodged21 a missile for a year.
He came back with a fresh eye, but with the same old black velvet22 blouse, and the first evening he spent in my studio we smoked cigarettes till the small hours. He had done no work himself, he had only got the eye; so the field was clear for the production of my little things. He wanted to see what I had done for the Cheapside, but he was disappointed in the exhibition. That at least seemed the meaning of two or three comprehensive groans23 which, as he lounged on my big divan24, on a folded leg, looking at my latest drawings, issued from his lips with the smoke of the cigarette.
“What’s the matter with you?” I asked.
“What’s the matter with YOU?”
“Nothing save that I’m mystified.”
“You are indeed. You’re quite off the hinge. What’s the meaning of this new fad25?” And he tossed me, with visible irreverence26, a drawing in which I happened to have depicted27 both my majestic28 models. I asked if he didn’t think it good, and he replied that it struck him as execrable, given the sort of thing I had always represented myself to him as wishing to arrive at; but I let that pass, I was so anxious to see exactly what he meant. The two figures in the picture looked colossal29, but I supposed this was NOT what he meant, inasmuch as, for aught he knew to the contrary, I might have been trying for that. I maintained that I was working exactly in the same way as when he last had done me the honour to commend me. “Well, there’s a big hole somewhere,” he answered; “wait a bit and I’ll discover it.” I depended upon him to do so: where else was the fresh eye? But he produced at last nothing more luminous30 than “I don’t know — I don’t like your types.” This was lame31, for a critic who had never consented to discuss with me anything but the question of execution, the direction of strokes and the mystery of values.
“In the drawings you’ve been looking at I think my types are very handsome.”
“Oh, they won’t do!”
“I’ve had a couple of new models.”
“I see you have. THEY won’t do.”
“Are you very sure of that?”
“Absolutely — they’re stupid.”
“You mean _I_ am — for I ought to get round that.”
“You CAN’T— with such people. Who are they?”
I told him, as far as was necessary, and he declared, heartlessly: “Ce sont des gens qu’il faut mettre a la porte.”
“You’ve never seen them; they’re awfully32 good,” I compassionately33 objected.
“Not seen them? Why, all this recent work of yours drops to pieces with them. It’s all I want to see of them.”
“No one else has said anything against it — the Cheapside people are pleased.”
“Everyone else is an ass11, and the Cheapside people the biggest asses34 of all. Come, don’t pretend, at this time of day, to have pretty illusions about the public, especially about publishers and editors. It’s not for SUCH animals you work — it’s for those who know, coloro che sanno; so keep straight for ME if you can’t keep straight for yourself. There’s a certain sort of thing you tried for from the first — and a very good thing it is. But this twaddle isn’t IN it.” When I talked with Hawley later about “Rutland Ramsay” and its possible successors he declared that I must get back into my boat again or I would go to the bottom. His voice in short was the voice of warning.
I noted35 the warning, but I didn’t turn my friends out of doors. They bored me a good deal; but the very fact that they bored me admonished36 me not to sacrifice them — if there was anything to be done with them– -simply to irritation37. As I look back at this phase they seem to me to have pervaded38 my life not a little. I have a vision of them as most of the time in my studio, seated, against the wall, on an old velvet bench to be out of the way, and looking like a pair of patient courtiers in a royal ante-chamber. I am convinced that during the coldest weeks of the winter they held their ground because it saved them fire. Their newness was losing its gloss39, and it was impossible not to feel that they were objects of charity. Whenever Miss Churm arrived they went away, and after I was fairly launched in “Rutland Ramsay” Miss Churm arrived pretty often. They managed to express to me tacitly that they supposed I wanted her for the low life of the book, and I let them suppose it, since they had attempted to study the work — it was lying about the studio — without discovering that it dealt only with the highest circles. They had dipped into the most brilliant of our novelists without deciphering many passages. I still took an hour from them, now and again, in spite of Jack Hawley’s warning: it would be time enough to dismiss them, if dismissal should be necessary, when the rigour of the season was over. Hawley had made their acquaintance — he had met them at my fireside — and thought them a ridiculous pair. Learning that he was a painter they tried to approach him, to show him too that they were the real thing; but he looked at them, across the big room, as if they were miles away: they were a compendium40 of everything that he most objected to in the social system of his country. Such people as that, all convention and patent-leather, with ejaculations that stopped conversation, had no business in a studio. A studio was a place to learn to see, and how could you see through a pair of feather beds?
The main inconvenience I suffered at their hands was that, at first, I was shy of letting them discover how my artful little servant had begun to sit to me for “Rutland Ramsay.” They knew that I had been odd enough (they were prepared by this time to allow oddity to artists,) to pick a foreign vagabond out of the streets, when I might have had a person with whiskers and credentials41; but it was some time before they learned how high I rated his accomplishments42. They found him in an attitude more than once, but they never doubted I was doing him as an organ-grinder. There were several things they never guessed, and one of them was that for a striking scene in the novel, in which a footman briefly43 figured, it occurred to me to make use of Major Monarch as the menial. I kept putting this off, I didn’t like to ask him to don the livery — besides the difficulty of finding a livery to fit him. At last, one day late in the winter, when I was at work on the despised Oronte (he caught one’s idea in an instant), and was in the glow of feeling that I was going very straight, they came in, the Major and his wife, with their society laugh about nothing (there was less and less to laugh at), like country-callers — they always reminded me of that — who have walked across the park after church and are presently persuaded to stay to luncheon44. Luncheon was over, but they could stay to tea — I knew they wanted it. The fit was on me, however, and I couldn’t let my ardour cool and my work wait, with the fading daylight, while my model prepared it. So I asked Mrs. Monarch if she would mind laying it out — a request which, for an instant, brought all the blood to her face. Her eyes were on her husband’s for a second, and some mute telegraphy passed between them. Their folly45 was over the next instant; his cheerful shrewdness put an end to it. So far from pitying their wounded pride, I must add, I was moved to give it as complete a lesson as I could. They bustled46 about together and got out the cups and saucers and made the kettle boil. I know they felt as if they were waiting on my servant, and when the tea was prepared I said: “He’ll have a cup, please — he’s tired.” Mrs. Monarch brought him one where he stood, and he took it from her as if he had been a gentleman at a party, squeezing a crush-hat with an elbow.
Then it came over me that she had made a great effort for me — made it with a kind of nobleness — and that I owed her a compensation. Each time I saw her after this I wondered what the compensation could be. I couldn’t go on doing the wrong thing to oblige them. Oh, it WAS the wrong thing, the stamp of the work for which they sat — Hawley was not the only person to say it now. I sent in a large number of the drawings I had made for “Rutland Ramsay,” and I received a warning that was more to the point than Hawley’s. The artistic47 adviser48 of the house for which I was working was of opinion that many of my illustrations were not what had been looked for. Most of these illustrations were the subjects in which the Monarchs had figured. Without going into the question of what HAD been looked for, I saw at this rate I shouldn’t get the other books to do. I hurled49 myself in despair upon Miss Churm, I put her through all her paces. I not only adopted Oronte publicly as my hero, but one morning when the Major looked in to see if I didn’t require him to finish a figure for the Cheapside, for which he had begun to sit the week before, I told him that I had changed my mind — I would do the drawing from my man. At this my visitor turned pale and stood looking at me. “Is HE your idea of an English gentleman?” he asked.
I was disappointed, I was nervous, I wanted to get on with my work; so I replied with irritation: “Oh, my dear Major — I can’t be ruined for YOU!”
He stood another moment; then, without a word, he quitted the studio. I drew a long breath when he was gone, for I said to myself that I shouldn’t see him again. I had not told him definitely that I was in danger of having my work rejected, but I was vexed50 at his not having felt the catastrophe51 in the air, read with me the moral of our fruitless collaboration52, the lesson that, in the deceptive53 atmosphere of art, even the highest respectability may fail of being plastic.
I didn’t owe my friends money, but I did see them again. They re– appeared together, three days later, and under the circumstances there was something tragic54 in the fact. It was a proof to me that they could find nothing else in life to do. They had threshed the matter out in a dismal55 conference — they had digested the bad news that they were not in for the series. If they were not useful to me even for the Cheapside their function seemed difficult to determine, and I could only judge at first that they had come, forgivingly, decorously, to take a last leave. This made me rejoice in secret that I had little leisure for a scene; for I had placed both my other models in position together and I was pegging56 away at a drawing from which I hoped to derive57 glory. It had been suggested by the passage in which Rutland Ramsay, drawing up a chair to Artemisia’s piano– stool, says extraordinary things to her while she ostensibly fingers out a difficult piece of music. I had done Miss Churm at the piano before — it was an attitude in which she knew how to take on an absolutely poetic58 grace. I wished the two figures to “compose” together, intensely, and my little Italian had entered perfectly59 into my conception. The pair were vividly60 before me, the piano had been pulled out; it was a charming picture of blended youth and murmured love, which I had only to catch and keep. My visitors stood and looked at it, and I was friendly to them over my shoulder.
They made no response, but I was used to silent company and went on with my work, only a little disconcerted (even though exhilarated by the sense that THIS was at least the ideal thing), at not having got rid of them after all. Presently I heard Mrs. Monarch’s sweet voice beside, or rather above me: “I wish her hair was a little better done.” I looked up and she was staring with a strange fixedness61 at Miss Churm, whose back was turned to her. “Do you mind my just touching62 it?” she went on — a question which made me spring up for an instant, as with the instinctive63 fear that she might do the young lady a harm. But she quieted me with a glance I shall never forget — I confess I should like to have been able to paint THAT— and went for a moment to my model. She spoke64 to her softly, laying a hand upon her shoulder and bending over her; and as the girl, understanding, gratefully assented65, she disposed her rough curls, with a few quick passes, in such a way as to make Miss Churm’s head twice as charming. It was one of the most heroic personal services I have ever seen rendered. Then Mrs. Monarch turned away with a low sigh and, looking about her as if for something to do, stooped to the floor with a noble humility66 and picked up a dirty rag that had dropped out of my paint-box.
The Major meanwhile had also been looking for something to do and, wandering to the other end of the studio, saw before him my breakfast things, neglected, unremoved. “I say, can’t I be useful HERE?” he called out to me with an irrepressible quaver. I assented with a laugh that I fear was awkward and for the next ten minutes, while I worked, I heard the light clatter67 of china and the tinkle68 of spoons and glass. Mrs. Monarch assisted her husband — they washed up my crockery, they put it away. They wandered off into my little scullery, and I afterwards found that they had cleaned my knives and that my slender stock of plate had an unprecedented69 surface. When it came over me, the latent eloquence70 of what they were doing, I confess that my drawing was blurred71 for a moment — the picture swam. They had accepted their failure, but they couldn’t accept their fate. They had bowed their heads in bewilderment to the perverse72 and cruel law in virtue73 of which the real thing could be so much less precious than the unreal; but they didn’t want to starve. If my servants were my models, my models might be my servants. They would reverse the parts — the others would sit for the ladies and gentlemen, and THEY would do the work. They would still be in the studio — it was an intense dumb appeal to me not to turn them out. “Take us on,” they wanted to say —”we’ll do ANYTHING.”
When all this hung before me the afflatus74 vanished — my pencil dropped from my hand. My sitting was spoiled and I got rid of my sitters, who were also evidently rather mystified and awestruck. Then, alone with the Major and his wife, I had a most uncomfortable moment, He put their prayer into a single sentence: “I say, you know — just let US do for you, can’t you?” I couldn’t — it was dreadful to see them emptying my slops; but I pretended I could, to oblige them, for about a week. Then I gave them a sum of money to go away; and I never saw them again. I obtained the remaining books, but my friend Hawley repeats that Major and Mrs. Monarch did me a permanent harm, got me into a second-rate trick. If it be true I am content to have paid the price — for the memory.
The End
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1
monarch
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| n.帝王，君主，最高统治者 | |
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scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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scented
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| adj.有香味的；洒香水的；有气味的v.嗅到(scent的过去分词) | |
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monarchs
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| 君主，帝王( monarch的名词复数 ) | |
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contingent
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| adj.视条件而定的；n.一组，代表团，分遣队 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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ironical
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| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
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margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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embarrassments
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| n.尴尬( embarrassment的名词复数 )；难堪；局促不安；令人难堪或耻辱的事 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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postponed
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| vt.& vi.延期，缓办，（使）延迟vt.把…放在次要地位；[语]把…放在后面（或句尾）vi.（疟疾等）延缓发作（或复发） | |
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exuberance
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| n.丰富；繁荣 | |
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intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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snare
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| n.陷阱，诱惑，圈套；（去除息肉或者肿瘤的）勒除器；响弦，小军鼓；vt.以陷阱捕获，诱惑 | |
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protagonist
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| n.(思想观念的)倡导者；主角，主人公 | |
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bullied
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| adj.被欺负了v.恐吓，威逼( bully的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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dodged
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| v.闪躲( dodge的过去式和过去分词 )；回避 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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groans
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| n.呻吟，叹息( groan的名词复数 )；呻吟般的声音v.呻吟( groan的第三人称单数 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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divan
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| n.长沙发；（波斯或其他东方诗人的）诗集 | |
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fad
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| n.时尚；一时流行的狂热；一时的爱好 | |
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irreverence
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| n.不尊敬 | |
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depicted
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| 描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述 | |
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majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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compassionately
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| adv.表示怜悯地，有同情心地 | |
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asses
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| n. 驴，愚蠢的人，臀部 adv. (常用作后置)用于贬损或骂人 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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admonished
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| v.劝告( admonish的过去式和过去分词 )；训诫；（温和地）责备；轻责 | |
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irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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pervaded
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| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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gloss
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| n.光泽，光滑；虚饰；注释；vt.加光泽于；掩饰 | |
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compendium
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| n.简要，概略 | |
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credentials
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| n.证明，资格，证明书，证件 | |
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accomplishments
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| n.造诣；完成( accomplishment的名词复数 )；技能；成绩；成就 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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bustled
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| 闹哄哄地忙乱，奔忙( bustle的过去式和过去分词 )； 催促 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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adviser
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| n.劝告者，顾问 | |
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hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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collaboration
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| n.合作，协作；勾结 | |
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deceptive
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| adj.骗人的，造成假象的，靠不住的 | |
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tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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pegging
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| n.外汇钉住，固定证券价格v.用夹子或钉子固定( peg的现在分词 )；使固定在某水平 | |
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57
derive
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| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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58
poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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59
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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60
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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61
fixedness
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| n.固定；稳定；稳固 | |
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62
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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63
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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64
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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65
assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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66
humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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67
clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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68
tinkle
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| vi.叮当作响；n.叮当声 | |
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69
unprecedented
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| adj.无前例的，新奇的 | |
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70
eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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71
blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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72
perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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73
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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74
afflatus
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| n.灵感，神感 | |
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