Of myself I have nothing to say, but that I have followed the profession of a traveling portrait-painter for the last fifteen years. The pursuit of my calling has not only led me all through England, but has taken me twice to Scotland, and once to Ireland. In moving from district to district, I am never guided beforehand by any settled plan. Sometimes the letters of recommendation which I get from persons who are satisfied with the work I have done for them determine the direction in which I travel. Sometimes I hear of a new neighborhood in which there is no resident artist of ability, and remove thither5 on speculation6. Sometimes my friends among the picture-dealers say a good word on my behalf to their rich customers, and so pave the way for me in the large towns. Sometimes my prosperous and famous brother-artists, hearing of small commissions which it is not worth their while to accept, mention my name, and procure7 me introductions to pleasant country houses. Thus I get on, now in one way and now in another, not winning a reputation or making a fortune, but happier, perhaps, on the whole, than many men who have got both the one and the other. So, at least, I try to think now, though I started in my youth with as high an ambition as the best of them. Thank God, it is not my business here to speak of past times and their disappointments. A twinge of the old hopeless heartache comes over me sometimes still, when I think of my student days.
One peculiarity8 of my present way of life is, that it brings me into contact with all sorts of characters. I almost feel, by this time, as if I had painted every civilized9 variety of the human race. Upon the whole, my experience of the world, rough as it has been, has not taught me to think unkindly of my fellow-creatures. I have certainly received such treatment at the hands of some of my sitters as I could not describe without saddening and shocking any kind-hearted reader; but, taking one year and one place with another, I have cause to remember with gratitude10 and respect—sometimes even with friendship and affection—a very large proportion of the numerous persons who have employed me.
Some of the results of my experience are curious in a moral point of view. For example, I have found women almost uniformly less delicate in asking me about my terms, and less generous in remunerating me for my services, than men. On the other hand, men, within my knowledge, are decidedly vainer of their personal attractions, and more vexatiously anxious to have them done full justice to on canvas, than women. Taking both sexes together, I have found young people, for the most part, more gentle, more reasonable, and more considerate than old. And, summing up, in a general way, my experience of different ranks (which extends, let me premise12, all the way down from peers to publicans), I have met with most of my formal and ungracious receptions among rich people of uncertain social standing13: the highest classes and the lowest among my employers almost always contrive14—in widely different ways, of course, to make me feel at home as soon as I enter their houses.
The one great obstacle that I have to contend against in the practice of my profession is not, as some persons may imagine, the difficulty of making my sitters keep their heads still while I paint them, but the difficulty of getting them to preserve the natural look and the every-day peculiarities15 of dress and manner. People will assume an expression, will brush up their hair, will correct any little characteristic carelessness in their apparel—will, in short, when they want to have their likenesses taken, look as if they were sitting for their pictures. If I paint them, under these artificial circumstances, I fail of course to present them in their habitual16 aspect; and my portrait, as a necessary consequence, disappoints everybody, the sitter always included. When we wish to judge of a man’s character by his handwriting, we want his customary scrawl17 dashed off with his common workaday pen, not his best small-text, traced laboriously18 with the finest procurable19 crow-quill point. So it is with portrait-painting, which is, after all, nothing but a right reading of the externals of character recognizably presented to the view of others.
Experience, after repeated trials, has proved to me that the only way of getting sitters who persist in assuming a set look to resume their habitual expression, is to lead them into talking about some subject in which they are greatly interested. If I can only beguile20 them into speaking earnestly, no matter on what topic, I am sure of recovering their natural expression; sure of seeing all the little precious everyday peculiarities of the man or woman peep out, one after another, quite unawares. The long, maundering stories about nothing, the wearisome recitals22 of petty grievances23, the local anecdotes24 unrelieved by the faintest suspicion of anything like general interest, which I have been condemned25 to hear, as a consequence of thawing26 the ice off the features of formal sitters by the method just described, would fill hundreds of volumes, and promote the repose27 of thousands of readers. On the other hand, if I have suffered under the tediousness of the many, I have not been without my compensating28 gains from the wisdom and experience of the few. To some of my sitters I have been indebted for information which has enlarged my mind—to some for advice which has lightened my heart—to some for narratives29 of strange adventure which riveted30 my attention at the time, which have served to interest and amuse my fireside circle for many years past, and which are now, I would fain hope, destined31 to make kind friends for me among a wider audience than any that I have yet addressed.
Singularly enough, almost all the best stories that I have heard from my sitters have been told by accident. I only remember two cases in which a story was volunteered to me, and, although I have often tried the experiment, I cannot call to mind even a single instance in which leading questions (as the lawyers call them) on my part, addressed to a sitter, ever produced any result worth recording32. Over and over again, I have been disastrously33 successful in encouraging dull people to weary me. But the clever people who have something interesting to say, seem, so far as I have observed them, to acknowledge no other stimulant34 than chance. For every story which I propose including in the present collection, excepting one, I have been indebted, in the first instance, to the capricious influence of the same chance. Something my sitter has seen about me, something I have remarked in my sitter, or in the room in which I take the likeness1, or in the neighborhood through which I pass on my way to work, has suggested the necessary association, or has started the right train of recollections, and then the story appeared to begin of its own accord. Occasionally the most casual notice, on my part, of some very unpromising object has smoothed the way for the relation of a long and interesting narrative. I first heard one of the most dramatic of the stories that will be presented in this book, merely through being carelessly inquisitive37 to know the history of a stuffed poodle-dog.
It is thus not without reason that I lay some stress on the desirableness of prefacing each one of the following narratives by a brief account of the curious manner in which I became possessed of it. As to my capacity for repeating these stories correctly, I can answer for it that my memory may be trusted. I may claim it as a merit, because it is after all a mechanical one, that I forget nothing, and that I can call long-passed conversations and events as readily to my recollection as if they had happened but a few weeks ago. Of two things at least I feel tolerably certain beforehand, in meditating38 over the contents of this book: First, that I can repeat correctly all that I have heard; and, secondly39, that I have never missed anything worth hearing when my sitters were addressing me on an interesting subject. Although I cannot take the lead in talking while I am engaged in painting, I can listen while others speak, and work all the better for it.
So much in the way of general preface to the pages for which I am about to ask the reader’s attention. Let me now advance to particulars, and describe how I came to hear the first story in the present collection. I begin with it because it is the story that I have oftenest “rehearsed,” to borrow a phrase from the stage. Wherever I go, I am sooner or later sure to tell it. Only last night, I was persuaded into repeating it once more by the inhabitants of the farmhouse40 in which I am now staying.
Not many years ago, on returning from a short holiday visit to a friend settled in Paris, I found professional letters awaiting me at my agent’s in London, which required my immediate41 presence in Liverpool. Without stopping to unpack42, I proceeded by the first conveyance43 to my new destination; and, calling at the picture-dealer’s shop, where portrait-painting engagements were received for me, found to my great satisfaction that I had remunerative44 employment in prospect45, in and about Liverpool, for at least two months to come. I was putting up my letters in high spirits, and was just leaving the picture-dealer’s shop to look out for comfortable lodgings46, when I was met at the door by the landlord of one of the largest hotels in Liverpool—an old acquaintance whom I had known as manager of a tavern47 in London in my student days.
“Mr. Kerby!” he exclaimed, in great astonishment48. “What an unexpected meeting! the last man in the world whom I expected to see, and yet the very man whose services I want to make use of!”
“What, more work for me?” said I; “are all the people in Liverpool going to have their portraits painted?”
“I only know of one,” replied the landlord, “a gentleman staying at my hotel, who wants a chalk drawing done for him. I was on my way here to inquire of any artist whom our picture-dealing friend could recommend. How glad I am that I met you before I had committed myself to employing a stranger!”
“Is this likeness wanted at once?” I asked, thinking of the number of engagements that I had already got in my pocket.
“Immediately—to-day—this very hour, if possible,” said the landlord. “Mr. Faulkner, the gentleman I am speaking of, was to have sailed yesterday for the Brazils from this place; but the wind shifted last night to the wrong quarter, and he came ashore49 again this morning. He may of course be detained here for some time; but he may also be called on board ship at half an hour’s notice, if the wind shifts back again in the right direction. This uncertainty50 makes it a matter of importance that the likeness should be begun immediately. Undertake it if you possibly can, for Mr. Faulkner’s a liberal gentleman, who is sure to give you your own terms.”
I reflected for a minute or two. The portrait was only wanted in chalk, and would not take long; besides, I might finish it in the evening, if my other engagements pressed hard upon me in the daytime. Why not leave my luggage at the picture-dealer’s, put off looking for lodgings till night, and secure the new commission boldly by going back at once with the landlord to the hotel? I decided11 on following this course almost as soon as the idea occurred to me—put my chalks in my pocket, and a sheet of drawing paper in the first of my portfolios52 that came to hand—and so presented myself before Mr. Faulkner, ready to take his likeness, literally53 at five minutes’ notice.
I found him a very pleasant, intelligent man, young and handsome. He had been a great traveler; had visited all the wonders of the East; and was now about to explore the wilds of the vast South American Continent. Thus much he told me good-humoredly and unconstrainedly while I was preparing my drawing materials.
As soon as I had put him in the right light and position, and had seated myself opposite to him, he changed the subject of conversation, and asked me, a little confusedly as I thought, if it was not a customary practice among portrait-painters to gloss54 over the faults in their sitters’ faces, and to make as much as possible of any good points which their features might possess.
“Certainly,” I answered. “You have described the whole art and mystery of successful portrait-painting in a few words.”
“May I beg, then,” said he, “that you will depart from the usual practice in my case, and draw me with all my defects, exactly as I am? The fact is,” he went on, after a moment’s pause, “the likeness you are now preparing to take is intended for my mother. My roving disposition55 makes me a great anxiety to her, and she parted from me this last time very sadly and unwillingly56. I don’t know how the idea came into my head, but it struck me this morning that I could not better employ the time, while I was delayed here on shore, than by getting my likeness done to send to her as a keepsake. She has no portrait of me since I was a child, and she is sure to value a drawing of me more than anything else I could send to her. I only trouble you with this explanation to prove that I am really sincere in my wish to be drawn57 unflatteringly, exactly as I am.”
Secretly respecting and admiring him for what he had just said, I promised that his directions should be implicitly58 followed, and began to work immediately. Before I had pursued my occupation for ten minutes, the conversation began to flag, and the usual obstacle to my success with a sitter gradually set itself up between us. Quite unconsciously, of course, Mr. Faulkner stiffened59 his neck, shut his month, and contracted his eyebrows—evidently under the impression that he was facilitating the process of taking his portrait by making his face as like a lifeless mask as possible. All traces of his natural animated60 expression were fast disappearing, and he was beginning to change into a heavy and rather melancholy-looking man.
This complete alteration61 was of no great consequence so long as I was only engaged in drawing the outline of his face and the general form of his features. I accordingly worked on doggedly62 for more than an hour—then left off to point my chalks again, and to give my sitter a few minutes’ rest. Thus far the likeness had not suffered through Mr. Faulkner’s unfortunate notion of the right way of sitting for his portrait; but the time of difficulty, as I well knew, was to come. It was impossible for me to think of putting any expression into the drawing unless I could contrive some means, when he resumed his chair, of making him look like himself again. “I will talk to him about foreign parts,” thought I, “and try if I can’t make him forget that he is sitting for his picture in that way.”
While I was pointing my chalks Mr. Faulkner was walking up and down the room. He chanced to see the portfolio51 I had brought with me leaning against the wall, and asked if there were any sketches64 in it. I told him there were a few which I had made during my recent stay in Paris; “In Paris?” he repeated, with a look of interest; “may I see them?”
I gave him the permission he asked as a matter of course. Sitting down, he took the portfolio on his knee, and began to look through it. He turned over the first five sketches rapidly enough; but when he came to the sixth, I saw his face flush directly, and observed that he took the drawing out of the portfolio, carried it to the window, and remained silently absorbed in the contemplation of it for full five minutes. After that, he turned round to me, and asked very anxiously if I had any objection to part with that sketch63.
It was the least interesting drawing of the collection—merely a view in one of the streets running by the backs of the houses in the Palais Royal. Some four or five of these houses were comprised in the view, which was of no particular use to me in any way; and which was too valueless, as a work of art, for me to think of selling it. I begged his acceptance of it at once. He thanked me quite warmly; and then, seeing that I looked a little surprised at the odd selection he had made from my sketches, laughingly asked me if I could guess why he had been so anxious to become possessed of the view which I had given him?
“Probably,” I answered, “there is some remarkable65 historical association connected with that street at the back of the Palais Royal, of which I am ignorant.”
“No,” said Mr. Faulkner; “at least none that I know of. The only association connected with the place in my mind is a purely66 personal association. Look at this house in your drawing—the house with the water-pipe running down it from top to bottom. I once passed a night there—a night I shall never forget to the day of my death. I have had some awkward traveling adventures in my time; but that adventure—! Well, never mind, suppose we begin the sitting. I make but a bad return for your kindness in giving me the sketch by thus wasting your time in mere36 talk.”
“Come! come!” thought I, as he went back to the sitter’s chair, “I shall see your natural expression on your face if I can only get you to talk about that adventure.” It was easy enough to lead him in the right direction. At the first hint from me, he returned to the subject of the house in the back street. Without, I hope, showing any undue67 curiosity, I contrived68 to let him see that I felt a deep interest in everything he now said. After two or three preliminary hesitations69, he at last, to my great joy, fairly started on the narrative of his adventure. In the interest of his subject he soon completely forgot that he was sitting for his portrait—the very expression that I wanted came over his face—and my drawing proceeded toward completion, in the right direction, and to the best purpose. At every fresh touch I felt more and more certain that I was now getting the better of my grand difficulty; and I enjoyed the additional gratification of having my work lightened by the recital21 of a true story, which possessed, in my estimation, all the excitement of the most exciting romance.
This, as I recollect35 it, is how Mr. Faulkner told me his adventure:
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1
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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procure
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| vt.获得，取得，促成；vi.拉皮条 | |
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peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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premise
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| n.前提；v.提论，预述 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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contrive
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| vt.谋划，策划；设法做到；设计，想出 | |
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peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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scrawl
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| vt.潦草地书写；n.潦草的笔记，涂写 | |
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laboriously
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| adv.艰苦地；费力地；辛勤地；（文体等）佶屈聱牙地 | |
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procurable
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| adj.可得到的，得手的 | |
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beguile
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| vt.欺骗，消遣 | |
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recital
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| n.朗诵，独奏会，独唱会 | |
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recitals
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| n.独唱会( recital的名词复数 )；独奏会；小型音乐会、舞蹈表演会等；一系列事件等的详述 | |
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grievances
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| n.委屈( grievance的名词复数 )；苦衷；不满；牢骚 | |
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anecdotes
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condemned
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thawing
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| n.熔化，融化v.（气候）解冻( thaw的现在分词 )；（态度、感情等）缓和；（冰、雪及冷冻食物）溶化；软化 | |
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repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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compensating
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| 补偿，补助，修正 | |
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narratives
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| 记叙文( narrative的名词复数 )； 故事； 叙述； 叙述部分 | |
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riveted
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| 铆接( rivet的过去式和过去分词 )； 把…固定住； 吸引； 引起某人的注意 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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recording
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disastrously
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| ad.灾难性地 | |
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stimulant
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| n.刺激物，兴奋剂 | |
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recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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inquisitive
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| adj.求知欲强的，好奇的，好寻根究底的 | |
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meditating
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| a.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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secondly
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| adv.第二，其次 | |
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farmhouse
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| n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房） | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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unpack
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| vt.打开包裹（或行李），卸货 | |
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conveyance
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| n.(不动产等的)转让，让与；转让证书；传送；运送；表达；（正）运输工具 | |
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remunerative
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| adj.有报酬的 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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portfolio
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| n.公事包；文件夹；大臣及部长职位 | |
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portfolios
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| n.投资组合( portfolio的名词复数 )；（保险）业务量；（公司或机构提供的）系列产品；纸夹 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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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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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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unwillingly
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| adv.不情愿地 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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implicitly
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| adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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stiffened
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| 加强的 | |
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animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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alteration
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| n.变更，改变；蚀变 | |
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doggedly
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| adv.顽强地，固执地 | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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66
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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67
undue
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| adj.过分的；不适当的；未到期的 | |
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68
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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69
hesitations
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| n.犹豫( hesitation的名词复数 )；踌躇；犹豫（之事或行为）；口吃 | |
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