“Very strong,” Mr. Albemarle kept repeating, “very strong indeed!” It was his password for the day.
Little Mr. Clew, who represented the Daily Post, was inclined to be enthusiastic. “How well he writes!” he said to Mr. Albemarle, looking up from the catalogue. “And how well he paints! What impasto.”
Impasto, impasto—the young assistant sidled off unobtrusively to the desk and made a note of it. He would look the word up in Grubb’s Dictionary of Art and Artists later on. He made his way back, circuitously5 and as though by accident, into Mr. Clew’s neighbourhood.
Mr. Clew was one of those rare people who have a real passion for art. He loved painting, all painting, indiscriminately. In a picture gallery he was like a Turk in a harem; he adored them all. He loved Memling as much as Raphael, he loved Grünewald and Michelangelo, Holman Hunt and Manet, Romney and Tintoretto; how happy he could be with all of them! Sometimes, it is true, he hated; but that was only when familiarity had not yet bred love. 104At the first Post-Impressionist Exhibition, for example, in 1911, he had taken a very firm stand. “This is an obscene farce,” he had written then. Now, however, there was no more passionate6 admirer of Matisse’s genius. As a connoisseur7 and kunstforscher, Mr. Clew was much esteemed8. People would bring him dirty old pictures to look at, and he would exclaim at once: Why, it’s an El Greco, a Piazetta, or some other suitable name. Asked how he knew, he would shrug9 his shoulders and say: But it’s signed all over. His certainty and his enthusiasm were infectious. Since the coming of El Greco into fashion, he had discovered dozens of early works by that great artist. For Lord Petersfield’s collection alone he had found four early El Grecos, all by pupils of Bassano. Lord Petersfield’s confidence in Mr. Clew was unbounded; not even that affair of the Primitives10 had shaken it. It was a sad affair: Lord Petersfield’s Duccio had shown signs of cracking; the estate carpenter was sent for to take a look at the panel; he had looked. “A worse-seasoned piece of Illinois hickory,” he said, “I’ve never seen.” After that he looked at the Simone Martini; for that, on the contrary, he was full of praise. Smooth-grained, well-seasoned—it wouldn’t crack, no, not in a hundred years. “A nicer slice of board never came out of America.” He had a hyperbolical way of speaking. Lord Petersfield was extremely angry; he dismissed the estate carpenter on the spot. After that he told Mr. Clew that he wanted a Giorgione, and Mr. Clew went out and found him one which was signed all over.
“I like this very much,” said Mr. Clew, pointing to one of the thoughts with which Lypiatt had prefaced his catalogue. “‘Genius,’” he adjusted his spectacles and began to read aloud, “‘is life. Genius is a force of nature. In 105art, nothing else counts. The modern impotents, who are afraid of genius and who are envious11 of it, have invented in self-defence the notion of the Artist. The Artist with his sense of form, his style, his devotion to pure beauty, et cetera, et cetera. But Genius includes the Artist; every Genius has, among very many others, the qualities attributed by the impotents to the Artist. The Artist without genius is a carver of fountains through which no water flows.’ Very true,” said Mr. Clew, “very true indeed.” He marked the passage with his pencil.
Mr. Albemarle produced the password. “Very strongly put,” he said.
“I have always felt that myself,” said Mr. Clew. “El Greco, for example....”
“Good morning, what about El Greco?” said a voice, all in one breath. The thin, long, skin-covered skeleton of Mr. Mallard hung over them like a guilty conscience. Mr. Mallard wrote every week in the Hebdomadal Digest. He had an immense knowledge of art, and a sincere dislike of all that was beautiful. The only modern painter whom he really admired was Hodler. All others were treated by him with a merciless savagery12; he tore them to pieces in his weekly articles with all the holy gusto of a Calvinist iconoclast13 smashing images of the Virgin14.
Mr. Clew smiled up at him propitiatingly; he was afraid of Mr. Mallard. His enthusiasms were no match for Mr. Mallard’s erudite and logical disgusts. “I was merely quoting him as an example,” he said.
“An example, I hope, of incompetent16 drawing, baroque composition, disgusting forms, garish17 colouring and hysterical18 106subject-matter.” Mr. Mallard showed his old ivory teeth in a menacing smile. “Those are the only things which El Greco’s work exemplifies.”
Mr. Clew gave a nervous little laugh. “What do you think of these?” he asked, pointing to Lypiatt’s canvases.
“They look to me very ordinarily bad,” answered Mr. Mallard.
“All the same,” said Mr. Clew courageously20, “I like that bowl of roses in the window with the landscape behind. Number twenty-nine.” He looked in the catalogue. “And there’s a really charming little verse about it:
‘O beauty of the rose,
Who gazes on these flowers,
Where duty leads and that the nameless Powers
In a rose can speak their will.’
Really charming!” Mr. Clew made another mark with his pencil.
“But commonplace, commonplace.” Mr. Mallard shook his head. “And in any case a verse can’t justify23 a bad picture. What an unsubtle harmony of colour! And how uninteresting the composition is! That receding24 diagonal—it’s been worked to death.” He too made a mark in his catalogue—a cross and a little circle, arranged like the skull25 and cross-bones on a pirate’s flag. Mr. Mallard’s catalogues were always covered with these little marks: they were his symbols of condemnation26.
Mr. Albemarle, meanwhile, had moved away to greet the 107new arrivals. To the critic of the Daily Cinema he had to explain that there were no portraits of celebrities27. The reporter from the Evening Planet had to be told which were the best pictures.
“Mr. Lypiatt,” he dictated28, “is a poet and philosopher as well as a painter. His catalogue is a—h’m—declaration of faith.”
The reporter took it down in shorthand. “And very nice too,” he said. “I’m most grateful to you, sir, most grateful.” And he hurried away, to get to the Cattle Show before the King should arrive. Mr. Albemarle affably addressed himself to the critic of the Morning Globe.
“I always regard this gallery,” said a loud and cheerful voice, full of bulls and canaries in chorus, “as positively29 a mauvais lieu. Such exhibitions!” And Mr. Mercaptan shrugged30 his shoulders expressively31. He halted to wait for his companion.
Mrs. Viveash had lagged behind, reading the catalogue as she slowly walked along. “It’s a complete book,” she said, “full of poems and essays and short stories even, so far as I can see.”
“Oh, the usual cracker32 mottoes.” Mr. Mercaptan laughed. “I know the sort of thing. ‘Look after the past and the future will look after itself.’ ‘God squared minus Man squared equals Art-plus-life times Art-minus-Life.’ ‘The Higher the Art the fewer the morals’—only that’s too nearly good sense to have been invented by Lypiatt. But I know the sort of thing. I could go on like that for ever.” Mr. Mercaptan was delighted with himself.
“I’ll read you one of them,” said Mrs. Viveash. “‘A picture is a chemical combination of plastic form and spiritual significance.’”
“Crikey!” said Mr. Mercaptan.
108“‘Those who think that a picture is a matter of nothing but plastic form are like those who imagine that water is made of nothing but hydrogen.’”
Mr. Mercaptan made a grimace33. “What writing!” he exclaimed; “le style c’est l’homme. Lypiatt hasn’t got a style. Argal—inexorable conclusion—Lypiatt doesn’t exist. My word, though. Look at those horrible great nudes34 there. Like Carracis with cubical muscles.”
“Sampson and Delilah,” said Mrs. Viveash. “Would you like me to read about them?”
“Certainly not.”
Mrs. Viveash did not press the matter. Casimir, she thought, must have been thinking of her when he wrote this little poem about Poets and Women, crossed genius, torments35, the sweating of masterpieces. She sighed. “Those leopards36 are rather nice,” she said, and looked at the catalogue again. “‘An animal is a symbol and its form is significant. In the long process of adaptation, evolution has refined and simplified and shaped, till every part of the animal expresses one desire, a single idea. Man, who has become what he is, not by specialization, but by generalization37, symbolizes38 with his body no one thing. He is a symbol of everything from the most hideous39 and ferocious40 bestiality to godhead.’”
“Dear me,” said Mr. Mercaptan.
“‘Aerial Alps’” Mrs. Viveash began to read.
Carved by the wind’s uncertain hands....’”
109Mr. Mercaptan stopped his ears. “Please, please,” he begged.
“Number seventeen,” said Mrs. Viveash, “is called ‘Woman on a Cosmic background,’” A female figure stood leaning against a pillar on a hilltop, and beyond was a blue night with stars. “Underneath is written: ‘For one at least, she is more than the starry44 universe.’” Mrs. Viveash remembered that Lypiatt had once said very much that sort of thing to her. “So many of Casimir’s things remind me,” she said, “of those Italian vermouth advertisements. You know—Cinzano, Bonomelli and all these. I wish they didn’t. This woman in white with her head in the Great Bear....” She shook her head. “Poor Casimir.”
Mr. Mercaptan roared and squealed45 with laughter. “Bonomelli,” he said; “that’s precisely46 it. What a critic, Myra! I take off my hat.” They moved on. “And what’s this grand transformation47 scene?” he asked.
Mrs. Viveash looked at the catalogue. “It’s called ‘The Sermon on the Mount,’” she said. “And really, do you know, I rather like it. All that crowd of figures slanting48 up the hill and the single figure on the top—it seems to me very dramatic.”
“My dear,” protested Mr. Mercaptan.
“And in spite of everything,” said Mrs. Viveash, feeling suddenly and uncomfortably that she had somehow been betraying the man, “he’s really very nice, you know. Very nice, indeed.” Her expiring voice sounded very decidedly.
“Ah, ces femmes,” exclaimed Mr. Mercaptan, “ces femmes! They’re all Pasiphaes and Ledas. They all in 110their hearts prefer beasts to men, savages49 to civilized50 beings. Even you, Myra, I really believe.” He shook his head.
Mrs. Viveash ignored the outburst. “Very nice,” she repeated thoughtfully. “Only rather a bore....” Her voice expired altogether.
They continued their round of the gallery.
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1
amiability
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| n.和蔼可亲的，亲切的，友善的 | |
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hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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eavesdropping
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| n. 偷听 | |
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circuitously
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| 曲折地 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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7
connoisseur
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| n.鉴赏家，行家，内行 | |
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8
esteemed
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| adj.受人尊敬的v.尊敬( esteem的过去式和过去分词 )；敬重；认为；以为 | |
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shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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primitives
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| 原始人（primitive的复数形式） | |
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envious
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| adj.嫉妒的，羡慕的 | |
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savagery
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| n.野性 | |
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iconoclast
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| n.反对崇拜偶像者 | |
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virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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15
loathing
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| n.厌恶，憎恨v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的现在分词)；极不喜欢 | |
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16
incompetent
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| adj.无能力的，不能胜任的 | |
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garish
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| adj.华丽而俗气的，华而不实的 | |
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hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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appalled
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| v.使惊骇，使充满恐惧( appall的过去式和过去分词)adj.惊骇的；丧胆的 | |
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courageously
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| ad.勇敢地，无畏地 | |
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21
exhaling
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| v.呼出，发散出( exhale的现在分词 )；吐出（肺中的空气、烟等），呼气 | |
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22
ripening
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的现在分词 )；熟化；熟成 | |
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23
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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receding
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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25
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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condemnation
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| n.谴责; 定罪 | |
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celebrities
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| n.（尤指娱乐界的）名人( celebrity的名词复数 )；名流；名声；名誉 | |
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28
dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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30
shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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31
expressively
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| ad.表示(某事物)地；表达地 | |
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32
cracker
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| n.（无甜味的）薄脆饼干 | |
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grimace
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| v.做鬼脸，面部歪扭 | |
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34
nudes
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| （绘画、照片或雕塑）裸体( nude的名词复数 ) | |
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torments
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| （肉体或精神上的）折磨，痛苦( torment的名词复数 )； 造成痛苦的事物[人] | |
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36
leopards
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| n.豹( leopard的名词复数 )；本性难移 | |
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37
generalization
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| n.普遍性，一般性，概括 | |
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symbolizes
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| v.象征，作为…的象征( symbolize的第三人称单数 ) | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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40
ferocious
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| adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的 | |
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41
nascent
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| adj.初生的，发生中的 | |
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amber
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| n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的 | |
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43
alabaster
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| adj.雪白的；n.雪花石膏；条纹大理石 | |
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44
starry
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| adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的 | |
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45
squealed
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| v.长声尖叫，用长而尖锐的声音说( squeal的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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46
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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47
transformation
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| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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48
slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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49
savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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50
civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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