But quickly the painter was forgotten, and once more her mind reverted6 to Larry—at last Larry was coming back!—only to have the painter, after a minute, interrupt her excited imagination with:
“What's the matter with your tongue, Maggie? Generally you stab back with it quick enough.”
She turned, still sulky and silent, and gazed with cynical7 superiority at the easel. “Nuts”—it was Barney Palmer who had thus lightly rechristened the painter when he had set up his studio in the attic8 above the pawnshop six months before—Nuts was transferring the seamy, cunning face of her father, “Old Jimmie” Carlisle, to the canvas with swift, unhesitating strokes.
“For the lova Christ and the twelve apostles, including that piker Judas,” woefully intoned Old Jimmie from the model's chair, “lemme get down off this platform!”
“Move and I'll wipe my palette off on that Mardi Gras vest of yours!” grunted9 the big painter autocratically through his mouthful of brushes.
“O God—and I got a cramp10 in my back, and my neck's gone to sleep!” groaned11 Old Jimmie, leaning forward on his cane12. “Daughter, dear”—plaintively to Maggie—“what is the crazy gentleman doing to me?”
“It's an awful smear13, father.” Maggie spoke14 slightingly, but with a tone of doubt. It was not the sort of picture that eighteen has been taught to like—yet the picture did possess an intangible something that provoked doubt as to its quality. “You sure do look one old burglar!”
“Not a cheap burglar?”—hopefully.
“Naw!” exploded the man at the easel in his big voice, first taking the brushes from his mouth. “You're a swell-looking old pirate!—ready to loot the sub-treasury and then scuttle15 the old craft with all hands on board! A breathing, speaking, robbing likeness16!”
“Maggie's right, and Nuts's right,” put in Barney Palmer. “It's sure a rotten picture, and then again it sure looks like you, Jimmie.”
The smartly dressed Barney—Barney could not keep away from Broadway tailors and haberdashers with their extravagant17 designs and color schemes—dismissed the insignificant18 matter of the portrait, and resumed the really important matter which had brought him to her.
“Are you certain, Maggie, that the Duchess hasn't heard from Larry?”
“If she has, she hasn't mentioned it. But why don't you ask her yourself?”
“I did, but she wouldn't say a thing. You can't get a word out of the Duchess with a jimmy, unless she wants to talk—and she never wants to talk.” He turned his sharp, narrowly set eyes upon the lean old man. “It's got me guessing, Jimmie. Larry was due out of Sing Sing yesterday, and we haven't had a peep from him, and though she won't talk I'm sure he hasn't been here to see his grandmother.”
“Sure is funny,” agreed Old Jimmie. “But mebbe Larry has broke straight into a fresh game and is playing a lone19 hand. He's a quick worker, Larry is—and he's got nerve.”
“Well, whatever's keeping him we're tied up till Larry comes.” Barney turned back to Maggie. “I say, sister, how about robing yourself in your raiment of joy and coming with yours truly to a palace of jazz, there to dine and show the populace what real dancing is?”
“Can't, Barney. Mr. Hunt”—the name given the painter at his original christening—“asked the Duchess and me to have dinner up here. He's to cook it himself.”
“For your sake I hope he cooks better than he paints.” And sliding down in his chair until he rested upon a more comfortable vertebra, the elegant Barney lit a monogrammed cigarette, and with idle patience swung his bamboo stick.
“You're half an hour late, Maggie,” Hunt began at her again in his rumbling20 voice. “Can't stand for such a waste of my time!”
“How about my time?” retorted Maggie, who indeed had a grievance21. “I was supposed to have the day off, but instead I had to carry that tray of cigarettes around till the last person in the Ritzmore had finished lunch. Anyhow,” she added, “I don't see that your time's worth so much when you spend it on such painty messes as these.”
“It's not up to you to tell me what my time's worth!” retorted Hunt. “I pay you—that's enough for you!... Because you weren't on time, I stuck Old Jimmie out there to finish off this picture. I'll be through with the old cut-throat in ten minutes. Be ready to take his place.”
“All right,” said Maggie sulkily.
For all his roaring she was not much afraid of the painter. While his brushes flicked22 at, and streaked23 across, the canvas she stood idly watching him. He was in paint-smeared, baggy24 trousers and a soft shirt whose open collar gave a glimpse of a deep chest matted with hair and whose rolled-up sleeves revealed forearms that seemed absurdly large to be fiddling25 with those slender sticks. A crowbar would have seemed more in harmony. He was unromantically old—all of thirty-five Maggie guessed; and with his square, rough-hewn face and tousled, reddish hair he was decidedly ugly. But for the fact that he really did work—though of course his work was foolish—and the fact that he paid his way—he bought little, but no one could beat him by so much as a penny in a bargain, not even the Duchess—Maggie might have considered him as one of the many bums26 who floated purposelessly through that drab region.
Also, had there not been so many queer people coming and going in this neighborhood—Eads Howe, the hobo millionaire, settlement workers, people who had grown rich and old in their business and preferred to live near it—Maggie might have regarded Hunt with more curiosity, and even with suspicion; but down here one accepted queer people as a matter of course, the only fear being that secretly they might be police or government agents, which Maggie and the others knew very well Hunt was not. When Hunt had rented this attic as a studio they had accepted his explanation that he had taken it because it was cheap and he could afford to pay no more. Likewise they had accepted his explanation that he was a mechanic by trade who had roughed it all over the world and was possessed27 with an itch28 for painting, that lately he had worked in various garages, that it was his habit to hoard29 his money till he got a bit ahead and then go off on a painting spree. All these admissions were indubitably plausible30, for his paintings seemed the unmistakable handiwork of an irresponsible, hard-fisted motor mechanic.
Maggie shifted to her other foot and glanced casually31 at the canvases which leaned against the walls of the shabby studio. There was the Duchess: incredibly old, the face a web of wrinkles, the lips indrawn over toothless and shrunken gums, the nose a thin, curved beak33, the eyes deep-set, gleaming, inscrutable, watching; and drawn32 tight over the hair—even Maggie did not know whether that hair was a wig34 or the Duchess's—the faded Oriental shawl which was fastened beneath her chin and which fell over her thin, bent35 chest. There was O'Flaherty, the good-natured policeman on the beat. There was the old watchmaker next door. There was Black Hurley, the notorious gang leader, who sometimes swaggered into the district like a dirty and evil feudal36 lord. There was a Jewish pushcart37 peddler, white-bearded and skull-capped. There was an Italian mother sitting on the curb38, her feet in the gutter39, smiling down at the baby that was hungrily suckling at her milk-heavy breast. And so on, and so on. Just the ordinary, uninteresting things Maggie saw around the block. There was not a single pretty picture in the lot.
Hunt swung the canvas from his easel and stood it against the wall. “That'll be all for you, Jimmie. Beat it and make room for Maggie. Maggie, take your same pose.”
Old Jimmie ambled40 forward and gazed at his portrait as Hunt was settling an unfinished picture on his easel. It had rather amused Jimmie and filled in his idle time to sit for the crazy painter; and, incidentally, another picture of him would do him no particular harm since the police already had all the pictures they needed of him over at Headquarters. As he gazed at Hunt's work Old Jimmie snickered.
“I say, Nuts, what you goin' to do with this mess of paint?”
“Going to sell it to the Metropolitan41 Museum, you old sinner!” snapped Hunt.
Old Jimmie cackled at the joke. He knew pictures; that is, good pictures. He had had an invisible hand in more than one clever transaction in which handsome pictures alleged42 to have been smuggled43 in, Gainsboroughs and Romneys and such (there had been most profit for him in handling the forgeries44 of these particular masters), had been put, with an air of great secrecy45, into the hands of divers46 newly rich gentlemen who believed they were getting masterpieces at bargain prices through this evasion47 of customs laws.
“Nuts,” chuckled48 Old Jimmie, “this junk wouldn't be so funny if you didn't seem to believe you were really painting.”
“Junk! Funny!” Hunt swung around, one big hand closed about Jimmie's lean neck and the other seized his thin shoulder. “You grandfather of the devil and all his male progeny49, you talk like that and I'll chuck you through the window!”
Old Jimmie grinned. The grip of the big hands of the painter, though powerful, was light. They all knew that the loud ravings of the painter never presaged50 violence. They had grown to like him, to accept him as almost one of themselves; though of course they looked down upon him with amused pity for his imbecility regarding his paintings.
“Get out of here,” continued Hunt, “or cut out all this noise that comes from your having a brain that rattles51. I've got to work.”
Hunt turned again to his easel, and Old Jimmie, still grinning, lowered himself into a chair, lit a cigar, and winked52 at Barney. Hunt, with brush poised53, regarded Maggie a moment.
“You there, Maggie,” he ordered, “chin up a bit more, some flash in your eyes, more pep in your bearing—as though you were asking all the dames54 of the Winter Garden, and the Charity Ball, and the Horse Show, and that gang of tea-swilling women at the Ritzmore you sell cigarettes to—as though you were asking them all who the dickens they think they are... O God, can't you do anything!”
“I'm doing the best I can, and I look more like those dames than you look like a painter!”
“Shut up! I'm paying you a dollar an hour to pose, not to talk back to me. And you'd have more respect for my money if you knew how hard I had to work to earn it: carrying a motor car around in each hand. Wash off that scowl55 and try to look as I said... There, that's better. Hold it.”
He began to paint rapidly, with quick glances back and forth56 between the canvas and Maggie. Maggie's dress was just the ordinary shirt-waist and skirt that the shopgirl and her sisters wear; Hunt had ordered it so. She was above the medium height, with thick black hair tinted57 with shadowy blue, long dark lashes58, dark scimitars of eyebrows59, a full, firm mouth, a nose with just the right tilt60 to it—all effective points for Hunt in what he wished to do. But what had attracted him most and given him his idea was her look; hardly pertness, or impudence—rather a cynical, mature, defiant61 certainty in herself.
Erect62 in her cheap shirt-waist, she gazed off into space with a smiling, confident challenge to all the world. Hunt was trying to make his picture a true portrait—and also make it a symbol of many things which still were only taking shape in his own mind: of beauty rising from the gutter to overcome beauty of more favored birth, and to reign63 above it; also of a lower stratum64 surging up and breaking through the upper stratum, becoming a part of it, or assimilating it, or conquering it. Leading families replaced by other families, classes replaced by other classes, nations replaced by other nations—such was the inevitable65 social process—so read the records of the fifty or sixty centuries since history began to be written. Oh, he was trying to say a lot in this portrait of a girl of ordinary birth—even less than ordinary—in her cheap shirt-waist and skirt!
And it pleased the sardonic66 element in Hunt's unmoral nature that this Maggie, through whom he was trying to symbolize67 so much, he knew to be a petty larcenist68: shoplifting and matters of similar consequence. She had been cynically69 frank about this to him; casual, almost boastful. Her possessing a bent toward such activities was hardly to be wondered at, with her having Old Jimmie as her father, and the Duchess as a landlady70, and having for acquaintances such gentlemen as Barney Palmer and this returning prison-bird, Larry Brainard.
But petty crime, thought Hunt, would not be Maggie's forte71 if she developed her possibilities. With her looks, her boldness, her cleverness, she had the makings of a magnificent adventuress. As he painted, he wondered what she was going to do, and become; and he watched her not only with a painter's eye intent upon the present, but with keen speculation72 upon the future.
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1
rebukes
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| 责难或指责( rebuke的第三人称单数 ) | |
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stiffened
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| 加强的 | |
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resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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sullenly
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| 不高兴地，绷着脸，忧郁地 | |
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swirling
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| v.旋转，打旋( swirl的现在分词 ) | |
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reverted
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| 恢复( revert的过去式和过去分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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grunted
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的过去式和过去分词 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说 | |
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cramp
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| n.痉挛；[pl.](腹)绞痛；vt.限制，束缚 | |
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groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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smear
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| v.涂抹；诽谤，玷污；n.污点；诽谤，污蔑 | |
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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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15
scuttle
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| v.急赶，疾走，逃避；n.天窗；舷窗 | |
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likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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rumbling
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| n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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grievance
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| n.怨愤，气恼，委屈 | |
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flicked
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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23
streaked
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| adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹 | |
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baggy
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| adj.膨胀如袋的，宽松下垂的 | |
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fiddling
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| 微小的 | |
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bums
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| n. 游荡者，流浪汉，懒鬼，闹饮，屁股 adj. 没有价值的，不灵光的，不合理的 vt. 令人失望，乞讨 vi. 混日子，以乞讨为生 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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itch
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| n.痒，渴望，疥癣；vi.发痒，渴望 | |
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hoard
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| n./v.窖藏，贮存，囤积 | |
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plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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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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beak
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| n.鸟嘴，茶壶嘴，钩形鼻 | |
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wig
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| n.假发 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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feudal
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| adj.封建的，封地的，领地的 | |
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pushcart
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| n.手推车 | |
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curb
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| n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制 | |
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gutter
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| n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟 | |
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40
ambled
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| v.（马）缓行( amble的过去式和过去分词 )；从容地走，漫步 | |
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metropolitan
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| adj.大城市的，大都会的 | |
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alleged
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| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
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43
smuggled
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| 水货 | |
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44
forgeries
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| 伪造( forgery的名词复数 )； 伪造的文件、签名等 | |
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45
secrecy
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| n.秘密，保密，隐蔽 | |
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46
divers
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| adj.不同的；种种的 | |
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47
evasion
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| n.逃避，偷漏(税) | |
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48
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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progeny
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| n.后代，子孙；结果 | |
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50
presaged
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| v.预示，预兆( presage的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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51
rattles
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| （使）发出格格的响声， （使）作嘎嘎声( rattle的第三人称单数 )； 喋喋不休地说话； 迅速而嘎嘎作响地移动，堕下或走动； 使紧张，使恐惧 | |
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52
winked
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| v.使眼色( wink的过去式和过去分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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53
poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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54
dames
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| n.（在英国）夫人（一种封号），夫人（爵士妻子的称号）( dame的名词复数 )；女人 | |
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55
scowl
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| vi.(at)生气地皱眉，沉下脸，怒视；n.怒容 | |
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56
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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tinted
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| adj. 带色彩的 动词tint的过去式和过去分词 | |
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lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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59
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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60
tilt
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| v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜 | |
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defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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62
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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stratum
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| n.地层，社会阶层 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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66
sardonic
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| adj.嘲笑的，冷笑的，讥讽的 | |
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symbolize
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| vt.作为...的象征，用符号代表 | |
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68
larcenist
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| n.盗窃犯，盗贼 | |
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cynically
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| adv.爱嘲笑地，冷笑地 | |
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landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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71
forte
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| n.长处，擅长；adj.(音乐)强音的 | |
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speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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