Of Human Bondage (38 page)

  "D'you think it's good?" she asked, nodding at her
drawing.

  Philip got up and looked at it. He was astounded; he
felt she must have no eye at all; the thing was hopelessly out of
drawing.

  "I wish I could draw half as well myself," he
answered.

  "You can't expect to, you've only just come. It's a
bit too much to expect that you should draw as well as I do. I've
been here two years."

  Fanny Price puzzled Philip. Her conceit was
stupendous. Philip had already discovered that everyone in the
studio cordially disliked her; and it was no wonder, for she seemed
to go out of her way to wound people.

  "I complained to Mrs. Otter about Foinet," she said
now. "The last two weeks he hasn't looked at my drawings. He spends
about half an hour on Mrs. Otter because she's the massiere. After
all I pay as much as anybody else, and I suppose my money's as good
as theirs. I don't see why I shouldn't get as much attention as
anybody else."

  She took up her charcoal again, but in a moment put
it down with a groan.

  "I can't do any more now. I'm so frightfully
nervous."

  She looked at Foinet, who was coming towards them
with Mrs. Otter. Mrs. Otter, meek, mediocre, and self-satisfied,
wore an air of importance. Foinet sat down at the easel of an
untidy little Englishwoman called Ruth Chalice. She had the fine
black eyes, languid but passionate, the thin face, ascetic but
sensual, the skin like old ivory, which under the influence of
Burne-Jones were cultivated at that time by young ladies in
Chelsea. Foinet seemed in a pleasant mood; he did not say much to
her, but with quick, determined strokes of her charcoal pointed out
her errors. Miss Chalice beamed with pleasure when he rose. He came
to Clutton, and by this time Philip was nervous too but Mrs. Otter
had promised to make things easy for him. Foinet stood for a moment
in front of Clutton's work, biting his thumb silently, then
absent-mindedly spat out upon the canvas the little piece of skin
which he had bitten off.

  "That's a fine line," he said at last, indicating
with his thumb what pleased him. "You're beginning to learn to
draw."

  Clutton did not answer, but looked at the master
with his usual air of sardonic indifference to the world's
opinion.

  "I'm beginning to think you have at least a trace of
talent."

  Mrs. Otter, who did not like Clutton, pursed her
lips. She did not see anything out of the way in his work. Foinet
sat down and went into technical details. Mrs. Otter grew rather
tired of standing. Clutton did not say anything, but nodded now and
then, and Foinet felt with satisfaction that he grasped what he
said and the reasons of it; most of them listened to him, but it
was clear they never understood. Then Foinet got up and came to
Philip.

  "He only arrived two days ago," Mrs. Otter hurried
to explain. "He's a beginner. He's never studied before."

  "Ca se voit," the master said. "One sees that."

  He passed on, and Mrs. Otter murmured to him:

  "This is the young lady I told you about."

  He looked at her as though she were some repulsive
animal, and his voice grew more rasping.

  "It appears that you do not think I pay enough
attention to you. You have been complaining to the massiere. Well,
show me this work to which you wish me to give attention."

  Fanny Price coloured. The blood under her unhealthy
skin seemed to be of a strange purple. Without answering she
pointed to the drawing on which she had been at work since the
beginning of the week. Foinet sat down.

  "Well, what do you wish me to say to you? Do you
wish me to tell you it is good? It isn't. Do you wish me to tell
you it is well drawn? It isn't. Do you wish me to say it has merit?
It hasn't. Do you wish me to show you what is wrong with it? It is
all wrong. Do you wish me to tell you what to do with it? Tear it
up. Are you satisfied now?"

  Miss Price became very white. She was furious
because he had said all this before Mrs. Otter. Though she had been
in France so long and could understand French well enough, she
could hardly speak two words.

  "He's got no right to treat me like that. My money's
as good as anyone else's. I pay him to teach me. That's not
teaching me."

  "What does she say? What does she say?" asked
Foinet.

  Mrs. Otter hesitated to translate, and Miss Price
repeated in execrable French.

  "Je vous paye pour m'apprendre."

  His eyes flashed with rage, he raised his voice and
shook his fist.

  "Mais, nom de Dieu, I can't teach you. I could more
easily teach a camel." He turned to Mrs. Otter. "Ask her, does she
do this for amusement, or does she expect to earn money by it?"

  "I'm going to earn my living as an artist," Miss
Price answered.

  "Then it is my duty to tell you that you are wasting
your time. It would not matter that you have no talent, talent does
not run about the streets in these days, but you have not the
beginning of an aptitude. How long have you been here? A child of
five after two lessons would draw better than you do. I only say
one thing to you, give up this hopeless attempt. You're more likely
to earn your living as a bonne a tout faire than as a painter.
Look."

  He seized a piece of charcoal, and it broke as he
applied it to the paper. He cursed, and with the stump drew great
firm lines. He drew rapidly and spoke at the same time, spitting
out the words with venom.

  "Look, those arms are not the same length. That
knee, it's grotesque. I tell you a child of five. You see, she's
not standing on her legs. That foot!"

  With each word the angry pencil made a mark, and in
a moment the drawing upon which Fanny Price had spent so much time
and eager trouble was unrecognisable, a confusion of lines and
smudges. At last he flung down the charcoal and stood up.

  "Take my advice, Mademoiselle, try dressmaking." He
looked at his watch. "It's twelve. A la semaine prochaine,
messieurs."

  Miss Price gathered up her things slowly. Philip
waited behind after the others to say to her something consolatory.
He could think of nothing but:

  "I say, I'm awfully sorry. What a beast that man
is!"

  She turned on him savagely.

  "Is that what you're waiting about for? When I want
your sympathy I'll ask for it. Please get out of my way."

  She walked past him, out of the studio, and Philip,
with a shrug of the shoulders, limped along to Gravier's for
luncheon.

  "It served her right," said Lawson, when Philip told
him what had happened. "Ill-tempered slut."

  Lawson was very sensitive to criticism and, in order
to avoid it, never went to the studio when Foinet was coming.

  "I don't want other people's opinion of my work," he
said. "I know myself if it's good or bad."

  "You mean you don't want other people's bad opinion
of your work," answered Clutton dryly.

  In the afternoon Philip thought he would go to the
Luxembourg to see the pictures, and walking through the garden he
saw Fanny Price sitting in her accustomed seat. He was sore at the
rudeness with which she had met his well-meant attempt to say
something pleasant, and passed as though he had not caught sight of
her. But she got up at once and came towards him.

  "Are you trying to cut me?" she said.

  "No, of course not. I thought perhaps you didn't
want to be spoken to."

  "Where are you going?"

  "I wanted to have a look at the Manet, I've heard so
much about it."

  "Would you like me to come with you? I know the
Luxembourg rather well. I could show you one or two good
things."

  He understood that, unable to bring herself to
apologise directly, she made this offer as amends.

  "It's awfully kind of you. I should like it very
much."

  "You needn't say yes if you'd rather go alone," she
said suspiciously.

  "I wouldn't."

  They walked towards the gallery. Caillebotte's
collection had lately been placed on view, and the student for the
first time had the opportunity to examine at his ease the works of
the impressionists. Till then it had been possible to see them only
at Durand-Ruel's shop in the Rue Lafitte (and the dealer, unlike
his fellows in England, who adopt towards the painter an attitude
of superiority, was always pleased to show the shabbiest student
whatever he wanted to see), or at his private house, to which it
was not difficult to get a card of admission on Tuesdays, and where
you might see pictures of world-wide reputation. Miss Price led
Philip straight up to Manet's Olympia. He looked at it in
astonished silence.

  "Do you like it?" asked Miss Price.

  "I don't know," he answered helplessly.

  "You can take it from me that it's the best thing in
the gallery except perhaps Whistler's portrait of his mother."

  She gave him a certain time to contemplate the
masterpiece and then took him to a picture representing a
railway-station.

  "Look, here's a Monet," she said. "It's the Gare St.
Lazare."

  "But the railway lines aren't parallel," said
Philip.

  "What does that matter?" she asked, with a haughty
air.

  Philip felt ashamed of himself. Fanny Price had
picked up the glib chatter of the studios and had no difficulty in
impressing Philip with the extent of her knowledge. She proceeded
to explain the pictures to him, superciliously but not without
insight, and showed him what the painters had attempted and what he
must look for. She talked with much gesticulation of the thumb, and
Philip, to whom all she said was new, listened with profound but
bewildered interest. Till now he had worshipped Watts and
Burne-Jones. The pretty colour of the first, the affected drawing
of the second, had entirely satisfied his aesthetic sensibilities.
Their vague idealism, the suspicion of a philosophical idea which
underlay the titles they gave their pictures, accorded very well
with the functions of art as from his diligent perusal of Ruskin he
understood it; but here was something quite different: here was no
moral appeal; and the contemplation of these works could help no
one to lead a purer and a higher life. He was puzzled.

  At last he said: "You know, I'm simply dead. I don't
think I can absorb anything more profitably. Let's go and sit down
on one of the benches."

  "It's better not to take too much art at a time,"
Miss Price answered.

  When they got outside he thanked her warmly for the
trouble she had taken.

  "Oh, that's all right," she said, a little
ungraciously. "I do it because I enjoy it. We'll go to the Louvre
tomorrow if you like, and then I'll take you to Durand-Ruel's."

  "You're really awfully good to me."

  "You don't think me such a beast as the most of them
do."

  "I don't," he smiled.

  "They think they'll drive me away from the studio;
but they won't; I shall stay there just exactly as long as it suits
me. All that this morning, it was Lucy Otter's doing, I know it
was. She always has hated me. She thought after that I'd take
myself off. I daresay she'd like me to go. She's afraid I know too
much about her."

  Miss Price told him a long, involved story, which
made out that Mrs. Otter, a humdrum and respectable little person,
had scabrous intrigues. Then she talked of Ruth Chalice, the girl
whom Foinet had praised that morning.

  "She's been with every one of the fellows at the
studio. She's nothing better than a street-walker. And she's dirty.
She hasn't had a bath for a month. I know it for a fact."

  Philip listened uncomfortably. He had heard already
that various rumours were in circulation about Miss Chalice; but it
was ridiculous to suppose that Mrs. Otter, living with her mother,
was anything but rigidly virtuous. The woman walking by his side
with her malignant lying positively horrified him.

  "I don't care what they say. I shall go on just the
same. I know I've got it in me. I feel I'm an artist. I'd sooner
kill myself than give it up. Oh, I shan't be the first they've all
laughed at in the schools and then he's turned out the only genius
of the lot. Art's the only thing I care for, I'm willing to give my
whole life to it. It's only a question of sticking to it and
pegging away"

  She found discreditable motives for everyone who
would not take her at her own estimate of herself. She detested
Clutton. She told Philip that his friend had no talent really; it
was just flashy and superficial; he couldn't compose a figure to
save his life. And Lawson:

  "Little beast, with his red hair and his freckles.
He's so afraid of Foinet that he won't let him see his work. After
all, I don't funk it, do I? I don't care what Foinet says to me, I
know I'm a real artist."

  They reached the street in which she lived, and with
a sigh of relief Philip left her.