A Girl of the Commune Part 38

"When will you come? To-morrow?"

"I will come at three o'clock. Have your things on by that time, and we will go for a ramble."

Rene Caillard came into Cuthbert's room at nine o'clock the next morning.

"I came round yesterday evening, Cuthbert, and heard from the concierge that you had arrived and had gone out again. As she said you had driven off in a fiacre, it was evidently of no use waiting. I thought I would come down and catch you the first thing this morning. You look well and strong again, your native air evidently suits you."

"I feel quite well again, though not quite so strong. So things have turned out just as I antic.i.p.ated, and the Reds are the masters of Paris."

Rene shrugged his shoulders. "It is disgusting," he said. "It does not trouble us much, we have nothing to lose but our heads, and as these scoundrels would gain nothing by cutting them off, I suppose we shall be allowed to go our own way."

"Is the studio open again?"

"Oh, yes, and we are all hard at work, that is to say, the few that remain of us. Goude has been fidgeting for you to come back. He has asked several times whether I have news of you, and if I was sure you had not left Paris forever. I know he will be delighted when I tell him that you have returned; still more so if you take the news yourself."

"I suppose Minette has resumed her duties as model?"

"Not she," Rene said scornfully, "she is one of the priestesses of the Commune. She rides about on horseback with a red flag and sash.

Sometimes she goes at the head of a battalion, sometimes she rides about with the leaders. She is in earnest but she is in earnest theatrically, and that fool, Dampierre, is as bad as she is."

"What! Has he joined the Commune?".

"Joined, do you say? Why, he is one of its leaders. He plays the part of La Fayette, in the drama, harangues the National Guards, a.s.sures them of the sympathy of America, calls upon them to defend the freedom they have won by their lives and to crush back their oppressors, as his countrymen crushed their British tyrants. Of course it is all Minette's doing; he is as mad as she is. I can a.s.sure you that he is quite a popular hero among the Reds, and they would have appointed him a general if he had chosen to accept it, but he said that he considered himself as the representative of the great Republic across the sea, that he would accept no office, but would fight as a simple volunteer. He, too, goes about on horseback, with a red scarf, and when you see Minette you may be sure that he is not far off."

"Without absolutely considering Dampierre to be a fool, I have always regarded him as being, well, not mad, but different to other people. His alternate fits of idleness and hard work, his infatuation for Minette, his irritation at the most trifling jokes, and the moody state into which he often fell, all seem to show as the Scots say, 'a bee in his bonnet,' and I can quite fancy the excitement of the times, and his infatuation for that woman may have worked him up to a point much more nearly approaching madness than before. I am very sorry, Rene, for there was a good deal to like about him, he was a gentleman and a chivalrous one. In Minette he saw not a clever model, but a peerless woman, and was carried away by enthusiasm, which is, I think, perfectly real: she is in her true element now, and is, I should say, for once not acting. Well, it is a bad business. If the Commune triumphs, as I own that it seems likely enough, it will do, he will in time become disgusted with the adventurers and ambitious scoundrels by whom he is surrounded, and will, like the Girondists, be among the first victims of the wild beasts he has helped to bring into existence. If the troops prove faithful, the Commune will be crushed, and all those who have made themselves conspicuous are likely to have but a short shrift of it when martial law is established. Well, Rene, as there is nothing that can be done in the matter, it is of no use troubling about it. None of the others have gone that way, I suppose."

"Of course not," Rene exclaimed indignantly. "You don't suppose that after the murder of the generals any decent Frenchman would join such a cause, even if he were favorable to its theories. Morbleu! Although I hate tyrants I should be tempted to take up a rifle and go out and defend them were they menaced by such sc.u.m as this. It is not even as it was before; then it was the middle cla.s.s who made the Revolution, and there was at least much that was n.o.ble in their aims, but these creatures who creep out from their slums like a host of obnoxious beasts animated sorely by hatred for all around them, and by a l.u.s.t for plunder and blood, they fill one with loathing and disgust. There is not among them, save Dampierre, a single man of birth and education, if only perhaps you except Rochefort. There are plenty of Marats, but certainly no Mirabeau.

"No, no, Cuthbert, we of the studio may be wild and thoughtless. We live gayly and do not trouble for the morrow, but we are not altogether fools; and even were there nothing else to unite us against the Commune, the squalor and wretchedness, the ugliness and vice, the brutal coa.r.s.eness, and the foul language of these ruffians would band us together as artists against them. Now, enough of Paris, what have you been doing in England, besides recovering your health?"

"I have been recovering a fortune, too, Rene. A complicated question concerning some property that would, in the ordinary course of things, have come to me has now been decided in my favor."

"I congratulate you," Rene said, "but you will not give up art, I hope?"

"No, I intend to stick to that, Rene. You see I was not altogether dependent on it before, so that circ.u.mstances are not much changed."

"You finished your pictures before you went away, did you not? The temptation to have a peep at them has been very strong, but I have resisted--n.o.bly it was heroic, was it not?"

"It must have been. Yes, I put the finishing touches to them before I went away, and now I will show them to you Rene; it is the least I can do after all your kindness. Now go and look out of the window until I fix the easels in a good light, I want your first impressions to be favorable. There," after a pause, "the curtain is drawn up and the show has begun." He spoke lightly, but there was an undertone of anxiety in his voice. Hitherto no one but Mary had seen them, and her opinion upon the subject of art was of little value. He, himself, believed that the work was good, but yet felt that vague dissatisfaction and doubt whether it might not have been a good deal better, that most artists entertain as to their own work. In the school Rene's opinion was always sought for eagerly; there were others who painted better, but none whose feeling of art was more true or whose critical instinct keener.

Rene looked at the pictures for a minute or two in silence, then he turned to Cuthbert and took one of his hands in his own. "My dear friend," he said, "it is as I expected. I always said that you had genius, real genius, and it is true; I congratulate you, my dear friend.

If it were not that I know you English object to be embraced, I should do so, but you are cold and do not like a show of feeling. These pictures will place you well in the second rank; in another year or two you will climb into the first. They will be hung on the line, that goes without saying. They are charming, they are admirable, and to think that you are still at the school. I might paint all my life and I should never turn out two such canvases; and it is a sin that one who can paint like that should expose himself to be shot at by Prussians. Now, do you sit down and let me look at them."

"Do so, Rene, and please remember that I want not praise, but honest criticism; I know they have defects, but I want you to point them out to me, for while I feel that they might be improved, I have my own ideas so strongly in my head, that I cannot see where the faults are as you can.

Remember, you can't be too severe, and if possible to do so, without entirely having to repaint them, I will try to carry out your suggestions."

Rene produced a pipe, filled and lighted it, then placed a chair so that he could sit across it and lean upon the back. He sat for upwards of a quarter of an hour puffing out clouds of tobacco-smoke without speaking.

"You mean what you say, Cuthbert?" he said at last. "Very well, I will take the bright one first. As to the figure I have nothing to say; the effect of the light falling on her head and face is charming; the dress is perhaps a little stiff, it would have been bettered if relieved by some light lace or gauze, but we will let that pa.s.s; it is a portrait and a good one. It is your pretty nurse at the Ambulance. Am I to congratulate you there too?"

Cuthbert nodded.

"I thought so," Rene went on, without moving his gaze from the pictures, "and will congratulate you presently. The background of the figure is the one weak point of the picture, that, too, like the portrait, I doubt not, was taken from reality, for with your artistic feeling you would never have placed that bare wall behind the figure. You have tried by the shadows from the vine above to soften it, and you have done all you could in that way, but nothing could really avail. You want a vine to cover that wall. It should be thrown into deep cool shadow, with a touch of sunlight here and there, streaming upon it, but less than you now have falling on the wall. As it is now, the cool gray of the dress is not sufficiently thrown up, it, like the wall, is in shade except where the sun touches the head and face; but, with a dark cool green, somewhat undefined, and not too much broken up by the forms of the foliage, the figure would be thrown forward, although still remaining in the shade, and I am sure the picture would gain at once in strength and repose.

Now, as to the other. It is almost painfully sombre, it wants relief. It expresses grief and hopelessness; that is good; but it also expresses despair, that is painful; one does not feel quite sure that the young woman is not about to throw herself into the sea. Now, if you were to make a gleam of watery sunshine break through a rift in the cloud, lighting up a small patch of foam and breaker, it would be a relief; if you could arrange it so that the head should stand up against it, it would add greatly to the effect. What do you think?" he asked, breaking off suddenly and turning to Cuthbert.

"You are right in both instances, Rene. Both the backgrounds are from sketches I made at the time; the veranda in the one case, and the sea and sky and rock in the other are as I saw them, and it did not occur to me to change them. Yes, you are a thousand times right. I see now why I was discontented with them, and the changes you suggest will be invaluable. Of course, in the sea-scene the light will be ill-defined, it will make its way through a thin layer of cloud, and will contrast just as strongly with the bright warm sunshine on the other picture, as does the unbroken darkness. There is nothing else that you can suggest, Rene?"

"No, and I almost wish that I had not made those suggestions, the pictures are so good that I am frightened, lest you should spoil them by a single touch of the brush."

"I have no fear of that, Rene, I am sure of the dark picture, and I hope I can manage the other, but if I fail I can but paint the wall in again.

I will begin at once. I suppose you are going round to Goude's; tell him that I am back, and will come round this evening after dinner. Ask all the others to come here to supper at ten; thank goodness we shall have a decent feed this time."

Directly Rene had left, Cuthbert set to work with ardor. He felt that Rene had hit upon the weak spots that he had felt and yet failed to recognize. In four hours the sea-scape was finished, and as he stepped back into the window to look at it, he felt that the ray of misty light showing rather on the water than on the air, had effected wonders, and added immensely to the poetry of the picture.

"I have only just time to change, and get there in time," he said, with a very unlover-like tone of regret, as he hastily threw off his painting blouse, ate a piece of bread left over from breakfast, and drank a gla.s.s of wine. He glanced many times at the picture.

"Curious," he muttered, "how blind men are to their own work. I can detect a weak point in another man's work in a moment, and yet, though I felt that something was wrong, I could not see what it was in my own. If I succeed as well with the other as I have done with this I shall be satisfied indeed."

"You are a quarter of an hour late, sir," Mary said, holding up her finger in reproof as he entered. "The idea of keeping me waiting, the very first time after our engagement. I tremble when I look forward to the future."

"I have been painting, Mary, and when one is painting one forgets how time flies; but I feel greatly ashamed of myself, and am deeply contrite."

"You don't look contrite at all, Cuthbert. Not one bit."

"Well, I will not press for forgiveness now, I think when you see what I have been doing you will overlook the offence."

"What have you been doing? I thought you told me that you had quite finished the two pictures, the day you came to say good-bye before you started for Brussels."

"Rene has been criticising them and has shown me where I committed two egregious blunders."

"Then I think it was very impertinent of him," Mary said in a tone of vexation. "I am sure nothing could have been nicer than they were even when I saw them, I am certain there were no blunders in them, and I don't see how they could be improved."

"Wait until you see them again, Mary. I altered one this morning, but the other will take me three or four days steady work. I am not so sure of success there, but if you don't like it when you see it, I promise you that I will restore it to its former condition, now let us be off; if I am not mistaken there is something going on, I saw several battalions of National Guards marching through the streets; and there is a report that 50,000 men are to march against Versailles. We may as well see them start, it may turn out to be an historic event."

CHAPTER XXII.

The march against Versailles did not take place on the first of April, although the Communists had every reason to believe that they would meet with no opposition, as on the previous night two regiments of the army, forming the advanced guard between Versailles and Paris, came in, together with a battery of artillery, and declared for the Commune. The next morning Cuthbert went up at nine o'clock, as he had arranged to take Mary out early, and to work in the afternoon. Just as he reached the house he heard a cannon-shot.

"Hurry on your things," he said as he met her, "a gun has just fired; it is the first in the Civil War; perhaps the National Guard are starting against Versailles; at any rate it will be worth seeing."

The girl was ready in two or three minutes, and they walked briskly to the Arc de Triomphe. As they did so they could hear not only the boom of cannon, but the distant firing of musketry. Around the Arch a number of people were gathered, looking down the long broad avenue running from it through the Porte Maillot, and then over the Bridge of Neuilly to the column of Courbeil. Heavy firing was going on near the bridge, upon the banks of the river, and away beyond it to the right.

"That firing means that France is saved from the horrors of another red Revolution, Mary," Cuthbert said. "It shows that some of the troops at least are loyal, and in these matters example is everything. There was a report that Charrette's Zouaves and the gendarmes have been placed at the outposts, and if the report is true, it was a wise step, indeed, for McMahon to take, for both could be relied upon; and now fighting has begun, there is hope that the troops behind will stand firm."