His Masterpiece Part 35

He spoke in a hesitating manner, and when his eyes met those of Claude, who was looking at him fixedly, he lost countenance altogether, and joked about the little canvas on the easel.

'That's a daub Naudet asked me for. Oh! I'm not ignorant of what I lack--a little of what you have too much of, old man. You know that I'm still your friend; why, I defended you only yesterday with some painters.'

He tapped Claude on the shoulders, for he had divined his old master's secret contempt, and wished to win him back by his old-time caresses--all the wheedling practices of a hussy. Very sincerely and with a sort of anxious deference he again promised Claude that he would do everything in his power to further the hanging of his picture, 'The Dead Child.'

However, some people arrived; more than fifteen persons came in and went off in less than an hour--fathers bringing young pupils, exhibitors anxious to say a good word on their own behalf, friends who wanted to barter influence, even women who placed their talents under the protection of their charms. And one should have seen the painter play his part as a candidate, shaking hands most lavishly, saying to one visitor: 'Your picture this year is so pretty, it pleases me so much!'

then feigning astonishment with another: 'What! you haven't had a medal yet?' and repeating to all of them: 'Ah! If I belonged to the committee, I'd make them walk straight.' He sent every one away delighted, closed the door behind each visitor with an air of extreme amiability, through which, however, there pierced the secret sneer of an ex-lounger on the pavement.

'You see, eh?' he said to Claude, at a moment when they happened to be left alone. 'What a lot of time I lose with those idiots!'

Then he approached the large window, and abruptly opened one of the cas.e.m.e.nts; and on one of the balconies of the house over the way a woman clad in a lace dressing-gown could be distinguished waving her handkerchief. f.a.gerolles on his side waved his hand three times in succession. Then both windows were closed again.

Claude had recognised Irma; and amid the silence which fell f.a.gerolles quietly explained matters:

'It's convenient, you see, one can correspond. We have a complete system of telegraphy. She wants to speak to me, so I must go--'

Since he and Irma had resided in the avenue, they met, it was said, on their old footing. It was even a.s.serted that he, so 'cute,' so well-acquainted with Parisian humbug, let himself be fleeced by her, bled at every moment of some good round sum, which she sent her maid to ask for--now to pay a tradesman, now to satisfy a whim, often for nothing at all, or rather for the sole pleasure of emptying his pockets; and this partly explained his embarra.s.sed circ.u.mstances, his indebtedness, which ever increased despite the continuous rise in the quotations of his canvases.

Claude had put on his hat again. f.a.gerolles was shuffling about impatiently, looking nervously at the house over the way.

'I don't send you off, but you see she's waiting for me,' he said, 'Well, it's understood, your affair's settled--that is, unless I'm not elected. Come to the Palais de l'Industrie on the evening the voting-papers are counted. Oh! there will be a regular crush, quite a rumpus! Still, you will always learn if you can rely on me.'

At first, Claude inwardly swore that he would not trouble about it.

f.a.gerolles' protection weighed heavily upon him; and yet, in his heart of hearts, he really had but one fear, that the shifty fellow would not keep his promise, but would ultimately be taken with a fit of cowardice at the idea of protecting a defeated man. However, on the day of the vote Claude could not keep still, but went and roamed about the Champs Elysees under the pretence of taking a long walk. He might as well go there as elsewhere, for while waiting for the Salon he had altogether ceased work. He himself could not vote, as to do so it was necessary to have been 'hung' on at least one occasion. However, he repeatedly pa.s.sed before the Palais de l'Industrie,* the foot pavement in front of which interested him with its bustling aspect, its procession of artist electors, whom men in dirty blouses caught hold of, shouting to them the t.i.tles of their lists of candidates--lists some thirty in number emanating from every possible coterie, and representing every possible opinion. There was the list of the studios of the School of Arts, the liberal list, the list of the uncompromising radical painters, the conciliatory list, the young painters' list, even the ladies' list, and so forth. The scene suggested all the turmoil at the door of an electoral polling booth on the morrow of a riot.

* This palace, for many years the home of the 'Salon,' was built for the first Paris International Exhibition, that of 1855, and demolished in connection with that of 1900.--ED.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, when the voting was over, Claude could not resist a fit of curiosity to go and have a look. The staircase was now free, and whoever chose could enter. Upstairs, he came upon the huge gallery, overlooking the Champs Elysees, which was set aside for the hanging committee. A table, forty feet long, filled the centre of this gallery, and entire trees were burning in the monumental fireplace at one end of it. Some four or five hundred electors, who had remained to see the votes counted, stood there, mingled with friends and inquisitive strangers, talking, laughing, and setting quite a storm loose under the lofty ceiling. Around the table, parties of people who had volunteered to count the votes were already settled and at work; there were some fifteen of these parties in all, each comprising a chairman and two scrutineers. Three or four more remained to be organised, and n.o.body else offered a.s.sistance; in fact, every one turned away in fear of the crushing labour which would rivet the more zealous people to the spot far into the night.

It precisely happened that f.a.gerolles, who had been in the thick of it since the morning, was gesticulating and shouting, trying to make himself heard above the hubbub.

'Come, gentlemen, we need one more man here! Come, some willing person, over here!'

And at that moment, perceiving Claude, he darted forward and forcibly dragged him off.

'Ah! as for you, you will just oblige me by sitting down there and helping us! It's for the good cause, dash it all!'

Claude abruptly found himself chairman of one of the counting committees, and began to perform his functions with all the gravity of a timid man, secretly experiencing a good deal of emotion, as if the hanging of his canvas would depend upon the conscientiousness he showed in his work. He called out the names inscribed upon the voting-papers, which were pa.s.sed to him in little packets, while the scrutineers, on sheets of paper prepared for the purpose, noted each successive vote that each candidate obtained. And all this went on amidst a most frightful uproar, twenty and thirty names being called out at the same time by different voices, above the continuous rumbling of the crowd.

As Claude could never do anything without throwing pa.s.sion into it, he waxed excited, became despondent whenever a voting-paper did not bear f.a.gerolles' name, and grew happy as soon as he had to shout out that name once more. Moreover, he often tasted that delight, for his friend had made himself popular, showing himself everywhere, frequenting the cafes where influential groups of artists a.s.sembled, even venturing to expound his opinions there, and binding himself to young artists, without neglecting to bow very low to the members of the Inst.i.tute. Thus there was a general current of sympathy in his favour. f.a.gerolles was, so to say, everybody's spoilt child.

Night came on at about six o'clock that rainy March day. The a.s.sistants brought lamps; and some mistrustful artists, who, gloomy and silent, were watching the counting askance, drew nearer. Others began to play jokes, imitated the cries of animals, or attempted a _tyrolienne_. But it was only at eight o'clock, when a collation of cold meat and wine was served, that the gaiety reached its climax. The bottles were hastily emptied, the men stuffed themselves with whatever they were lucky enough to get hold of, and there was a free-and-easy kind of Kermesse in that huge hall which the logs in the fireplace lit up with a forge-like glow.

Then they all smoked, and the smoke set a kind of mist around the yellow light from the lamps, whilst on the floor trailed all the spoilt voting-papers thrown away during the polling; indeed, quite a layer of dirty paper, together with corks, breadcrumbs, and a few broken plates.

The heels of those seated at the table disappeared amidst this litter.

Reserve was cast aside; a little sculptor with a pale face climbed upon a chair to harangue the a.s.sembly, and a painter, with stiff moustaches under a hook nose, bestrode a chair and galloped, bowing, round the table, in mimicry of the Emperor.

Little by little, however, a good many grew tired and went off. At eleven o'clock there were not more than a couple of hundred persons present. Past midnight, however, some more people arrived, loungers in dress-coats and white ties, who had come from some theatre or soiree and wished to learn the result of the voting before all Paris knew it.

Reporters also appeared; and they could be seen darting one by one out of the room as soon as a partial result was communicated to them.

Claude, hoa.r.s.e by now, still went on calling names. The smoke and the heat became intolerable, a smell like that of a cow-house rose from the muddy litter on the floor. One o'clock, two o'clock in the morning struck, and he was still unfolding voting-papers, the conscientiousness which he displayed delaying him to such a point that the other parties had long since finished their work, while his was still a maze of figures. At last all the additions were centralised and the definite result proclaimed. f.a.gerolles was elected, coming fifteenth among forty, or five places ahead of Bongrand, who had been a candidate on the same list, but whose name must have been frequently struck out. And daylight was breaking when Claude reached home in the Rue Tourlaque, feeling both worn out and delighted.

Then, for a couple of weeks he lived in a state of anxiety. A dozen times he had the idea of going to f.a.gerolles' for information, but a feeling of shame restrained him. Besides, as the committee proceeded in alphabetical order, nothing perhaps was yet decided. However, one evening, on the Boulevard de Clichy, he felt his heart thump as he saw two broad shoulders, with whose lolloping motion he was well acquainted, coming towards him.

They were the shoulders of Bongrand, who seemed embarra.s.sed. He was the first to speak, and said:

'You know matters aren't progressing very well over yonder with those brutes. But everything isn't lost. f.a.gerolles and I are on the watch.

Still, you must rely on f.a.gerolles; as for me, my dear fellow, I am awfully afraid of compromising your chances.'

To tell the truth, there was constant hostility between Bongrand and the President of the hanging committee, Mazel, a famous master of the School of Arts, and the last rampart of the elegant, b.u.t.tery, conventional style of art. Although they called each other 'dear colleague' and made a great show of shaking hands, their hostility had burst forth the very first day; one of them could never ask for the admission of a picture without the other one voting for its rejection. f.a.gerolles, who had been elected secretary, had, on the contrary, made himself Mazel's amuser, his vice, and Mazel forgave his old pupil's defection, so skilfully did the renegade flatter him. Moreover, the young master, a regular turncoat, as his comrades said, showed even more severity than the members of the Inst.i.tute towards audacious beginners. He only became lenient and sociable when he wanted to get a picture accepted, on those occasions showing himself extremely fertile in devices, intriguing and carrying the vote with all the supple deftness of a conjurer.

The committee work was really a hard task, and even Bongrand's strong legs grew tired of it. It was cut out every day by the a.s.sistants.

An endless row of large pictures rested on the ground against the handrails, all along the first-floor galleries, right round the Palace; and every afternoon, at one o'clock precisely, the forty committee-men, headed by their president, who was equipped with a bell, started off on a promenade, until all the letters in the alphabet, serving as exhibitors' initials, had been exhausted. They gave their decisions standing, and the work was got through as fast as possible, the worst canvases being rejected without going to the vote. At times, however, discussions delayed the party, there came a ten minutes' quarrel, and some picture which caused a dispute was reserved for the evening revision. Two men, holding a cord some thirty feet long, kept it stretched at a distance of four paces from the line of pictures, so as to restrain the committee-men, who kept on pushing each other in the heat of their dispute, and whose stomachs, despite everything, were ever pressing against the cord. Behind the committee marched seventy museum-keepers in white blouses, executing evolutions under the orders of a brigadier. At each decision communicated to them by the secretaries, they sorted the pictures, the accepted paintings being separated from the rejected ones, which were carried off like corpses after a battle. And the round lasted during two long hours, without a moment's respite, and without there being a single chair to sit upon.

The committee-men had to remain on their legs, tramping on in a tired way amid icy draughts, which compelled even the least chilly among them to bury their noses in the depths of their fur-lined overcoats.

Then the three o'clock snack proved very welcome: there was half an hour's rest at a buffet, where claret, chocolate, and sandwiches could be obtained. It was there that the market of mutual concessions was held, that the bartering of influence and votes was carried on. In order that n.o.body might be forgotten amid the hailstorm of applications which fell upon the committee-men, most of them carried little note-books, which they consulted; and they promised to vote for certain exhibitors whom a colleague protected on condition that this colleague voted for the ones in whom they were interested. Others, however, taking no part in these intrigues, either from austerity or indifference, finished the interval in smoking a cigarette and gazing vacantly about them.

Then the work began again, but more agreeably, in a gallery where there were chairs, and even tables with pens and paper and ink. All the pictures whose height did not reach four feet ten inches were judged there--'pa.s.sed on the easel,' as the expression goes--being ranged, ten or twelve together, on a kind of trestle covered with green baize. A good many committee-men then grew absent-minded, several wrote their letters, and the president had to get angry to obtain presentable majorities. Sometimes a gust of pa.s.sion swept by; they all jostled each other; the votes, usually given by raising the hand, took place amid such feverish excitement that hats and walking-sticks were waved in the air above the tumultuous surging of heads.

And it was there, 'on the easel,' that 'The Dead Child' at last made its appearance. During the previous week f.a.gerolles, whose pocket-book was full of memoranda, had resorted to all kinds of complicated bartering in order to obtain votes in Claude's favour; but it was a difficult business, it did not tally with his other engagements, and he only met with refusals as soon as he mentioned his friend's name. He complained, moreover, that he could get no help from Bongrand, who did not carry a pocket-book, and who was so clumsy, too, that he spoilt the best causes by his outbursts of unseasonable frankness. A score of times already would f.a.gerolles have forsaken Claude, had it not been for his obstinate desire to try his power over his colleagues by asking for the admittance of a work by Lantier, which was a reputed impossibility. However, people should see if he wasn't yet strong enough to force the committee into compliance with his wishes. Moreover, perhaps from the depths of his conscience there came a cry for justice, an unconfessed feeling of respect for the man whose ideas he had stolen.

As it happened, Mazel was in a frightfully bad humour that day. At the outset of the sitting the brigadier had come to him, saying: 'There was a mistake yesterday, Monsieur Mazel. A _hors-concours_* picture was rejected. You know, No. 2520, a nude woman under a tree.'

* A painting by one of those artists who, from the fact that they had obtained medals at previous Salons, had the right to go on exhibiting at long as they lived, the committee being debarred from rejecting their work however bad it might be.--ED.

In fact, on the day before, this painting had been consigned to the grave amid unanimous contempt, n.o.body having noticed that it was the work of an old cla.s.sical painter highly respected by the Inst.i.tute; and the brigadier's fright, and the amusing circ.u.mstance of a picture having thus been condemned by mistake, enlivened the younger members of the committee and made them sneer in a provoking manner.

Mazel, who detested such mishaps, which he rightly felt were disastrous for the authority of the School of Arts, made an angry gesture, and drily said:

'Well, fish it out again, and put it among the admitted pictures. It isn't so surprising, there was an intolerable noise yesterday. How can one judge anything like that at a gallop, when one can't even obtain silence?'

He rang his bell furiously, and added:

'Come, gentlemen, everything is ready--a little good will, if you please.'

Unluckily, a fresh misfortune occurred as soon as the first paintings were set on the trestle. One canvas among others attracted Mazel's attention, so bad did he consider it, so sharp in tone as to make one's very teeth grate. As his sight was failing him, he leant forward to look at the signature, muttering the while: 'Who's the pig--'

But he quickly drew himself up, quite shocked at having read the name of one of his friends, an artist who, like himself, was a rampart of healthy principles. Hoping that he had not been overheard, he thereupon called out:

'Superb! No. 1, eh, gentlemen?'

No. 1 was granted--the formula of admission which ent.i.tled the picture to be hung on the line. Only, some of the committee-men laughed and nudged each other, at which Mazel felt very hurt, and became very fierce.

Moreover, they all made such blunders at times. A great many of them eased their feelings at the first glance, and then recalled their words as soon as they had deciphered the signature. This ended by making them cautious, and so with furtive glances they made sure of the artist's name before expressing any opinion. Besides, whenever a colleague's work, some fellow committee-man's suspicious-looking canvas, was brought forward, they took the precaution to warn each other by making signs behind the painter's back, as if to say, 'Take care, no mistake, mind; it's his picture.'

f.a.gerolles, despite his colleagues' fidgety nerves, carried the day on a first occasion. It was a question of admitting a frightful portrait painted by one of his pupils, whose family, a very wealthy one, received him on a footing of intimacy. To achieve this he had taken Mazel on one side in order to try to move him with a sentimental story about an unfortunate father with three daughters, who were starving. But the president let himself be entreated for a long while, saying that a man shouldn't waste his time painting when he was dying for lack of food, and that he ought to have a little more consideration for his three daughters! However, in the result, Mazel raised his hand, alone, with f.a.gerolles. Some of the others then angrily protested, and even two members of the Inst.i.tute seemed disgusted, whereupon f.a.gerolles whispered to them in a low key:

'It's for Mazel! He begged me to vote. The painter's a relative of his, I think; at all events, he greatly wants the picture to be accepted.'

At this the two academicians promptly raised their hands, and a large majority declared itself in favour of the portrait.