Olive in Italy Part 26

Some painters are _canaglia_. Ah, I know that," the girl said with a little sigh and a shrug of her shoulders.

They went by way of the Via Babuino across the Piazza di Spagna, and up the little hill past the convent of English nuns to the Villa Medici. Rosina rang the gate-bell, and the old braided Cerberus admitted them grumblingly. "You are late. But if it is M'sieur Camille--"

Camille Michelin, bright particular star of the French Prix de Rome constellation, lived and worked in one of the more secluded garden-studios of the villa; it was deep set in the ilex wood, and the girls came to it by a narrow winding path, box-edged, and strewn with dead leaves. A light shone in one of the upper windows; the great man was there and he came down the creaking wooden stairs himself to open the door.

"Who is it? Rosina? I have put away the Anthony canvas for a month and I will let you know when I want you again."

"But, signorino, I have brought you a type."

"What!" he said eagerly, in his execrable Italian. "Fresh, sweet, clean?"

"_Sicuro._"

"I do not believe you. You are lying."

Camille was picturesque from the crown of his flaxen head to the soles of his brown boots; his pallor was interesting, his blue eyes remarkable; he habitually wore rust-coloured velveteen; he smoked cigarettes incessantly. All men who knew and loved his work saw in him a decadent creature of extraordinary charm; and yet, in spite of his "Aholibah," his "Salome," and his horribly beautiful, unfinished study of Fulvia piercing the tongue of Cicero, in spite of his Byron-c.u.m-Baudelaire after Velasquez and Vand.y.k.e exterior he always managed to be quite boyishly simple and sincere.

"Where is she?" Then, as his eyes met Olive's, he cried, "Not you, mademoiselle?" His surprise was as manifest as his pleasure. "My friends have sworn that I could never paint a wholesome picture. Now I will show them. When can you come?"

"Monday morning."

"Do not fail me," he implored. "Such harpies have been here to show themselves to me; fat, brown, loose-lipped things with purple-shadowed eyes. But you are perfect; divine bread-and-b.u.t.ter. They think they are clean because they have washed in soap and water, but it is the stainless soul I want. It must shine through my canvas as it does through Angelico's."

"I hope I shall please you," faltered the girl. "I--I only pose draped."

He looked at her quickly. "Very well," he said, "I will remember. It is your head I want. You are not Roman; have you sat to any other man here?"

"No. I am going to Varini's in the evenings next week."

"Ah! Well, don't let anyone else get hold of you. Gontrand will be trying to snap you up. He is so tired of the _cioccare_. What shall I call you?"

"Nothing. I have no name."

"I shall give you one. You shall be called child. Come at nine and you will find the door open." He fumbled in his pockets for some silver.

"Here, Rosina, this is for the little one."

CHAPTER III

The virtue that bruises not only the heel of the Evil One but the heart of the beloved is never its own reward. The thought of Jean's aching loneliness oppressed Olive far more than her own. She believed that she had done right in leaving him, but no consciousness of her own rect.i.tude sustained her, and she was pitifully far from any sense of self-satisfaction. Her head hung dejectedly in the cold light of its aureole. Sometimes she hated herself for being one of the dull ninety-and-nine who never stray and who need no forgiveness, and yet she clung to her dear ideal of love thorn-crowned, white, and clean.

She had hoped to be able to help her friends, but that hope had faded, and she had been very near despair. There was something pathetic now in her intense joy at the thought of earning a few pence. She lied to the kind women at home because she knew they would not understand.

They might believe the way to the Villa Medici to be the primrose path that leads to everlasting fire--they probably would if they had ever heard of Camille. She told them she had found lessons, and the wolf seemed to skulk growlingly away from the door as she uttered the words.

"You need not be afraid of the baker now," she told Ser Giulia. "He shall be paid at the end of the week."

Her waking on the Monday morning was the happiest she had known since she left Florence. She was to help to make beautiful things. Her part would be pa.s.sive; but they also serve who only stand and wait. She was not of those who see degradation in the lesser forms of labour. Each worker is needed to make the perfect whole. The men who wrought the gold knots and knops of the sanctuary, who wove the veil for the Holy of Holies, were called great, but the hewers of wood and carriers of water were temple builders too, even though their part was but to raise up scaffoldings that must come down again, or to mix the mortar that is unseen though it should weld the whole. Men might pa.s.s these toilers by in silence, but G.o.d would surely praise them.

Praxiteles moulded a G.o.ddess in clay, and we still acclaim him after the lapse of some two thousand years. What of the woman who wearied and ached that his eyes might not fail to learn the least sweet curve of her? What of the patient craftsmen who hewed out the block of marble, whose eyes were inflamed, whose lungs were scarred by the white dust of it? They suffered for beauty's sake--not, as some might say, because they must eat and live. Even slaves might get bread by easier ways. But, very simply for beauty's sake.

Olive might have soon learnt how vile such service may be in the studios of any of the _canaglia_ poor Rosina knew, but Camille, that sheep in wolf's clothing, was safe enough. What there was in him of perversity, of brute force, he expended in the portrayal of his subtly beautiful furies. His art was feverishly decadent, and those who judge a man by his work might suppose him to be a monster of iniquity. He was, in fact, an extremely clever and rather worldly-wise boy who loved violets and stone-pines and moonlight with poetical fervour, who preferred milk to champagne, and saunterings in green fields to gambling on green cloth.

That February morning was cloudless, and Rome on her seven hills was flooded in sunshine. The birds were singing in the ilex wood as Olive pa.s.sed through, and Camille was singing too in his _atelier_:

"'_Derriere chez mon pere Vive la rose.'

Il y a un oranger Vive ci, vive la!

Il y a un oranger, Vive la rose et le lilas!_"

"I was afraid you would be late."

"Why?" she asked, smiling, as she came to him across the great room.

"Women always are. But you are not a woman; you are an angel."

He looked at her closely. The strong north light showed her smooth skin flawless.

"The white and rose is charming," he said. "And I adore freckles. But your eyes are too deep; one can see that you have suffered. There is too much in them for the innocent baa-lamb picture I must paint."

Her face fell. "I shan't do then?"

"Dear child, you will," he rea.s.sured her. "I shall paint your lashes and not your eyes. Your lashes and a curve of pink cheek. Now go behind that screen and put on the sprigged cotton frock you will find there, with a muslin fichu and a mob cap. I have a basket of wools here and a piece of tapestry. The sort of woman I have never painted is always doing needlework."

Camille spent half the morning in the arrangement of the accessories that were, as he said, to suggest virtuous domesticity; then he settled the folds of the girl's skirt, the turn of her head, her hands. At last, when he was satisfied, he went to his easel and began to work. Olive had never before realised how hard it is to keep quite still. The muscles of her neck ached and her face seemed to grow stiff and set; she felt her hands quivering.

Hours seemed to pa.s.s before his voice broke the silence. "I have drawn it in," he announced. "You can rest now. Come down and see some of my pictures."

He showed her his "Salome," a Hebrew maenad, whose scarlet, parted lips ached for the desert dreamer's death; "Lucrezia Borgia," slow-smiling, crowned with golden hair; and a rough charcoal study for Queen Eleanor.

"I seem to see you as Henry's Rosamund," he said. "I wonder--the haunting shadow of coming sorrow in blue eyes. You have suffered."

"I am hungry," she answered.

He looked at his watch. "Forgive me! It is past noon. Run away, child, and come back at two."

The day seemed very long in spite of Camille's easy kindness, and the girl shrank from the subsequent sitting at Varini's.

"Why do you pose for those wretched boys?" grumbled the Prix de Rome man. "After this week you must come to me only. I must paint a Rosamund."

At sunset she hurried down the hill to the Corso, and came by way of the corridor and garden to the pavilion. The porter took her into a dingy little lumber-filled pa.s.sage and left her there. A soiled pink satin frock was laid ready for her on a broken chair. As she put it on she heard a babel of voices in the cla.s.s-room beyond, and she felt something like stage-fright as she fumbled at the hooks and eyes; but a clock struck the hour presently, and she went in then and climbed on to the throne. At first she saw nothing, but after a while she was aware of a group of men who stood near the door regarding her.

"_Carina._"

"Yes, a fine colour, but too thin."

When the professor came in he made her sit in a carved chair, and gave her a fan to hold. The men moved about, choosing their places, and were silent until he left them with a gruff "_Felice notte_." Olive noticed the lad who had been called in to Varini's studio to see her; the boy who sat next him had a round, impudent face, and when presently she yawned he smiled at her.