The Penalty Part 6

To society the tragedy of Barbara's back-sliding into art was very real.

Dozens of men said very frankly that they missed her like the very devil. "There is n.o.body else," they said, "quite so straightforward, or quite so good-looking."

Hers was a face not less vivid than a light. It seemed that in her, the greatest artist of all, abandoning the accepted conventions of beauty, had created an original masterpiece. If she had been too thin, her eyes, tranquil, sea-blue, and shining, must have been too large. Her nose was Phidian Greek; her chin, but for an added youthful tenderness, was almost a replica of Madame Duse's; a long round throat carried n.o.bly a gallant round head, upon which the hair was of three distinct colors.

The brown in the Master's workshop had not, it seemed, held out; she had been finished with tones of amber and deep red. The brown was straight, the red waved, the amber rioted in curls and tendrils. Below this exquisite ma.s.sing of line and color, against a low broad forehead, were set, crookedly, short narrow eyebrows of an intense black; her eyelashes were of the same divine inkiness, very warm and long; a mouth level to the world, resolute, at the corners a little smiling, was scarlet against a smooth field of golden-brown.

If she had a certain admiration of her own beauty it was the admiration of an artist for the beauty of a stranger. Since she had had neither hand nor say in her own making, the results were neither to her credit nor against it. For success in her chosen line she would have exchanged her beauty very willingly for a plain mask, her glorious youth for a sedate middle age. She would have given perhaps an eye, an ear, or so at least she thought in this ardent and generous period of early beginnings and insatiable ambition. In her thoughts nothing seemed to matter to her but art.

There was no sustaining pleasure in the fact that her father had given in to her. Opposition--unspoken, it is true, but not to be mistaken--remained in his att.i.tude toward her. He found indirect means for conveying his idea and that of her friends that she was wasting herself upon a folly, and was destined, if she persisted in it, to only the most mediocre success. An exhibition of her works, undertaken with the avowed wish to know "just where she stood," had been discouraging in its results. The art critics either refused to take her seriously or expressed the opinion that there were already in the world too many sculptors of distinguished technique and no imagination whatsoever. Her friends told her that she was a "wonder." And there were little incidents of the farce which caused her to bite her lips in humiliation.

That the critics should be at the pains of telling her that she was without imagination angered her, since it was a fact already better known to herself. And in one moment she would determine at all costs to prove herself an imaginative artist, and in the next "to chuck the whole business." But she could not make up her mind whether it is worse for a captain to wait for actual defeat or, having perceived its inevitability, to surrender. To go down with colors flying appeals perhaps to n.o.ble sides of man; but it is a waste of ships, lives, and treasure.

Pa.s.sing swiftly down the avenue, she did not know whether, upon arriving at her studio in McBurney Place, she should get into her working-ap.r.o.n or make an end, once and for all, of artistic pursuits. But with the lifting of the legless beggar's face to hers, all doubts vanished from her mind like smoke from a room when the windows and doors are opened.

Whatever his face might have revealed to another, to her it was Satan's, newly fallen, and she read into it a whole wonder of sin, tragedy, desolation, and courage; and knew well that if she could reproduce what she seemed to see, the world would be grateful to her. She would give it a face which it would never make an end of discussing, which should be in sculpture what the face of Mona Lisa is in painting. It would be the face of a man whom one jury would hang upon the merest suspicion; for whom another would return a verdict of "not guilty" no matter what the nature of his proved crimes; and whether the face was beautiful or hideous would be a matter of dispute for the ages.

Upon arriving at No. 17 McBurney Place, and having climbed two flights of stairs, the door of her studio was opened before she could lay hand to the k.n.o.b, and a very small boy with very big eyes, and no more flesh upon his bones than served to distinguish him from a living skeleton, appeared on the threshold, smiling, you may say, from head to foot. He was dressed in a blue suit with bobbed tails and a double row of bright bra.s.s b.u.t.tons down the front, and when she had gathered him from the gutter in which he had reached to his present stunted stature, a child half gone in pneumonia, he had told her that his name, his whole name, was "Bubbles" and nothing but "Bubbles."

"Good morning, Miss Barbara," he said; "the plumber's bin and gone, and the feller from the hardware store has swore h.e.l.l be around before noon to fix the new k.n.o.bs in the doors."

"Good!" said Barbara. "Well done, Bubbles."

And she pa.s.sed into the studio, wondering why a little face all knotting with smiles, affection, and the pleasure of commands lovingly received and well obeyed, should remind her of that other face, ma.s.sive, sardonic, lost, satanic, which had looked up into hers across the battered tin cup on the top of a battered street-organ. She turned to a little clay head that she had made recently and for which Bubbles had sat; touched it here and there, stepped back from it, turned her own head to the left, to the right, and even, such was the concentration of her mood, showed between her red lips the tip of a still redder tongue.

But no matter what she did to test and undo her first impression there persisted between the two faces a certain likeness, though in just what this resemblance consisted she was unable to say.

"Bubbles," she said, "you were telling me about beggars the other day and how much they make, and how rich some of them are. Did you ever run across one that sells shoe-laces, plays a hand-organ, and hasn't got any legs?"

"Sure," said he; "there's half a dozen in the city." And he named them.

"Burbage: he's the real thing, got his legs took off by a cannon-ball in the wars. Prior: he ain't no 'count. Drunk and fell under a elevated train. He ain't saved nothing neither. He drinks _his_. Echmeyer: he's some Jew; worth every cent of fifty thousand dollars. They calls him congen_eye_tul, 'cause he was born with his legs lef off him. Fun Barnheim: he's German, went asleep in the shade of a steam-roller, and never woke up till his legs was rolled out flat as a pair of pants that's just bin ironed. Then o' course there's Blizzard."

Barbara was smiling. "What became of his _legs_, Bubbles?"

"G.o.d knows," returned the boy. "Blizzard don't boast about it like the others. But he ain't no common beggar. He's a man."

"A good man?"

"Good? He ain't got a kinder thought in his block than settin' fire to houses and killin' people. But when he says 'step,' _it_ steps."

"It?"

"The East Side, Miss Barbara. He's the whole show."

"What does he look like?"

The boy at first thought in vain for a simile, and then, having found one to his liking, emitted with great earnestness that the beggar, Blizzard, looked exactly like "the wrath of G.o.d." Whatever the boy's simile may convey to the reader, to Barbara, fresh from seeing the man himself, it had a wonderful aptness.

"That's my man," she exclaimed. "Blizzard! He's got a wonderful face, Bubbles, and you said just what it looks like. I'm going to make a bust of him."

"He's coming here?"

"Yes. Why not?"

The boy was troubled. "Miss Barbara," he said earnestly, "I wouldn't go for to touch that man with a ten-foot pole."

"I shan't touch him, except with compa.s.ses to take measurements. He's civil-spoken enough."

"He's bad," said Bubbles, "bad. And when I say bad, I mean millions of things that you never heard tell of, and never will. If he comes in here--and, and raises h.e.l.l, don't blame _me_."

Barbara laughed. "He will come here, and sit perfectly still," she said, "until he wishes he was dead. And then he will receive money, and an invitation to come to-morrow. And then he will go away."

Bubbles looked unnaturally solemn and dejected.

"Besides," said Barbara, "I have you to protect me."

Though Bubbles made no boast, a world of resolution swept into his great eyes, and you knew by the simultaneous rising toward his chin of all the b.u.t.tons upon the front of his jacket that he had drawn the long breath of courage, and stiffened the articulations of his spine.

Barbara's studio was a large, high-ceilinged room, whose north wall was almost entirely composed of gla.s.s. It was singularly bare of those hangings, lanterns, antique cabinets, carved chairs, sc.r.a.ps of brocade, bra.s.s candle-sticks six or seven, feet high, samovars, pewter porringers, spinning-wheels, etc., etc., upon which so many artists appear to depend for comfort and inspiration. Nor were there any notable collections of dust, or fragments of meals, or dirty plates. There was neither a Winged Victory, a Venus de Milo, nor a Hermes after Praxiteles. And except for the bust of Bubbles there was no example of Barbara's own work by which to fish for stray compliments from the casual visitor. Of the amenities the studio had but a thick carpet, an open fireplace, and a pair of plain but easy chairs. Upon a strong tremorless table placed near the one great window, a huge lump of clay, swathed in damp cloths, alone served to denote the occupant's avocation.

Off the studio, however, Barbara had a pleasantly furnished room in which she might loaf, make tea, or serve a meal, and this in turn was separated from the tiny room in which Bubbles slept, by a small but practical kitchen.

Barbara having withdrawn to roll up her sleeves and put on her work-ap.r.o.n, the legless beggar arrived in silence at the outer door of the studio, and having drawn a long breath, knocked, and Bubbles, not without an uncomfortable fluttering of the heart, pulled it open. The boy and the beggar, being about the same height, looked each other in the face with level eyes.

"_So_," said Blizzard, "this is what has become of you. You were reported dead."

"No, sir," said Bubbles, "I wasn't dead, only sick. She brought me here, and had her own father and a nurse to take care of me. And now I'm b.u.t.tons." And he went on glibly: "Come right in; Miss Ferris is expecting you. I guess she wants you to sit on the platform over in the window."

Blizzard, having unslung his hand-organ and slid it with a show of petulance into a corner, crossed the room, swinging strongly and easily between his crutches, like a fine piece of machinery, climbed upon the model's platform, and seated himself in the plain deal chair which already occupied it. From this point of vantage he turned and looked down at the boy.

"So," he said, "her father _is_ Dr. Ferris."

"He's _the_ Dr. Ferris," Bubbles returned loyally.

"So--so--so," said the legless one slowly, and he closed his eyes for a moment as if he was tired. Then, opening them, and in abrupt tones: "Pay you well?"

"Yes, sir."

"Many people come here?"

Bubbles, who had gone to school--not in the schools, but in the city of New York itself--could lie without the least tremor or change of feature, and with remarkable suddenness. "Lots and lots of 'em," he said. "_She's_ well known."

Blizzard merely grunted. "Tell her I've come."

But it was not necessary for Bubbles to give the message at the door of the inner room, since at that moment Barbara entered, her round arms bare to the elbow and her street dress completely hidden by a sort of blue gingham overall. Bubbles, whose presence was not required during working hours, at once withdrew to his bedroom.

Here he changed his tunic of bra.s.s b.u.t.tons for a plain gray jacket, s.n.a.t.c.hed his cap from its hook, gained the street by a back stair, and set off at the tireless street-boy trot that eats up the blocks. Half an hour later he returned, his face no longer wearing a look of anxiety, changed back into his many-b.u.t.toned jacket of dependence, and sitting upon his bed, his back against the pillows, proceeded with astonishing deftness and precision to figure with the stump of a pencil, upon the leaves of a small dog-eared note-book. Then, appearing to have achieved a satisfactory solution of whatever problem he had had occasion to attack, he began to go through a series of restless fidgetings, which ended with a sigh of relief and a guilty look, and producing from a hiding-place a cigarette, he smoked it out of the window, so that his room might not carry forward the faintest trace of its telltale odor.

IX