1 r
THE COURIER:
11
OBblVION.
. The Story of a Painter's Opportunity.
r "You want to Bhut me out. Oh, I
bare known it for some time. You
don't like me to come to the studio!
And once once you weren't happy un
less I was sitting by, reading or sewing,
while you worked."
"It was some time ago," ho murmured
to himself, and shrugged h;s shoulders,
half shamed. A kindlier glance showed
him that her hands were trembling and
that her eyes had tbe hard brightness
r pent-up tears. Perhaps ho compre
hended something of the nervous strain
under which she was suffering, though
he would havo been puzzled to define its
cause. Ho wont closer to her and laid
his hand on her arm. The color sprang
to her averted facs.
"When I have done anything good
you are the first to see it," he said, more
gently. "But no artist likes to exhibit
his beginnings or his failures"
" "You admit, then, that it is a failure!"'
she.cried suddenly.
"The statue a failure? What what
are you talking about?" Ho moved
away from her abruptly.
"1 tell you it is, Herman! You have
failed. That statue is it the expres
sion of an idea, a noble conception? No,
it is a portrait of your model! There is
no imagination in it. That woman there
what does she mean? Oblivion?
She's a cocotte, dreaming! shameful!"
The sculptor silently threw the sheet
over the clay statue. He walked away
to the fireplace, lit a cigarette and stood
looking down into the blaze on the
hearth, a scowl on his handsome face.
"Can't you see it can't you feel it
yourself, the degeneration in your work?
This past ) ear you have done nothing
worthy of yourself, nothing fine. People
say so, and I can see it. And I can tell
you why it is. No one could lead the
life you do and do good work. You are
was ing your strength; ou arebecomirg
coarse in thought; you are not capable
any longer of a pure idea!"
Still he was silent, only looking up at
ner with steely eyes, cold and repellent.
"Do you think I am blind that I
can't see what goes on under my very
eves? It's not for nothing you have
modeled that woman twenty times! And
she is not even a professional model!''
"What stuff are you talking?" he in
terrupted. roughly. "You are behaving
like a child an idiot!"
Oh, I know! I koow her as well as
you do. 1 could point you out a dozen
likenesses of her in this room. That is
a cast of her arm. I know her, 1 tell
you. She's Corinne. the dancer."
'What of that?" You talk like a
fool."
"You shall not you shall not have
her here, within a stone's throw of my
house."
"Your house, My good Martha? I
don't propose to talk to you in this
mood. I'll wait till you have recovered
your senses. But I may as well tell you
now that I shall employ just what
models I find most useful, and if I can
get what I want by going outside the
profession, I don't know anything that
will prevent me from doing so. That
hardly need bs said."
"Not that woman, Herman!"
"That woman, or any other. What
has come over you, Martha? Upon my
word, I believe you're insane. You used
to be sensible enough. Nowadays you
clog me, hold me back, worry me to
death with these perpetual disputes.
Do you think I can stand this sort of
thing? Can I work in an atmosphere
like this? Gcod heavens! and you are
the woman that vowed she would die to
give me success!"
"I said it, and I would die, even now,
td help you! But I will not stand it to
be killed by inches to see you growing
worse day by day, and die of shame to
see it! I will not bear it!"
The air tingled with the harshness of
these discords, suggestions of an irre
concilable strife, of a difference which
meant hopeless division. The physical
contrast of the two typified this lack of
sympathy or comprehension. The man's
short, strongly-built frame, ruddy color
ing. quick, restless movements, bo poke
a full and inten&o vitality, a sanguine
and passionate temperament, impulsive
and scarcely restrained by the keen sus
ceptibility of the artist. Thero was a
leonine suggestion in his aspect, a look
of lithe and brutal power and insinuat
ing savagery.
The woman's thin figure, whoso grace
fulness her dress did not seek to dis
semble, the lines of her wasted fac, her
straight narrow lips and sharply-cut
nostrils, marked her as an ascetic, whose
flesh, if indeed it had over rebelled, was
now completely subdued to her spirit.
No lack of spirit was evi lent in her in
tense bluo ees, animated by a llame of
disdain the disdain of icy chastity for
sensual errors which it could not com
prehend or forgivo. While she stood
troubling after her last outburst, seek
ing for words that might lash and sting
the man bef ire her, these eyes rested
upon him with an expression which
changed slowly from jealous fury to un
utterable grief.
But he did not perceive this softening.
He smol ed his cigarette out and fling
the tip iatotbe fire.still in sullen silence.
And then, without looking at his wife,
he changed his velvet coat for a more
conventional garment, put on his bat
and light overcoat and left the studio.
"Herman," she called to him sharply.
"I shall not come back hero f r a
week," he said, between the opening and
the closing or the door. And some half
childish, ha'f savage impulse moved him
to add, "I hate you."
A moment later his shadow passed
the window, against which the wind
flung o gust of yellow leaves. The wom
an stood listening, a stunned look on
hor face. Her eyes traveled slowly
round the studio, resting.n long time on
the shrouded clay model. She took a
step toward it and raised a clenched
hand as though for a blow. Then she
stood still again, and shivered.
The tire burned steadily, a red core of
of heat with little titful bluish llames
playing over it. She dragged a heavy
straight backed chair closer to the
hearth and dropped into it, clasping her
arms over her breast, her face contorted
with -a sudden keen physical pain.
Blindly she felt in her pocket and found
a small bottle. Without waiting to
measure or dilute the dose she put the
bottle to her lips and swallowed part of
its contents. For fome time she lay
huddled in the chair, gasping for
breath. Then, growing quieter, she
reached out and dragged from a chest
near by its covering, a dark blanket, and
drew it round her head and body, and
so sat, staring into the fa ling tire with
eyes dull from exhaustion and pain.
The Eculptor fought his way along the
street swept bare by a biting east wind,
toward the quarter of hotels and cafes.
He felt himself in need of something to
soothe the pin pricks intlicted by a nag
ging tongue, and to counterac the de
pression, mental and physical, which
was too often his lot after a long day's
work, Hie the present, of dubious result.
Ordinarily the remedy he sought would
have presented itself in the shape of a
jolly party of his friends, masculine and
feminine, and an evening of gayety. But
on this occasion ho felt a moody aver
sion for these companions of his own or
a kindred craft; he was sick of shop. As
for Corinne, his sudden revulsion cul
minated against her; he invoked anath
emas upon her absent head, and would
have flung these in her face if she had
happened to cross bis path. He avoid
ed the places where he might mset her
or any of the artist clan; and went into a
large cafe, where he took a table in a
corner, with his back to the room, and
ordered dinner, prefaced by a s'.iff ab
sinthe. As he sit sipping the pale green liquor
and absently drawing lines on the table
cloth with a fork, his square ungraceful
figure and hib hanging head expressed
the mood which dominated him. He
was tired, sick at heart; the horrible
sense of discouragement, of failuri
which tho artist knows at its keenest,
had fastened upon him. tits wife's words
repeated themselves over and over again
in his brain, coiling and sticging like
thin venomous reptiles. Was thisstatuo
a failure? Was it true that his work
was degenerating, that he could no
longer command tho power that had
been his?
He drained tho glass of absinth? and
pushed it away from him, loaning his
forehead on his clasped hands. He ad
mitted to himself that it was true. Ho
knew that in this cae. and in other in
stances of lato, tho idea that he wanted
was thore, soniewhoro within tho region
of his consciousness, but just beyond
his reac'a, forever escaping him. He
had not been able to seizo it, and in
despair had fn'Ien back on a level frank
ly imitatory. He had wished to materi
aliz? the idea of Oblivion: what he had
produced would perhaps satisfy the man
who had ordered the mortuary statue,
but it did not satisfy himself. It was a
failure, and he hid known it long before
his wife ha J pointed tho fa;tou.to him.
A cold rage seized upon his sduI rage
against his wife, against tko model who
had pos.'d for the unlucky statue,
against the world of artists who would
6e and sneer at his work, bestowing
covert smiles where formerly they had
been compelled to admire, finally and
chiefly against himself, for the weakness
he despise-1. Was ho then, after all, to
lose tho place he had conquered with
such tremendous effort? Was he to de
cline in strength and watch men who
had toiled beneath him p3ss him in tho
race? Ho sat his teeth in fury at tho
thought that this might be the forfeit of
his carelessness, his lato indulgence in
unnerving pleasure. For the first time
he faced squarely the fact that his
youth, his physical strength, his
creative power, had limitations,
aod the shock was no light one. In
that hour he seemed to himself to have
grown old.
He ate his dinner and drank a bottle
of good BargunJy an lf el t his blood
running warmer. Tne subtle influence
of the absinthe insensibly lightened h!s
mood. He straightened up and lifted
his head defiantly. He stretched out
his arm, opening and closing the power
iul fingers of his light hand; it had not
lost its cunning yet he would show
them.
Dinner over, he lit a cigar and turned
about to face the room. H-i was rather
glad to perceive at one of the tables near
him, sipping his coffee at?J Cognac, a
painter whom he knew. He joined this
acquaintance and went off with him toa
theatre, and later to a studio merry
making, at which Cjrinne. the dancer,
happened to be the guest of honor.
It was in the small hourethat the
sculptor finally reached his home, sober
ed considerably by the walk in the chill
night air. Hi had indeed found in it
opportunity and some incentive to re
flection. He thought over a remark or
two which had fallen from one or an
other of the men during the evening.
There was a change injthe attitude of
his confrere toward himself; it was
something subtle, slight, intangible.but
it was there. They had ceasedto look
to him. He knew that the change must
have been gialual, slow, but now his
eyes were opened, and he perceived
what he had long been blind to. This
to a man who felt himself still in the
prime of strength was inexpressibly
calling. He swore that thetide should
be reversed; that he would make them
look again! He would put folly behind
him and give himself once more to his
art. He would break in pieces the clay
model, dismiss Corinne, and search for a
new idea.
The house was dark, except for the
night light in the hall. With a sullen
memory nf the quarrel of the afternoon
he went around to the studio, a separate
building in tho rear, intending to t!eep
there, as he did often. Ho unlocked the
door, which had a spring lock, and clos
ed with a catch. Tho room was in per
fect darkness, tho tire was long nut, and
a deadly chill nutnbo I thn air. Tho
sculptor struck a mitch and lit two gnu
J3ts, shivering at the prospect before
him, but resolved not to enter the
house. Ho did not at first perceive a
figure, heavily shrouded in some dark
drapery, seated with its back toward
him before the ashes on the hearth.
Whon ho did perceive it his first thought
was that his nerves had played him an
uncanny trick; hii second, that his wife
had waited here for the opportunity of
baiting him on his return. His impulse
was to turn 03 nis heel and leave the
studio in her undisputed possession; he
hated scenes and nagging, and he was
not far at that moment from biting tho
woman who had become identified with
these things in his mind.
He did turn toward tbe door, and then
paused, withheld by tho strange stillneen
of the room, the motionlessnes) of tho
dark figure. He thought she muat bo
asleep, and felt no desire to awaken her;
but he know that he could not rest,
leaving her as she was. He approached
her, therefore, reluctantly, dragging
himself slowly over tho lloor. The mo
moat ho looked upon her face he knew
she was dead. The cold white faco in
tho shadow of the blanket showed only
as a pale glimmer; but the man felt
death.
Ho recoiled and dropped upon the
chest at the side of the fire-place, star
ing. It did not occur to him to call out.
nor to see if tho woman's heart still
beat. Sno was dead, that was tho
whole of tho matter. After a while he
roached up above his head, and shrink
ing horribly the while, lit another gas
jet. But there was nothing horrible to
see. The figure, straight and stiff, out
lined by the dark blanket which swept
in heavy folds from the shoulders; tho
face, rigid and composed, calm with an
ineffab'e quiet which nothing could
touch or rutllo more; the dignity of ab
solute passirfhless repose; the look of 010
who had done with earth and the thir gs
of earth forever these were the im
pressions to whiih the startled sensiB of
the man responded. There was no
doubt in him of the tremendous fact of
death; yet he rose, and, half timidly, aa
though it were a conscious desecration,
touched the cold flesh of tho woman's
cheek, and held his lingers for a moment
before tbe quiet mouth. The clamor of
his nerves subsided; personal emotions
sink away, but half rousjd. At 8)me
future time he might be glad or sorry.
Now, the genesis of an idea occupied
usurped all his mind. Half consciously
he stared at the face whese Eh ipely cut
features, shadowed and softened by the
simple strong line of the drapery, took
on a nobility so piercingly impressive.
T lis this! This was what he Fought
this majesty, th s austerity. Did one
seek oblivion, forjettulness of things
earthl)? This woman bad found it.
This was the secret of her locked lips,
her half closed, inscrutable eyes. Hero,
then, at last at last!
A brain excited, spurred to action,
and now sprung suddenly into fullest
life, possessed the man. He f jund papr
and crayon, and, sitting before the body
of his wife, he drew like one driven of a
demon. Eye ard hand held tense till he
had mastered what lay before him. He
made three sketches", and the livid dawn
filtered in as he finished the last. He
lo:ked them in a draper and put the
key in his pocket with a throb of exulta
tion. The reaction came instantly, and for
sssgg
Hi-U-itmilMUIJ, ILII,