 | CHAPTER XII. Paul Fane, or, Parts of a life else untold |  |
12. CHAPTER XII.
It was an interesting day at the Blivins' studio—(some
two weeks after the date of the preceding chapter)—Miss
Firkin being expected at twelve to give Mr. Blivins her
first sitting for a portrait, and Paul having yielded a point
to his friend in consenting to be present.
This latter circumstance had been the subject of some
argument, Paul having begun to attach a certain poetical
charm to the secrecy of his artistic life, and finding, besides,
that the possession of an unproclaimed accomplishment,
such as the discipline of taste and eye which belongs
to an artist, gave him a magnetism, like a sympathy of
freemasonry, over the superior minds met with in society.
Bosh's interest in the matter, however, even as a business
consideration, abundantly outweighed all this. With Miss
Firkin, who had attached great interest to the making of
Paul's acquaintance, it would be a vast accession to Mr.
Blivins's character as an artist, if Mr. Fane were known to
be his daily visitor—showing either a sympathy of taste,
facilities of his friend's studio to pursue a study of drawing.
The commissions for portraits which might grow out
of this—Miss Firkin being, as it were, the controlling axle
to a large circle of titled subjects for his pencil—Blivins
declared to be a prospect equal to the “good will” of a
freighting-line on the Mississippi.
Business first with Bosh, of course; but there was another
argument which he did not openly press, though it
followed very close on the heels of the other in his secret
thoughts, and, with a friend's tender interest in matters of
feeling, Paul would have felt even more bound to make
the sacrifice. Wabash was in love! It was the arbitress
of his fate who was to sit for her portrait to him; and,
with the light and shade of hope and trepidation was that
picture—the picture of the possibly future Mrs. Blivins—
to be drawn and colored! And this would have been
betrayed, if by nothing else, by the restlessness of anticipation
with which the enamored artist made his arrangements.
Long before the appointed hour, the palette was
set with its colors; the canvas stood ready upon the easel;
and Paul's still assiduous pencil was left at work alone
upon the beauty of the patient Giulietta.
“Close upon twelve, my dear boy!” said Bosh, coming
behind Paul's easel with amiably concealed impatience,
and looking upon his sketch as if to see what it was that
could leave off, now? The Firkins' coming—I expect
them every moment—and Giulietta here, so very `æsthetic,'
as you call it, in her costume! Imagine what a dreadful
surprise it would be for excellent Mrs. Firkins to see
her!”
Paul pulled out his watch. “Half-past eleven only,
and grand people are never punctual. They'll not come
before half-past twelve, my dear Bosh, and we're at least
safe in letting Giulietta stay out her time. Suppose, just
to keep yourself from fretting, you give me a pose, that I
very much want, just now—you and Giulietta!”
“But, Paul! my dear friend!” remonstrated the anxious
Bosh.
“Here!—it will take but a moment!—Look at my
sketch. You see these two figures—the younger Rimini,
just stabbed by his jealous brother, is soaring away into
ghost-land, with the spirit of the dead Francesca striving
to cling to him. It has been a sinful love, you understand,
for which he has lost his life, and the attempted
caress, therefore, is received in the other world with reluctance.
Now, I can't catch the expression of that—a
woman's arms around an unwilling neck. Try to outline
it for me—you and she!”
“What—stand like a figure afloat in the air, my dear
friend!—how is it possible?”
“Oh, I'll arrange that,” said Paul, proceeding to get
Blivins's tall figure into pose—“something must be imagined,
in every picture. Stand as near as you can, in the
posture of the figure I have drawn—arms over your head
—one leg out behind—so!”
By showing his sketch to Giulietta, Paul had easily
explained, to her accustomed eye, what was to be the combination
of attitude between her and Bosh. With a skillful
twist of her petticoat, she imitated the winding-sheet
falling from Francesca's hips, and then, with her long hair
streaming down over her naked back, she mechanically
took her position.
“Excellent!” said Paul, “excellent!”—proceeding to
study the pose with all the ardor of artistic perception—
“don't move an inch, my dear friend!”
And steadfast stood Bosh, accordingly—his arms over
his head, the weight of his body balanced on one leg, and
the other, as far as was possible, thrust out behind, while
Giulietta stood, half tip-toe, straining her spread arms
toward his neck—(the tableau, however, such as would
seem to a common eye rather like a respectable gentleman
trying to escape from a very slenderly dressed young
woman)—when, suddenly, there was a scream!
“La'-d'-a-mercy!” cried Mrs. Firkin, snatching at her
daughter's dress to prevent her entering the door of the
room that the officious footman had thrown open without
a place to come to! Why, I never!—'Phia, I say!”
And the horror-stricken mother had half succeeded in
dragging her daughter back to the landing-place of the
stairs, before the petrified Blivins (for Paul did not feel
sufficiently acquainted to interfere) could utter a syllable
of remonstrance. By the simple accident of coming a little
before their time, they had stumbled upon the very scene
about which Bosh was so prophetically apprehensive.
“But, Ma!” expostulated Miss Firkin (who was herself
a little staggered at the spectacle of her friend Blivins
apparently hard run by a doubtfully apparelled person),
“Ma! he's going to explain!”
“I don't want any explanation of it, 'Phia! I saw it with
my own eyes! Come right away, I say!”
The words “model” and “artists' rooms” had began, by
this time, however, to convey a glimmer of the state of the
case, and Giulietta's very proper and civil look as she
hastily drew her dress around her, and passed out with her
mother, contributed to quiet the alarm of Mrs. Firkin.
Paul came forward also, and paid his respects with a formal
deference, in which there was no consciousness of anything
wrong or unusual; and so, at last, the unexpected
commotion was allayed.
“My friend, Mr. Fane,” said Blivins, as the ladies took
seats and looked around, “is an amateur of the Arts, in
(you see by his easel in the corner, ladies!)—makes use of
my studio like a brother artist.”
“Particularly a privilege to-day,” said Paul, with a
complimentary inclination of his head, “as I am to have
the honor, I believe, of giving an opinion upon the costume
and attitude in which my friend is to paint Miss Firkin!
What is your own choice in the matter, if I may ask?” he
continued, addressing the young lady with the tone of the
most simple desire for knowledge on the important point.
“Well, I don't know, I declare!” she replied, evidently
laying herself out for a discussion that was going to be
very delightful. “What do you think is my style, Mr.
Fane? I will be painted as anything you and Mr. Blivins
think of most when you see me!”
“I hope,” said Mrs. Firkin, with a decision that was intended
to express her horror of the fancy-pictures which
stared down upon her from every wall, “I hope, Mr. Blivins,
that you will paint her as her father's daughter, and
sufficiently dressed for Cincinnati!”
“La! Ma! you're always looking through your Ohio
spectacles at everything!” pouted Miss 'Phia, half turning
her back upon her; “I shan't always be Miss Firkin, I
hope, and I'm sure I don't want to be stuck up for ever in
one dress! Can't you paint me in some character Mr.
Blivins?
“Miss Firkins is right,” said Paul, putting in a timely
word. “Fashions change hundreds of times while a
portrait hangs on the wall, and the drapery should be
something which fashion does not affect. Suppose you
answer the lady's first question, my dear Blivins:—Of
what character in history or allegory, does her personal
appearance most remind you?”
Bosh was entirely reinstated in his dignity by the
respectful solemnity of his friend's deferential appeal. He
drew himself up, and gave a wide sweep with the pencil
he held in his hand. The artistic inspiration was upon
him.
“When I see Miss Sophia Firkin,” he proudly announced
looking at her with the raised eyebrows of the
loftiest admiration, “I see the Goddess of American
Liberty!”
“A female figure in a helmet and tunic,” said Paul.
“It would certainly look well in Cincinnati.”
But Miss Firkin's idea of the matter was not quite
reached. “You have not favored us with your own
opinion, yet, Mr. Fane!” she remarked, with a slight
heightening of color. “Is there nothing you know of, that
I could be painted as and not be covered up, somehow, as
this American Goddess always is?”
With a glance at Miss Firkin's slight change of attitude
—her chest a little thrown forward, and the left cheek
below—Paul saw at once that there were natural advantages
of figure to which that picture was, in some way,
to be made to do justice. The Ohio belle had been
abroad long enough to see what was most dwelt upon by
the Fine Arts; and a little vanity as to a needlessly concealed
perfection or two of her own—(compared, that is
to say, with what the artists expended so much study
upon)—was not to be avoided. Still, with Mrs. Firkin's
present alarm on the subject, it would evidently be impossible
to decide at once upon such pose and drapery as
would be acceptable to both her and her daughter.
“As to faces, Miss Firkin,” said Paul, in reply to her
question, “I have found that they change in their impression
upon us, almost invariably with closer study—particularly
with study under the pencil. My friend Blivins, I
have no doubt, in very little time, would find something
better suited to your expression than the helmet of his
goddess. Even with my own few minutes' study of your
features (if you will pardon the artistic freedom of the
remark) I have noticed another expression—something,
for instance, that would work finely into a picture of
Cleopatra applying the asp”—
“Oh, delightful, delightful!” suddenly interrupted Miss
Firkin. Exactly my idea, Mr. Fane!—thank you!—Cleopatra
below her heart, isn't it?”—
“But this is only a suggestion,” continued Paul, “and
it would be better, at least, to give Mr. Blivins' own higher
order of imagination its natural precedence. Genius
requires time, Miss Firkin!”
Blivins bowed affectionately to Paul.
“Shall we defer the decision of what the character is to
be, then, till we have first had a sitting or two, and made
studies of the features merely? I have the consent of my
friend,” Paul added with grave humility, “to occupy my
usual place at the other easel, and share his subject with
him—Miss Firkin consenting”—
“Certainly! Certainly!” exclaimed the fair subject.
“And as I stand at a different point of view,” he continued,
“it will not be surprising if I see the expression differently.
Perhaps, of the same subject, we may make two
wholly different pictures.”
This last proposition was altogether too delightful to be
objected to—Miss Firkin enchanted, Blivins relieved of
“immediate first pressure,” and Mrs. Firkin considerably
flattered with the interest taken in the matter by “that
very polite Mr. Fane.” With a request for the removal of
the un-goddesque bonnet, and a timid hint or two as to
attitude, etc., the happy lover made a beginning of his
of that sacred Fourth-of-July-approved costume for the
intended Mrs. Blivins)—and the united happinesses and
anxieties went into paint and progress.
[It has long been a cherished opinion of our own, dear
reader, that (as journeys are better achieved by a change
of horses) stories are better told by an occasional change
of narrators; and we shall take the liberty to hand over
the remaining history of the painting of Miss Firkin's
portrait to her own fresher powers of description—one of
her private letters giving the particulars which will substantially
complete it, besides the other lights and shadows
which could only be furnished from her own different point
of vision. She thus writes to the faithful school-fellow and
ally, with whom she exchanged eternal vows of friendship
and reciprocity of secrets, Miss Kumletts, of Rumpusville,
Alabama:—]
I dare say you feel quite like a widow, not to have heard
from your faithful 'Phia for so long (now three weeks since I wrote
to you, I believe), but the neglect is not because I forget you. I
think of you, on the contrary, oftener than ever, and because I
have more to tell—which, you know, makes it so much harder to
begin. Why, I live so much more than I used to, Kitty, that I
feel like half a dozen of what I used to be! In fact, multiplied as
my existence is, at present, I should not feel justified in marrying
“allowance for one”—becoming, in one's own self, a sort of
seraglio, as it were? At any rate, my mind must be more clear as
to what constitutes a “single woman,” before I give the whole of
myself to a single husband!
But, to drop this discussion of principle (for fear you will think
it is one of my old compositions, dear!) and begin with the news.
Politics first, of course. What do you think is offered to papa, by
secret embassy from one of the courts of Europe? At least, the
Baroness Kuhl declares, that, in consequence of the proper representations
to her government, by Count Ebenhog and herself, she is
authorized to propose to the distinguished Mr. Firkin to become a
count—(a real live German count and no mistake!)—for just money
enough to pay the expenses! The twenty thousand dollars (about
the sum it would cost, she thinks!) would be paid in advance to
herself, as it is what she calls a dormant title in her own family
which is to be bought out—but Count Ebenhog would also require
a “consideration,” viz.:—(wait till Miss Namely catches her breath,
if you please!)—my own trifling little heart and hand, “be the
same more or less.”
Now, what do you think of being courted in that sort of way?—
for that is simply a diplomatic proposal of marriage! These sly
Germans thought I should be willing enough to be made a countess,
but they wanted first to get what business folks call a “bonus” out
of papa. And in a country where all the love is thus made through
one's anxious parent, of course you suppose a young lady's feelings
are all of a size. But I have my little preferences, notwithstanding;
and of these I now proceed to give you the confidential particulars.
[We will omit this portion of Miss Firkin's letter, as not
having any special bearing on our story, and come at once
to the last page, and of its mention of her portrait by Mr.
Blivins.]
But it is curious how the kind of love that one means to settle
down upon, after all (when our little innocent flirtations are over,
you know, Kitty!), just spoils a man for painting one's portrait! I
went to sit to my devoted Blivins, expecting that he would, at
least, make me as good-looking as I am—(especially as, by the
way, he talked to me, I was sure he thought me very beautiful),
and what does he do but begin his husbanding of me at once—
painting me in a helmet and tunic as a Goddess of Liberty, that is
to say—and a more boxed up woman you never saw, out of a coffin.
There was nothing to be seen of me but the face! Now you know,
Kitty (for we have compared notes on the subject), that what little
beauty I have is not exactly there. It has been my greatest comfort,
in visiting these foreign galleries and studios, to see that the
painters of all ages (ugly “old masters” as well as handsome young
masters) dwell particularly on just where I am perfect. There is
not a Virgin Mary, nor a Saint Cecilia, nor even a Lucretia (and
this last is a pattern of modesty, you know), that is not painted, as
you may say, with a figure. And mamma says it is only because
there are so many exposed bosoms (fifty, at least, in every gallery)
that people walk round and look at them so unconcernedly. So,
don't you see, that if it were only the fashion for us all to show
our figures, it would be proper enough! In the East, it is improper
for a woman to show her mouth; and I dare say that, if
it would be considered very immoral.
But my portrait—(for I have not yet told you quite all)—came
very near being painted the right way, notwithstanding. Mr.
Fane, Blivins's friend, is studying drawing, in the same room; and
he offered to “make a study,” as they call it, by painting me, at
the same time, as Cleopatra poisoning herself. And he made a
beginning. But you know, to find her heart (where the poisonous
serpent is to be applied), Cleopatra is obliged to get below her
figure, a little—(rather more, at any rate, than I could sit for)—
and, though Mr. Fane offered very politely to paint as much of me
as might be thought proper, and then finish his study from an
Italian model (a pretty girl that is made very much like me),
mamma would not allow it. So, for the present, I am goddess
with a nose and chin—the rest left to the spectator's imagination;
but I am “breaking ground,” as we say at the West, to have my
bust taken, and so be done even more justice to, perhaps, after all.
Most anything is proper in marble, you know. But of this I will
write you hereafter.
Well, here I am at the bottom of my fourth page; and half my
object, when I sat down to write, was to tell you all about Mr.
Fane, whom I have scarce mentioned. But it will do for a letter
by itself. So, good-night for now, dearest Kitty, and to bed will go
And here, dropping the curtain for the present, upon the
Blivins side-scene in Paul's artistic life, we will pass to his
more personal experiences in another chapter.
| CHAPTER XII. Paul Fane, or, Parts of a life else untold | |