6. THE BACKGROUND
"That woman's art-jargon tires me," said Clovis to his
journalist friend. "She's so fond of talking of certain
pictures as 'growing on one,' as though they were a sort of
fungus."
"That reminds me," said the journalist, "of the story
of Henri Deplis. Have I ever told it you?"
Clovis shook his head.
"Henri Deplis was by birth a native of the Grand Duchy of
Luxemburg. On maturer reflection he became a commercial
traveller. His business activities frequently took him
beyond the limits of the Grand Duchy, and he was stopping in
a small town of Northern Italy when news reached him from
home that a legacy from a distant and deceased relative had
fallen to his share.
"It was not a large legacy, even from the modest
standpoint of Henri Deplis, but it impelled him towards some
seemingly harmless extravagances. In particular it led him
to patronize local art as represented by the tattoo-needles
of Signor Andreas Pincini. Signor Pincini was, perhaps, the
most brilliant master of tattoo craft that Italy had ever
known, but his circumstances were decidedly impoverished,
and for the sum of six hundred francs he gladly undertook to
cover his client's back, from the collar-bone down to the
waist-line, with a glowing representation of the Fall of
Icarus. The design, when finally developed, was a slight
disappointment to Monsieur Deplis, who had suspected Icarus
of being a fortress taken by Wallenstein in the Thirty
Years' War, but he was more than satisfied with the
execution of the work, which was acclaimed by all who had
the privilege of seeing it as Pincini's masterpiece.
"It was his greatest effort, and his last. Without even
waiting to be paid, the illustrious craftsman departed this
life, and was buried under an ornate tombstone, whose winged
cherubs would have afforded singularly little scope for the
exercise of his favourite art. There remained, however, the
widow Pincini, to whom the six hundred francs were due. And
thereupon arose the great crisis in the life of Henri
Deplis, traveller of commerce.
The legacy, under the stress
of numerous little calls on its substance, had dwindled to
very insignificant proportions, and when a pressing wine
bill and sundry other current accounts had been paid, there
remained little more than 430 francs to offer to the widow.
The lady was properly indignant, not wholly, as she volubly
explained, on account of the suggested writing-off of 170
francs, but also at the attempt to depreciate the value of
her late husband's acknowledged masterpiece. In a week's
time Deplis was obliged to reduce his offer to 405 francs,
which circumstance fanned the widow's indignation into a
fury. She cancelled the sale of the work of art, and a few
days later Deplis learned with a sense of consternation that
she bad presented it to the municipality of Bergamo, which
had gratefully accepted it. He left the neighbourhood as
unobtrusively as possible, and was genuinely relieved when
his business commands took him to Rome, where he hoped his
identity and that of the famous picture might be lost sight
of.
"But he bore on his back the burden of the dead man's
genius. On presenting himself one day in the steaming
corridor of a vapour
bath, he was at once hustled back into
his clothes by the proprietor, who was a North Italian, and
who emphatically refused to allow the celebrated Fall of
Icarus to be publicly on view without the permission of the
municipality of Bergamo. Public interest and official
vigilance increased as the matter became more widely known,
and Deplis was unable to take a simple dip in the sea or
river on the hottest afternoon unless clothed up to the
collar-bone in a substantial bathing garment. Later on the
authorities of Bergamo conceived the idea that salt water
might be injurious to the masterpiece, and a perpetual
injunction was obtained which debarred the muchly harassed
commercial traveller from sea bathing under any
circumstances. Altogether, he was fervently thankful when
his firm of employers found him a new range of activities in
the neighbourhood of Bordeaux. His thankfulness, however,
ceased abruptly at the Franco-Italian frontier. An imposing
array of official force barred his departure, and he was
sternly reminded of the stringent law which forbids the
exportation of Italian works of art.
A diplomatic parley ensued between the
Luxemburgian and
Italian Governments, and at one time the European situation
became overcast with the possibilities of trouble. But the
Italian Government stood firm; it declined to concern itself
in the least with the fortunes or even the existence of
Henri Deplis, commercial traveller, but was immovable in its
decision that the Fall of Icarus (by the late Pincini,
Andreas) at present the property of the municipality of
Bergamo, should not leave the country.
"The excitement died down in time, but the unfortunate
Deplis, who was of a constitutionally retiring disposition,
found himself a few months later once more the storm-centre
of a furious controversy. A certain German art expert, who
had obtained from the municipality of Bergamo permission to
inspect the famous masterpiece, declared it to be a spurious
Pincini, probably the work of some pupil whom he had
employed in his declining years. The evidence of Deplis on
the subject was obviously worthless, as he had been under
the influence of the customary narcotics during the long
process of pricking in the design. The editor of an Italian
art journal refuted the contentions of the German
expert and
undertook to prove that his private life did not conform to
any modern standard of decency. The whole of Italy and
Germany were drawn into the dispute, and the rest of Europe
was soon involved in the quarrel. There were stormy scenes
in the Spanish Parliament, and the University of Copenhagen
bestowed a gold medal on the German expert (afterwards
sending a commission to examine his proofs on the spot),
while two Polish schoolboys in Paris committed suicide to
show what
they thought of the matter.
"Meanwhile, the unhappy human background fared no better
than before, and it was not surprising that he drifted into
the ranks of Italian anarchists. Four times at least he was
escorted to the frontier as a dangerous and undesirable
foreigner, but he was always brought back as the Fall of
Icarus (attributed to Pincini, Andreas, early Twentieth
Century). And then one day, at an anarchist congress at
Genoa, a fellow-worker, in the heat of debate, broke a phial
full of corrosive liquid over his back. The red shirt that
he was wearing mitigated the effects, but the Icarus was
ruined beyond recognition. His
assailant was severely
reprimanded for assaulting a fellow-anarchist and received
seven years' imprisonment for defacing a national art
treasure. As soon as he was able to leave the hospital
Henri Deplis was put across the frontier as an undesirable
alien.
"In the quieter streets of Paris, especially in the
neighbourhood of the Ministry of Fine Arts, you may
sometimes meet a depressed, anxious-looking man, who, if you
pass him the time of day, will answer you with a slight
Luxemburgian accent. He nurses the illusion that he is one
of the lost arms of the Venus de Milo, and hopes that the
French Government may be persuaded to buy him. On all other
subjects I believe he is tolerably sane."