I uttered an exclamation of indignation and compassion.
“Yes,” continued Giuletta Marchini, “Max Wieland was my lover. He had stolen my picture, he had robbed me of my fame. I do not quite know what happened when I heard it. I think I lost my head completely for a time — my mother tells me I was ill for months. But I myself have no remembrance of anything but a long blank of hopeless misery. Of course, I never saw Max again. I wrote to him; he never answered. I told the picture-dealer my story, but he would not believe it. ‘The design of “I Barberi”’ he said, ’is not that of a feminine hand. It is purely masculine. If Max Wieland is your damo, you do him a great and cruel injustice by striving to pass off your very accurate copy as the original. It will not do, my dear little sly one, it will not do! I am too old and experienced a judge for that. No girl of your age was ever capable of designing such a work — look at the anatomy and the colouring! It is the man’s touch all over — nothing feminine about it.’ And then,” went on Giuletta slowly, “the story got about that I had tried to steal Max Wieland’s picture, and that he had broken off his engagement with me on that account. My mother, who is old and feeble, grew almost mad with anger, for she had witnessed his work of copying from me — but no one would believe her either. They only said it was natural she should try to defend her own daughter. Then we were poor, and we had no money to appeal to the law. No dealer would purchase anything that bore my name — as an artist I was ruined.”
Here the dog Mitû, conscious that his mistress’s voice had rather a sad tone in it, limped across to her on his three legs, holding up his bandaged paw. She smiled, and lifted him up in her arms.
“Yes — we were ruined, Mitû!” she said, resting her pretty rounded chin on his silky head. “Ruined as far as the world and the world’s applause went. But one cannot put a stop to thoughts — they will grow, like flowers, wherever there is any soil to give them root. And though I knew I could not sell my pictures, I continued to paint for my own pleasure; and to keep my mother and myself alive I gave drawing-lessons to children. But we were poor — intolerably, squalidly poor — till one day Mr. Hoskins came.”
“And then?” I inquired eagerly.
“Why, then — well!” and the fair Marchini laughed a little. “He made me a curious proposal. He said he was an American artist who desired to establish himself in Rome. He could only paint landscapes, he told me, and he knew he would require to have ‘figure-pictures’ in his studio to ‘draw.’ He said he would pay me handsomely to do these ‘figure-pictures’ if I would sell them to him outright, let him put his name to them, and ask no more about them. I hesitated at first, but my mother was very ill at the time, and I had no money. I was driven by necessity, and at last I consented. And Mr. Hoskins has kept his word about payment — he is very generous — and my mother and I are quite well off now.”
“But he is asking fifteen thousand dollars for the ‘Daphne,’” I cried, “and he only gives you two thousand francs! Do you call that generous?” Giuletta Marchini looked thoughtful.
“Well, I don’t know!” she said sweetly, with a plaintive uplifting of her eyebrows; “you see it costs him a great deal to live in Rome; he entertains numbers of people and has to keep a carriage. Now it costs us very little to live as we do, and we have no friends at all. Two thousand francs is quite as large a sum to me as fifteen thousand dollars is to him.”
“And you will never make any attempt to secure for yourself the personal fame you so well deserve?” I asked in astonishment.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“I think not! What is the use of it — to a woman? Celebrity for our sex, as I said before, simply means — slander! A man may secure fame through the vilest and most illegitimate means, he may steal other people’s brains to make his own career, he may bribe the critics, he may do anything and everything in his power, dishonourably or otherwise — provided he succeeds he is never blamed. But let a woman become famous through the unaided exertions of her own hand and brain, she is always suspected of having been ‘helped’ by somebody. No, I cannot say I care for fame. I painted my picture, or, rather, Mr. Hoskins’s picture” — and she smiled—” out of a strong feeling of sympathy with the legend. The god approaches, and the woman is transformed from a creature of throbbing joys and hopes and passions into the laurel — a tree of bitter taste and scentless flower! I am happier as I am — unknown to the world — while Hoskins ’is an honourable man’!” she finished, making the Shaksperian quotation with a bright laugh, as she dropped the curtain over the great canvas of “I Barberi,” the picture that had been the cause of so much sorrow in her life.
After this adventure I visited Giuletta Marchini often, and tried to argue with her on the erroneous position she occupied. I pointed out to her that Nehemiah P. Hoskins was making out of her genius a fraudulent reputation for himself. But she assured me there were many struggling artists in Rome who made their living in the same way as she did — namely, by painting pictures for American “artists” who had no idea of painting for themselves. I discussed the matter with her mother, a dried-up little chip of an old woman with black eyes that sparkled like jewels, and I found her quite as incorrigible on the subject as Giuletta herself.
“When a girl’s heart is broken, what can you do?” she said, with eloquent gestures of her head and hands. “The Austrian devil is to blame — Max Wieland; may all evil follow him! Giuletta loved him. I believe, if she would only confess it, she loves him now. Her character is not a changeful one. She is one of those women who would let her lover kill her and kiss the hand that dealt the blow. She has genius — oh, yes! Genius is not rare in Italy. It is in the blood of the people, and we do not wonder at it. Things are best as they are. She is not happy, perhaps, but she is at peace. She loves her work and we are able to live. That is enough, and all we want in this world. And for Giuletta, a woman does not care for fame when she has lost love.”
And from her I could get no other verdict. She had, however, a strong sense of humour, I found, and fully recognised the art-fraud practised on his patrons by Nehemiah P. Hoskins, but she could not see that her daughter was either affected or injured by it. At Giuletta’s own earnest request I therefore refrained from any immediate interference with Nehemiah’s prosperity and growing reputation. He was quite the “lion” in Rome that year, and entertained whole embassies at tea. The “Daphne” was purchased at his own price by one of the wealthiest of his countrymen (a former “navvy,” who now keeps “secretaries” and buys historical land in England), who has had it carefully “hung” in the most conspicuous part of his new picture-gallery, and who calls Hoskins “the American Raphael.”
Meanwhile, at my suggestion, Giuletta Marchini is painting a work which she intends to submit to some of the best judges of art in Paris; and, judging from its design so far as it has proceeded, I think it is possible that in a couple of years Nehemiah P. Hoskins will be found to have “gone off” in a singular manner, while Giuletta Marchini will have “come up,” to be received, no doubt, with the usual mixture of abuse and grudging praise awarded to work that is known to be woman’s, instead of the applause that frequently attends the inane productions of pretentious and fraudulent men. In truth, it would sometimes seem that it is better, as this world goes, to be a man and an impostor, than a woman and honest. And concerning American artists in Rome, it is well known how many a one has there enjoyed a brief but dazzling reputation for “genius,” which has suddenly ended in “smoke,” because the gifted Italian who has played “ghost” behind the scenes has died, or emigrated, or gone elsewhere to make a name for himself. This rapid and apparently mysterious failure has attended the career of one Max Wieland, upon whom the Viennese journals now and then comment in terms of reproach and disappointment. His great picture, they say, of “I Barberi,” had led the world of art to expect works from him of the very highest order, but, strange to say, he has done nothing since worthy of remark or criticism. Giuletta knows this, but is silen
t on the subject, and for herself, is certainly more alarmed than pleased at the prospect of winning her deserved fame.
“To be censured and misunderstood,” she says, “is it pleasant — for a woman? To be pointed out as if one were a branded criminal, and regarded with jealousy, suspicion, and even hatred — is it worth fighting for? I myself doubt it. Yet if the laurel must grow from a human heart I suppose it cannot but cause pain.”
And even while she works steadily on at her new picture, she tells me she is quite contented as she is, and happier than she thinks she is likely to be as an art “celebrity.” In the interim, Nehemiah P. Hoskins, the “American Raphael,” is triumphant; accepting homage for genius not his own, and pocketing cash for work he has not done; while he is never so magnificently convincing, so grandiloquently impressive, as when, surrounded by admiring male friends, he discourses complacently upon the “totally mistaken” vocation of “woman in art”!
AN OLD BUNDLE.
“SHE’S a reg’lar old bundle — she is; more worry than she’s wuth!”
The speaker was a buxom laundress of some thirty-five or forty years of age, with à plump, merry face, a twinkling eye, and an all-round comfortable, kindly manner; and her words, though in themselves apparently harsh, were uttered in such a tone of genuine, if half-playful, affection, as robbed them of every suspicion of ill-humour. She was ironing out some dainty articles of feminine apparel profusely trimmed with lace, and though her attention was chiefly bent on her work, she glanced every now and then, with a curious mingling of wearied patience and keen anxiety, to the chimney-corner of her ironing-room, where, in a large chair, propped up by a large pillow, sat the “old bundle” alluded to.
“She will come in here on ironin’ days; it ain’t no good tryin’ to prevent ‘er. She can’t see a bit how the things is bein’ done; but she fancies she can, an’ that’s just as good for’er. Lor’, now! Look at ‘er, all droopin’ forward fit to break ‘erself in two! Here, granny! Hold up!”
And thus exclaiming, she hurried to the chair, and, with tender zeal, lifted the “bundle” into a better sitting posture, thereby disclosing to view a little old woman with a nut-brown wrinkled face like that of some well-preserved mummy. Two very small, very dim eyes peered up at her as she settled the pillow, and a weak wheezy voice piped out —
“That’s ‘er! That’s my little Betty, my youngest grandarter! I knows ‘er — I knows ’em all — fine-grown boys an’ gels, for sure! Betty, she’s a good hand at frills, but she can’t do ’em as I could when I was a gel. Lor’! when I was a gel — eh, dearie, dearie me—” Here the voice sighed away into indistinct murmurings, and ceased.
Her “youngest grandarter” looked round with a matronly smile.
“That’s the way old folks alius’ goes on,” she observed indulgently. “I ‘xpect I’ll do the same if I’m ever ‘er age. She’s a wonderful one for ‘er time of life — ninety-five come Christmas. Such a memory as she’s got! A bit mixed now an’ then, but there’s a’most nothing she can’t remember. She was a married woman with a family before the Queen was crowned; an’ once she was somewhere nigh Windsor Park an’ saw the Prince o’ Wales carried about as a baby. Didn’t ye, granny?” Here she raised her voice to something between a shriek and a whistle. “Didn’t ye see the Prince o’ Wales in long clothes?”
A galvanic shock appeared to go through the “old bundle,” and two skinny hands were thrust forth tremblingly in the air.
“Ay, that I did!” wheezed the weak voice again. “He wor the dearest little dear, as rosy as rosy — Lor’ bless his ‘art! I seed ’im on his marriage-day, too — me an’ my ‘usband; we were a’most killed in the crowd, so we was, but I seed ’im, an’ he smiled at me — so did the beautiful princess from Denmark, she smiled, too — just straight at me. It’s truth I’m tellin’ — both on ’em smiled at me just straight an’ pleasant like — it’s truth I’m tellin’—”
“No one’s doubtin’ ye, granny,” said the comely Betty, shaking out the ethereal-looking lace petticoat she had just finished, and unrolling another preparatory to further operations. “You were a fine, handsome woman still, then, worn’t ye, eh?” This with a sly wink round.
“Ah, worn’t I, worn’t I?” screamed granny, now becoming wildly excited. “You ask William what I wor! He’ll tell ye! He used to say, “You’ll never get old, my dear; that’s what it is, you’ll never get old.’ Where’s William? You ask ’im — he’s the man to talk o’ my looks; he thought a deal o’ them — he’ll tell ye. It ain’t for me to praise mysell” — and here an odd chuckle and creak came from the chair, whereby it became dimly manifest that the “old bundle” was laughing— “it ain’t for me — you fetch ’im an’ ask ’im — he’ll tell ye—”
“That’s poor grandfather she’s chattering about now,” said Betty very softly. “He’s been dead these twenty years.”
She went on ironing, meditatively, for a few minutes, and then said —
“It’s queer how some folks never get quite what they want in this world. Now she” — jerking her head in the “old bundle’s” direction—” she’s had a particular wish all ‘er days, an’ it’s never been given to ‘er — now and again she do harp on it till she wears a body out. In all ‘er terrible long life she’s never seen the Queen, an’ that’s ‘er craziness. She takes it awful badly. We’ve tried all we know to manage it for ‘er, an’ it seems as if there was a fate against it. She could never manage it for ‘erself when she was well an’ strong, an’ now it’s more ‘ard than ever. We took ‘er with us on Jubilee day, an’ she began to cry at the sight of the crowd, an’ got nervous like; then we took ‘er when the Imperial Institute was opened, an’ that worn’t no use neither, she was too feeble to stand the pushing an’ scrambling. We’ve done our best, but something alius comes in the way, so I expect it’s no good trying any more.”
At that moment granny lifted herself up with a good deal of energy and peered at the ironing-board.
“What are ye doin’ with them frills?” she demanded. “You ain’t ‘arf a hand at them. When I was a gel, I could do frills fit for the Queen to wear. Ah! she must be a fine leddy, the Queen of England, with ‘er gold crown on ‘er head an’ ‘er great jewels on ‘er breast; an”er grand robes all round an’ about ‘er, an’ trailing yards on the ground. Eh, dearie, dearie, dearie, me!” — and she shook a sort of eldritch wail out of herself—” I’ll never be at peace till I see ‘er — never! I’ve seen the Prince of Wales many a time, God bless ’im! — an’ the princess — an’ they’ve smiled at me — but Lor’! the Queen is like the Lord Almighty — we’ve got to believe in ‘er without seein’ ‘er!”
Her granddaughter looked gravely shocked.
“Lor’, granny, you shouldn’t talk so — it sounds as blasphemous as if ye were in church,” she said, with a most curious irrelevance. “I’m just surprised at you — a decent, God-fearing body like yourself. Surely there’s no such need for us to see the Queen; it’s enough to know that she’s there.”
“‘Tain’t!” shrieked the “old bundle” vehemently. “‘Tain’t, I tell ye! She’s there, is she? Where? Where is she, ye silly gel? Don’t make me a fool nor yourself neither! Where is she?”
“Why, granny, in ‘er palaces, for sure!” replied Betty soothingly.
“Don’t she never come out o’ them palaces?” expostulated granny, getting shriller and shriller. “Don’t she never take no air? Then it’s a shame to the country to let ‘er be stifled up an’ hidden away from the people who would love to see ‘er with ‘er robes an’ crown on ‘er ‘ead, poor pretty dear! I call it just disgraceful, I do! Get ‘er out of it — yes, you tell William what I say; the country ain’t got no business to’ keep ‘er shut up first in one prison an’ then another — an’ I tell ye, Betty, there’s something very queer about the way they send ‘er to Scotland for such a long time— ‘tain’t right, Betty! — you mark my words, ‘tain’t right! — it’s a plot to keep ‘er aw
ay from us, you see if it ain’t! Lor’! she’s a young woman yet — just lost ‘er ‘usband too! it’s ‘ard on ‘er to shut ‘er up — it’s powerful ‘ard—”
Here granny sank back exhausted, her withered head shaking to and fro involuntarily with the violence of her emotions.
“Lor’! bless ‘er ‘eart!” cried Betty, running to her, and tenderly caressing what now truly appeared to be nothing but a sunken heap of clothes. “How she do mix up things, to be sure! She can’t get ’em right nohow. She ain’t forgotten nothing, an’ yet she can’t sort ’em straight. Hullo, granny! Lord love ‘er! If she ain’t cryin’ now!”
“They ain’t got no right,” whimpered granny dolefully, burying her wrinkles in her granddaughter’s ample bosom, “to shut up the Queen. Let us ‘ave a look at ‘er, I say — we all loves ‘er, and we’ll ‘earten ‘er up a bit—”
“Don’t you worrit, granny,” said the buxom Betty consolingly. “She isn’t shut up — don’t you think it! She can go out whenever she likes.”
“Can she?” and the “old bundle” lifted her tear-stained, aged face, with a faint hope expressed upon it.
“Ah, well, if it’s the truth you’re speakin’, I’m glad to ‘ear it. I’m glad an’ thankful she can come out o’ them palaces. But I’ve never seen ‘er, an’ I wish — I wish” — here came a prolonged and dismal snuffle—” I wish I could see ‘er with my own eyes afore” — a long pause— “afore I die.”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 905
