Through stained glass
Page 19
CHAPTER XIX
"My boy," said Leighton to Lewis two days later, as they were threadinga narrow street in the shadow of Montmartre, "you will meet in a fewmoments Le Brux, the only living sculptor. You will call him _Maitre_from the start. If he cuffs you or swears at you, call him _Mon Matre_.That's all the French you will need for some months."
Leighton dodged by a sleepy concierge with a grunted greeting andclimbed a broad stone stairway, then a narrower flight. He knocked on adoor and opened it. They passed into an enormous room, cluttered, ifsuch space could be said to be cluttered, with casts, molding-boards,clay, dry and wet, a throne, a couch, a workman's bench, and somedilapidated chairs. A man in a smock stood in the midst of the litter.
When Lewis's eye fell upon him as he turned toward them, the roomsuddenly became dwarfed. The man was a giant. A tremendous head, crownedwith a mass of grayish hair, surmounted a monster body. The voice, whenit came, did justice to such a frame. "My old one, my friend, Letonne!Thou art well come. Thou art the saving grace to an idle hour."
Once more Lewis sat for a long time listening to chatter that was quiteunintelligible. But he scarcely listened, for his eyes had robbed hisbrain of action. They roamed and feasted upon one bit of sculpture afteranother. Casts, discarded in corners, gleamed through layers of dustthat could not hide their wondrous contour. Others hung upon the wall.Some were fragments. A monster group, half finished, held the center ofthe floor. A ladder was beside it.
Leighton got up and strolled around. "What's new?" he asked. His eyesfell on the cast of an arm, a fragment. The arm was outstretched. It wasthe arm of a woman. So lightly had it been molded that it seemed tofloat. It seemed pillowed on invisible clouds.
"_Matre"_, said Leighton, "I want that. How much?"
Le Brux moved over beside the cast. As he approached it, Lewis stared athis bulk, at his hairy chest, showing at the open neck of his smock, athis great, nervous hands, and wondered if this could be the creator ofso soft a dream in clay.
"Bah! That?" said Le Brux. "It is only a trifle. Take it. It is thine."
"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Leighton. "You lend me the arm, andI'll lend you a thousand francs."
"Done!" cried Le Brux, with a laugh that shook heaven and earth. "Ah,rascal, thou knowest that I never pay."
As they went the rounds of the atelier, Lewis saw that his father wasgrowing nervous. Finally, Leighton drew from his pocket the little kidand its two broken legs. He held the lot out to Le Brux. The fragmentsseemed to dwindle to pin-points in Le Brux's vast hand.
"Well," he asked, "what's this?"
Leighton nodded toward Lewis,
"My boy made that."
Le Brux glanced down at his hand. A glint of interest lighted his eyesand passed. Then a tremendous frown darkened his brow.
"A pupil, eh? Bah!" With his thumb and forefinger he crushed the kid topowder. "I'll take no pupil."
Lewis gulped in dismay at seeing his kid demolished, but not soLeighton. He had noted the glint of interest. He turned on Le Brux.
"You'll take no pupil, eh? All right, don't. But you'll take my son. Youshall and you will."
"I will not," growled Le Brux.
"_Maitre"_ began Leighton--"but whom am I calling _Matre_? What areyou? D'you know what you are?" He shook his finger in Le Brux's face."You think you're a creator, but you're not. You're nothing but apalimpsest, the record of a single age. What are your works but oneman's thumb-print on the face of time? Here I am giving you a chance to_be_ a creator, to breed a live human that will carry on the torch--thatwill--"
Le Brux had seated himself heavily on the couch. He held his massivehead between his hands and groaned.
"Ah, Letonne," he interrupted, "our old friendship is dead--dead byviolence. Friends have said things to me before,--called me names,--andI have stood it. But none of them ever dared call me a palimpsest. Thouhast called me a palimpsest!"
Leighton seemed not to hear.
"Somebody," he continued, "that will carry on the mighty tradition of LeBrux. I could take a pupil to any one of a lot of whipper-snappers thatfondle clay, but _my son_ I bring to you. Why? Because you are thegreatest living sculptor? No. No great sculptor ever made another. If myboy's to be a sculptor, the only way you could stop him would be tochoke him to death."
"I hadn't thought of that," broke in Le Brux, with a look of relief. "Ifhe bothers me, eh? It would be easy."
In a flash Leighton was all smiles.
"So," he said, "it is settled. Lewis you stay here. If he throws youout, come back again."
"Eh! eh!" cried Le Brux, "not so fast. Listen. This is the most I cando. I'll let him stay here. I'll give him the room down the hall that Irent to keep any one else out, and--and--I'll use him for a model."
Leighton shrugged his shoulders.
"So, let it be so," he said. "The boy will make his own way into yourbig, hollow heart, and use it for a playroom. But just remember,_Matre_, that he is a boy--_my_ boy. If he is to go in for allthis,"--Leighton waved his hand at the casts,--"I want him to start inwith a man who sees art and art only, a man who didn't turn beast thefirst time he realized God didn't create woman with petticoats."
Le Brux's eyes bulged with comprehension. He thumped his resoundingchest.
"Me!" he cried--"me, a wet nurse!" He yanked open another button of hissmock. "Behold me! Have I the attributes?"
Leighton turned his back on him.
"Now you are ranting," he said. He picked up an old newspaper from thefloor and started to wrap up the cast he had bought. "Now listen,_Maitre_. Go and dress yourself for a change. The boy and I will spend afew hours looking for a fiacre that will stand the weight. Then we'llcome back, and I'll take you out for a drive to a place where you canremind yourself what a tree looks like. I'll also give you a dinner thatyou couldn't order in an hour with Careme holding your hand."
"Ah, _mon enfant_," sighed Le Brux, folding his hands across hisstomach, "thou hast struck me below the belt. Thou knowest that mymemory is not so short but what I will dine with thee."
When at seven o'clock the three sat down at a table which, likeeverything else that came in contact with Le Brux, seemed a size toosmall, Leighton said to his guest:
"_Maitre_, it has been my endeavor to provide to-night a single essencefrom each of the five great epochs of modern cookery."
"Yes, my child?" said Le Brux, gravely, but with an expectant gleam inhis eye.
"In no branch of science," continued Leighton, "have progress andinnovation been so constantly associated as in gastronomy, and we shallconsequently abandon the rule of the savants of the last generation andproceed from the light to the less light and then to the rich."
"I agree," said Le Brux.
Leighton nodded to the attendant. Soup was served.
"_Creme d'asperges a la reine_," murmured Le Brux. "Friend, is it not asource of regret that with the exception of the swallows'-nestextravaganza and your American essence of turtle, no soup has yet beeninvented the price of which is not within the reach of the common herd?I predict that even this dream of a master will become a commonplacewithin a generation."
"I am sorry," said Leighton, "that the boy can't understand you. Yourremark caps an argument I had with him the other day on the evanescentspirit in art."
The fish arrived.
"The only fish," remarked Leighton, "that can properly be served withouta sauce."
"And why?" said Le Brux, helping himself to the young trout fried inolive oil and simply garnished with lemon. "I will tell thee. BecauseGod himself hath half prepared the dish, giving to this dainty creaturea fragrance which assails the senses of man and adds to eating a visionof purling brooks and overhanging boughs." Suddenly, with his forkhalf-way to his mouth, he paused, and glared at Lewis, who was on thepoint of helping himself. "_Sacrilege_!"
Leighton looked up.
"My old one, you are perhaps right." He turned to Lewis. "Better skipthe fish." At the next dish he remarked, "Following t
he theory that adinner should progress as a child learning to walk, _Maitre_, I have atthis point dared to introduce an entremets--_cepes francs a la tetenoire_----"
"_A la bordelaise_," completed Le Brux, his nose above the dish. Hehelped Leighton to half of its contents and himself to the rest.
"Have patience, my old one," cried Leighton, "the boy may have anuneducated palate, but he is none the less possessed of a sublobularvoid that demands filling at stated intervals."
"Bah!" cried Le Brux, "order him a dish of tripe with onions--and _vinordinaire_. But he'll have to sit at another table."
"No," said Leighton, "that won't do. We'll let him sit here and watch usand when they come, we'll give him all the sweets and we'll watch him."
"Agreed," said Le Brux.