Aminadab 0803213131 by Unknown Read Free Book Online Page B

not free to move as he pleased. He ended up falling into a light sleepy state, but he took care to keep his eyes open, fixing on his executioner an impassive gaze unmoved by any hope for rest. "There, it's done!" cried the painter. "Now it's your turn. When you have said what you have to say, we'll be finished." So they were consulting him. Benumbed and miserable, Thomas saw a few inches before his face the canvas that was being presented to him as finished. Finished? He noticed first of all that the sketch, so precise before, had been smeared in several spots and that the divan was quite clumsily represented. But this did not prevent the painter from being satisfied; he pointed with an extraordinary joviality at certain details, as if they were the expression of a unique artfulness. Thomas politely approved; the clothes were reproduced exactly; in fact, they were so faithfully drawn and painted that in studying this meticulous copy, one felt a bizarre and quite un pleasant sensation; were these clothes then so important? As for the face, Thomas wondered in vain how the painter could imagine passing it off as that of its model. There was not the slightest resemblance. It was a sad and aged face on which the blurry features, as though erased by time, had lost all significance. What still mattered was the gaze. The painter had given it a strange expression, in no way alive - for it seemed on the contrary to con demn existence -but bound to life by a reminiscence lost among rubble 15
    Ie
I
    and ruins. This gaze did not appear to Thomas any stranger than the rest. Of whom did it remind him? He looked around. It reminded him natu rally enough of the guardian, whose troubled eyes rested on things with an expression that held them at a distance; one might have thought that these eyes looked by virtue of an internal light whose gleam might be ex tinguished from one moment to the next and that continued only out of a perverse stubbornness. The painter did not grow tired of admiring his work. The joy he drew from this contemplation rejuvenated and fortified him. This did not make him any more beautiful to look at, but however inappropriate his conduct was, it had an exalted and feverish quality from which it was impossible to turn away. Thomas watched him move about the room, carrying the painting in his outstretched arms, holding it under the light, placing it back in the dark ness. From a distance the portrait did not conform to reality as vividly as he had thought; only the suit was visible, but the suit bore a striking re semblance. In any case, these details did not seem to him to be of any real importance. Only the painter's gestures and movements held any interest for him, an interest explained by his curious behavior. After a few mo ments, the painter regained his sense of seriousness. He placed the paint ing in a frame and covered it with a piece of cloth. Then he took off his smock and appeared again in the worn-out suit covered with decorations and tarnished braids in which he had first appeared. He went on arranging certain things in the room, poured the water from the carafe onto the floor, and stirred the brushes around in the puddles. He carried out this action as though it were perfectly natural, which was enough to explain the state of the room itself. This room lost the chaotic aspect that the light had made so pleasant. Darkness invaded it almost completely. The guardian spread a tightfitting cover over the divan, and by means of a curtain rod, he lowered a large drop cloth that covered the easel. The rest of the furniture disap peared beneath a few other covers. The last object to be concealed was a canvas hanging on the wall; then it was over. Thomas saw that it was time to leave; the room was already empty. Still, he asked the guardian: "Can you give me some time?" At that moment he heard a knock. The guardian answered by shouting: ''I'm coming." ''I'm coming too," shouted Thomas, as if he had to put a word in as