The Unknown Masterpiece by Honoré de Balzac Read Free Book Online Page A

something?”
    “Yes.”
    “If you want me to pose for you the way I did the other day,” she continued with a little pout, “I’ll never do that again, for when I do, your eyes no longer speak to me. You aren’t thinking of me, even when you’re looking right at me.”
    “Would you like it better if I was drawing another woman?”
    “Maybe,” she said, “if she were really ugly.”
    “Well then,” Poussin continued in a serious tone of voice, “what if, for my future glory—if it would make me a great painter—you were to pose for someone else?”
    “You’re testing me,” she said. “You know perfectly well I wouldn’t do it!”
    Poussin’s head dropped onto his chest like a man yielding to a joy or a sorrow too strong for his soul.
    “Listen,” she said, tugging the sleeve of Poussin’s threadbare doublet, “I’ve told you, Nick, I’d give my life for you, but I never promised you I’d give up my love.”
    “Give it up?” cried Poussin.
    “If I showed myself that way to someone else, you wouldn’t love me anymore. And I myself would feel unworthy of you. I do everything you ask, don’t I? It’s only natural I should. In spite of myself, I’m happy that way. I’m even proud to do your will. But for someone else—oh no!”
    “Forgive me, Gillette!” the painter exclaimed, kneeling before her. “I’d rather have love than all the fame in the world—you’re more to me than wealth and honors. Go throw away my brushes, burn these sketches. I was wrong. My vocation is loving you—I’m not a painter, I’m a lover. Let art and its secrets go to the devil!”
    She marveled at him, happy, enchanted! She ruled now, and felt instinctively that art was forgotten for her sake, cast at her feet like a grain of incense.
    “Even so, he’s just an old man,” mused Poussin. “He’d only be able to see the woman in you. You’re so perfect!”
    “Love conquers all!” she cried, ready to sacrifice her romantic scruples to reward Poussin for all he was giving up on her account. “But it will be the ruin of me. Oh, I’m perfectly willing to ruin myself for your sake! I know it’s a beautiful thing to do, but then you’ll forget me. Oh, what a terrible idea has taken possession of your mind!”
    “It has, and I love you,” he said with a sort of contrition. “Does that make me a villain?”
    “Shall we consult Father Hardouin?” she asked.
    “Oh no, let it be our secret.”
    “All right then, I’ll go, but you must not be there,” she said. “Stay outside the door, keep your sword drawn, and if I scream, come in and kill the painter.”
    No longer envisioning anything but his art, Poussin flung his arms around Gillette.
    “He doesn’t love me anymore!” thought Gillette once she was alone, already regretting her decision. But she soon fell prey to a fear crueler than her regret, though she tried to dismiss the dreadful thought that coiled round her heart: perhaps she already loved the painter less, suspecting him of being less worthy of love than before.

    2. Catherine Lescault
    Three months after Poussin met Porbus, the latter paid a visit to Maître Frenhofer. The old man was suffering at the time from one of those deep and spontaneous depressions caused, according to the mathematicians of medicine, by poor digestion, by wind, by heat, or by some swelling of the abdominal regions; and according to those who prefer a spiritual explanation, by the imperfection of our moral nature. The poor man was quite simply exhausted by the effort to complete his mysterious picture. He appeared to have collapsed on an enormous throne of carved oak upholstered in black leather, and without altering his melancholy posture, he stared at Porbus with the expression of a man not to be argued out of his distress.
    “Well now, maître,” Porbus cajoled him, “was it so bad, that ultramarine you went all the way to Bruges for? Or couldn’t you grind your new white fine enough? Has your oil gone