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

sour? Are the brushes stiff?”
    “Alas!” the old man cried. “For a time I believed my painting was done; but now I’m sure several details are wrong, and I won’t have a moment’s peace till I’ve dispelled my doubts. I’ve made up my mind to travel—I’m off to Greece, Turkey, even Asia to look for a model; I want to compare my picture to various beauties in nature. Perhaps,” he continued with a smile of satisfaction, “perhaps I’ve got nature herself upstairs. Sometimes I’m almost afraid to breathe, lest I waken the woman and she vanishes.” And he suddenly stood up, as if to leave at that moment.
    “Oh, then I’m just in time,” Porbus replied, “to spare you the expense and the fatigue of the journey.”
    “How’s that?” asked Frenhofer in surprise.
    “Young Poussin happens to have a mistress of incomparable beauty—not one defect! But if he consents to lend her to you, you must give us at least a glimpse of that canvas of yours.”
    The old man remained standing just where he had risen to his feet, in a state of utter stupefaction.
    “What!” he exclaimed at last, with a wail of pain. “Expose my creation, my wife? Rend the veil by which I’ve so chastely hidden my happiness? But that would be a terrible prostitution! For ten years now I’ve lived with this woman; she’s mine, mine alone, she loves me. Hasn’t she smiled at me with each brushstroke I’ve given her? She has a soul, I tell you, the soul I’ve endowed her with. She’d blush if other eyes than mine were fastened on her. Show her! What husband, what lover would be vile enough to put his own wife to such shame? When you paint a picture for the court, you needn’t put your very soul into it; what you’re selling the courtiers is no more than a fancy mannequin! My painting’s not a painting, my figure’s a feeling, a passion! Born in my studio, my beauty must remain inviolate there—she may not leave until she’s fully dressed. Poetry and women show themselves naked only to their lovers! Do we possess Raphael’s model, Ariosto’s Angelica, Dante’s Beatrice? No, we see only their Forms. Well! The work I keep under lock and key upstairs is an exception in our art. It isn’t a canvas, it’s a woman! A woman with whom I weep and laugh and talk and think. Do you suppose I’d suddenly abandon ten years’ felicity the way you take off a cloak? That all at once I’d cease being a father, a lover, and God Himself? This woman’s not a creature, she’s a creation. Let your young man come, I’ll give him my treasures, I’ll give him Correggios, Titians, even Michelangelos! I’ll kiss his footprints in the dust. But make him my rival? Shame on me! Ha, ha! I’m still more of a lover than a painter. Yes, I’m strong enough to burn my Catherine as I draw my dying breath, but to compel her to endure the gaze of a man, a young man, a painter? No, no! If anyone sullied her with a glance, I’d kill him the next day! I’d kill you then and there, my friend, if you didn’t greet her on your knees! And you’d have me subject my idol to the cold gaze and the stupid criticisms of fools? Ah, love’s a mystery: it lives only in the depths of our hearts, and all is lost when a man says, even to his friend, ‘This is the woman I love!’”
    The old man seemed to become young again; his eyes glistened with life, his pale cheeks were tinged with a sudden red, and his hands trembled. Porbus, amazed at the passionate violence with which these words were spoken, was at a loss to reply to a sentiment as novel as it was profound. Was Frenhofer in his right mind, or was he mad? Had he been overtaken by an artist’s illusion, or did such ideas result from that ineffable fanaticism caused by the long gestation of a great work? Could one ever hope to speak reason to this strange passion?
    A prey to such thoughts, Porbus asked the old man, “But isn’t it one woman for another? Isn’t Poussin yielding his mistress to your