the landscape he’d been
commissioned to paint with a storm raging the way it was, she
wanted to know.
How was she supposed to pay for the milk and butter they needed? No wonder the child was bawling all the time with such a useless thing for a father! To get away from her, the painter locked himself in his studio, where he sat sulking and blinking at his blank canvas. But after what felt like an endless morning, the weather broke: The sky was overcast, the sodden streets blanched by a flat, pallid light. “It will have to do.”
He packed up his box of paints and brushes and, with a folded easel under his arm, escaped into the streets. The gutters were choked with mud and litter. The rumble of carriages attacked his ears like the roaring of giant beasts, and the faces of those he passed, peering out sullenly from between lowered hat brims and upturned collars, seemed marred by unfriendliness if not outright hostility. In the Jardin des Tuileries, he placed his easel next to an oval pond, with a view across its surface to a stand of chestnut trees. Normally a quick painter who finished canvases in a matter of hours, this one gave him trouble for some reason. He tried to empty his mind, to forget the morning’s fret and lose himself in the ecstasy of creation. But when he put away his brushes at the end of the afternoon, his canvas boasted little more than the clouds of color that comprised his background tones, in the middle of which he was surprised to see daubs of black paint. “Let’s have a look at what you’ve done,” his wife commanded when he returned to the apartment. She reached for the canvas. Her lips pursed in perplexity, her brow collapsed. The baby, whom she held absently in one arm, began to cry. “What are these?” She pointed to the spots of black paint. “I will correct them tomorrow,” he said. “You’d better or you won’t get paid, and then where will we be?” The next day’s painting went much like the first. He struggled to tap the vein of inspiration, to let himself become hypnotized by the wonder of nature, the rhythmic dipping of his brush in oils and the feel of its bristles on canvas. When he packed up his supplies in the late afternoon, he was stunned to see, amid the rough contours of pond and trees he had produced with hours of effort, that not only were the daubs of black paint still there, they were larger and more detailed—not daubs at all but the crude beginnings of human figures walking over the pond’s surface toward…him. Nor were they strictly black in color. One of the figures had taken on a decisively reddish hue. He covered the painting with his jacket to avoid looking at it and, full of a foreboding he couldn’t explain, started the walk home, passing squalid brasseries and dingy apartment houses he had never noticed before. His usual route was blocked off, clogged with onlookers of some police activity—the crowd so greedy for a glimpse of others’ misfortune that he became frightened and turned off into the nearest lane. He took an unfamiliar course home and was hiding in his studio when his wife burst in. “I want to see it,” she said.
“I don’t…It’s not…” he stammered.
She noticed his jacket hanging over the easel. “Is that it?” “No.” She stepped to the easel before he could stop her, yanked the jacket off and— “You said you were going to fix them!” she protested when she saw the strange figures. “Do you want your son to starve? Are you trying to kill us through hardship?”
How was she supposed to pay for the milk and butter they needed? No wonder the child was bawling all the time with such a useless thing for a father! To get away from her, the painter locked himself in his studio, where he sat sulking and blinking at his blank canvas. But after what felt like an endless morning, the weather broke: The sky was overcast, the sodden streets blanched by a flat, pallid light. “It will have to do.”
He packed up his box of paints and brushes and, with a folded easel under his arm, escaped into the streets. The gutters were choked with mud and litter. The rumble of carriages attacked his ears like the roaring of giant beasts, and the faces of those he passed, peering out sullenly from between lowered hat brims and upturned collars, seemed marred by unfriendliness if not outright hostility. In the Jardin des Tuileries, he placed his easel next to an oval pond, with a view across its surface to a stand of chestnut trees. Normally a quick painter who finished canvases in a matter of hours, this one gave him trouble for some reason. He tried to empty his mind, to forget the morning’s fret and lose himself in the ecstasy of creation. But when he put away his brushes at the end of the afternoon, his canvas boasted little more than the clouds of color that comprised his background tones, in the middle of which he was surprised to see daubs of black paint. “Let’s have a look at what you’ve done,” his wife commanded when he returned to the apartment. She reached for the canvas. Her lips pursed in perplexity, her brow collapsed. The baby, whom she held absently in one arm, began to cry. “What are these?” She pointed to the spots of black paint. “I will correct them tomorrow,” he said. “You’d better or you won’t get paid, and then where will we be?” The next day’s painting went much like the first. He struggled to tap the vein of inspiration, to let himself become hypnotized by the wonder of nature, the rhythmic dipping of his brush in oils and the feel of its bristles on canvas. When he packed up his supplies in the late afternoon, he was stunned to see, amid the rough contours of pond and trees he had produced with hours of effort, that not only were the daubs of black paint still there, they were larger and more detailed—not daubs at all but the crude beginnings of human figures walking over the pond’s surface toward…him. Nor were they strictly black in color. One of the figures had taken on a decisively reddish hue. He covered the painting with his jacket to avoid looking at it and, full of a foreboding he couldn’t explain, started the walk home, passing squalid brasseries and dingy apartment houses he had never noticed before. His usual route was blocked off, clogged with onlookers of some police activity—the crowd so greedy for a glimpse of others’ misfortune that he became frightened and turned off into the nearest lane. He took an unfamiliar course home and was hiding in his studio when his wife burst in. “I want to see it,” she said.
“I don’t…It’s not…” he stammered.
She noticed his jacket hanging over the easel. “Is that it?” “No.” She stepped to the easel before he could stop her, yanked the jacket off and— “You said you were going to fix them!” she protested when she saw the strange figures. “Do you want your son to starve? Are you trying to kill us through hardship?”