They examined the picture, moving from right to left, standing directly before it, bending, swaying, rising by turns.
"Yes, yes; it is really a canvas," cried Frenhofer, mistaking the purpose of their examination. "See, here is the frame, the easel; these are my colors, my brushes." And he caught up a brush which he held out to them with a naive motion.
"The old rogue is making game of us," said Poussin, coming close to the pretended picture. "I can see nothing here but a mass of confused color, crossed by a multitude of eccentric lines, making a sort of painted wall."
"We are mistaken. See!" returned Porbus.
Coming nearer, they perceived in a corner of the canvas the point of a naked foot, which came forth from the chaos of colors, tones, shadows hazy and undefined, misty and without form,--an enchanting foot, a living foot. They stood lost in admiration before this glorious fragment breaking forth from the incredible, slow, progressive destruction around it. The foot seemed to them like the torso of some Grecian Venus, brought to light amid the ruins of a burned city.
"There is a woman beneath it all!" cried Porbus, calling Poussin's attention to the layers of color which the old painter had successively laid on, believing that he thus brought his work to perfection. The two men turned towards him with one accord, beginning to comprehend, though vaguely, the ecstasy in which he lived.
"He means it in good faith," said Porbus.
"Yes, my friend," answered the old man, rousing from his abstraction, "we need faith; faith in art. We must live with our work for years before we can produce a creation like that. Some of these shadows have cost me endless toil. See, there on her cheek, below the eyes, a faint half-shadow; if you observed it in Nature you might think it could hardly be rendered. Well, believe me, I took unheard-of pains to reproduce that effect. My dear Porbus, look attentively at my work, and you will comprehend what I have told you about the manner of treating form and outline. Look at the light on the bosom, and see how by a series of touches and higher lights firmly laid on I have managed to grasp light itself, and combine it with the dazzling whiteness of the clearer tones; and then see how, by an opposite method,--smoothing off the sharp contrasts and the texture of the color,--I have been able, by caressing the outline of my figure and veiling it with cloudy half-tints, to do away with the very idea of drawing and all other artificial means, and give to the form the aspect and roundness of Nature itself. Come nearer, and you will see the work more distinctly; if too far off it disappears. See! there, at that point, it is, I think, most remarkable." And with the end of his brush he pointed to a spot of clear light color.
Porbus struck the old man on the shoulder, turning to Poussin as he did so, and said, "Do you know that he is one of our greatest painters?"
"He is a poet even more than he is a painter," answered Poussin gravely.
"There," returned Porbus, touching the canvas, "is the ultimate end of our art on earth."
"And from thence," added Poussin, "it rises, to enter heaven."
"How much happiness is there!--upon that canvas," said Porbus.
The absorbed old man gave no heed to their words; he was smiling at his visionary woman.
"But sooner or later, he will perceive that there is nothing there," cried Poussin.
"Nothing there!--upon my canvas?" said Frenhofer, looking first at the two painters, and then at his imaginary picture.
"What have you done?" cried Porbus, addressing Poussin.
The old man seized the arm of the young man violently, and said to him, "You see nothing?--clown, infidel, scoundrel, dolt! Why did you come here? My good Porbus," he added, turning to his friend, "is it possible that you, too, are jesting with me? Answer; I am your friend. Tell me, can it be that I have spoiled my picture?"
Porbus hesitated, and feared to speak; but the anxiety painted on the white face of the old man was so cruel that he was constrained to point to the canvas and utter the word, "See!"
Frenhofer looked at his picture for a space of a moment, and staggered.
"Nothing! nothing! after toiling ten years!"
He sat down and wept.
"Am I then a fool, an idiot? Have I neither talent nor capacity? Am I no better than a rich man who walks, and can only walk? Have I indeed produced nothing?"
He gazed at the canvas through tears. Suddenly he raised himself proudly and flung a lightning glance upon the two painters.
"By the blood, by the body, by the head of Christ, you are envious men who seek to make me think she is spoiled, that you may steal her from me. I--I see her!" he cried. "She is wondrously beautiful!"
At this moment Poussin heard the weeping of Gillette as she stood, forgotten, in a corner.
"What troubles thee, my darling?" asked the painter, becoming once more a lover.
"Kill me!" she answered. "I should be infamous if I still loved thee, for I despise thee. I admire thee; but thou hast filled me with horror. I love, and yet already I hate thee."
While Poussin listened to Gillette, Frenhofer drew a green curtain before his Catherine, with the grave composure of a jeweller locking his drawers when he thinks that thieves are near him. He cast at the two painters a look which was profoundly dissimulating, full of contempt and suspicion; then, with convulsive haste, he silently pushed them through the door of his atelier. When they reached the threshold of his house he said to them, "Adieu, my little friends."
The tone of this farewell chilled the two painters with fear.
* * * * *
On the morrow Porbus, alarmed, went again to visit Frenhofer, and found that he had died during the night, after having burned his paintings.