Iain Pears - The Portrait

But you must be chilly from the walk over, even if you are bundled up in coats and sweaters and scarves. Have you ever travelled anywhere without catering for every possible type of weather? I bet you have full morning dress back at Madame Le Gurun’s, just in case. Have a glass of wine to warm you up. I’ve warmed it slightly by the fire, added a few extra ingredients such as you need on a day like this. Drink it down! There’s plenty more, and it will make all the difference.

I am nearly done with you, you’ll be glad to hear. I think this will be your last day. The finishing glazes, the last touches I can add later. I would prefer you not to be here in any case; the final manipulation of you into what I want is best done from memory, for that is the moment the picture leaves reality and approaches something altogether superior.

Yes, I have finally made up my mind. In a month or so I will pack up here and re-enter the world. It is time, and my demons are exorcised—will be, at any rate, after today.

Why today? Because today I finish. Finishing with you and going back to London are one and the same, it seems. Now I fully understand why I left in the first place. Of course, it was Evelyn who was the trigger, perhaps you have realised that already, but she was not the whole reason.

I never could figure out when exactly you decided she was an enemy. Did it start that day in the atelier? Over Sarah Bernhardt? Because she didn’t want to be part of your circle of admirers? It was a long time before it took form. Let us return to that look of yours as you examined her first sketch in the atelier; that confusion I tried so hard to understand. First the look of appreciation. She was a handsome woman in her frailty; beautiful, even, in the right light; her wispiness made one want to sweep her up and protect her, or crush her. They are the same impulse. She was tall; light brown hair done up quite primly in a way that suggested an attempt to hide deeper passions, pretending to be respectable. You appreciated that; there was some attraction.

That was part of the glance; the underlying first element. Then there was another level; the preparation of scorn. No-one you found attractive could possibly paint at all well, so you readied yourself to be patronising. A compliment. Not at all bad, my dear. Really; I have seen a lot worse. You have some talent. . . .

And then the third layer, one of confusion and shock as you looked at her sketch of that pathetic arrangement and realised that all your instincts were quite wrong. She could draw. In a few simple lines she had caught those objects, pinned them down and made something miraculous out of them. Yes, yes, the technique was faulty, the skill had not been learned. But there was something there you didn’t expect to see, and it threw you into temporary silence. And when you did offer some comments, she scarcely heard them. She was studying what she had done and had no time for what anyone else thought.

A fault. A definite fault, so I had learned over the years. You must always listen to what other people have to say; anyone can make a useful comment, even a critic. She listened to you, but was not convinced; was not persuaded you were sole possessor of the truth. The attraction, the ability, and the deafness to your words. The three vital elements which could slowly brew up into enmity. Listen to that wind! Blowing up nicely now. More wine? Are you beginning to feel warmer? More relaxed?

I often wish I had given different advice about that exhibition at the Chenil, or that she hadn’t listened to me. I wish I had told her to turn it down. Show your pictures to individuals only; wait awhile; the opportunity will come again, when you are truly ready for it. But I didn’t; I said I thought she should grab the chance with both hands because that is what I would have done. But then, I did listen to other people’s opinions, moulded my work to what they wanted. She took my advice, but had I not been the advocate she probably would have turned the chance down, and would not have exposed herself to you.

You do not attack merely for the pleasure of it. I must give you credit; you normally take no joy in the public demonstration of your power, as long as you have it. You could write filthy reviews of many an artist; live in London and you are spoiled for choice. But you do not. Your silence is comment enough. Yet with Evelyn you acted out of character. What you did seemed unnecessary. The greatest critic in the land going out of his way to pulverise an artist who is scarcely known? Why bother?

Oh, it was effective; a little masterpiece. So many half truths, hidden bits of violence strung together into a seamless quilt of polite invective. And funny! You deployed the one thing Evelyn was truly afraid of, to be ridiculed. “It is regrettable that the posturings of the well-born female should now be accorded the privilege of public exhibition, when once they surfaced only when the men had been left to their brandy.” “There may be a few who find genius in mediocrity; this reviewer, alas, is immune to its charms. . . .” “There are failures that are complete, and failures that are partial, tho’ if anyone paints enough, consistency in poorness cannot be assured.” You see, I can recall every word.

And then the demolition of the pictures; every bit as thorough as the job you did on poor Anderson. Except that you tried too hard; you overstretched yourself, and strove for effect. No metaphor left undoubled, no sentence simply put. When you took Anderson to pieces your language was spare; this was florid. With him you were direct and spoke in words unadorned; with Evelyn no literary device—and you are master of them all—was unused. But it was empty, your abuse. No reason was given for your opinions, no arguments were advanced. You did not prove her inadequacy, merely asserted it.

For the first time in all the years I had known you, you had lied. You stepped over an invisible but crucial line. I had long had my doubts about the importance you gave yourself, but I could never before claim that you were anything other than an honest man. With that article you entered the darkness of calumny and deceit. The last threads of loyalty snapped, completely and irrevocably. You lost your protection, the only thing which gave immunity from vengeance. The only thing which had always made me forgive you.

Because her paintings were good. You knew they were good, and you had known it ever since you first met her. You unleashed your power in an ignoble cause, to protect and advance yourself alone. You became an outlaw, acknowledging no restraint but your own power. You sinned against the very art you existed to protect and nourish. And you know what I think about sin. And punishment, of course. Let me fill your glass once more. I see the colour coming back into your face nicely now.

It wasn’t even about her pictures, was it? Nor even your desire that there should be no challenges to those French-men you were championing. Nor even her dismissive attitude to you. Had it not been a review of her exhibition, you would have found something else. Some humiliation, some slight, the more public the better. Because you were frightened, desperate. You thought the triumph that you had just won might be torn from your grasp, that your reputation might be ruined.

Shall I tell you how I am so sure? Because you are here. Because I wrote Duncan a letter with that phrase in it—“many have drowned in his displeasure”—and you came, after nearly four years of forgetting that I existed.

I was surprised by the whole business, I must admit. Trumpeting the bohemian ethic in a literary journal is one thing, taking part in it yourself is quite another. I always assumed yours was a paper amorality, designed to titillate the salons but not so much that it reduced your standing. Even so, many a man has survived worse scandal with their reputation enhanced. Or was it an aesthetic matter? Was it, perhaps, that you didn’t mind the world knowing you had accidentally sired a little reproduction of yourself, but recoiled at the idea of who the mother was? Did you shudder at the idea of the sniggers that might go around if it became known that you were conducting a squalid little bedsit affair with a woman of such epic vulgarity?