Джон Голсуорси - The White Monkey

“Will you sit for anything?” he asked.

Victorine answered mechanically: “Yes, sir.”

“Do you mind taking your hat off?”

Victorine took off the toque, and shook out her hair.

“Ah!” said the gentleman. “I wonder.”

Victorine wondered what.

“Just sit down on the dais, will you?”

Victorine looked about her, uncertain. A smile seemed to fly up his forehead and over his slippery bright hair.

“This is your first shot, then?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All the better.” And he pointed to a small platform.

Victorine sat down on it in a black oak chair.

“You look cold.”

“Yes, sir.”

He went to a cupboard and returned with two small glasses of a brown fluid.

“Have a Grand Marnier?”

She noticed that he tossed his off in one gulp, and did the same. It was sweet, strong, very nice, and made her gasp.

“Take a cigarette.”

Victorine took one from a case he handed, and put it between her lips. He lit it. And again a smile slid up away over the top of his head.

“You draw it in,” he said. “Where were you born?”

“In Putney, sir.”

“That’s very interesting. Just sit still a minute. It’s not as bad as having a tooth out, but it takes longer. The great thing is to keep awake.”

“Yes, sir.”

He took a large piece of paper and a bit of dark stuff, and began to draw.

“Tell me,” he said, “Miss—”

“Collins, sir—Victorine Collins.” Some instinct made her give her maiden name. It seemed somehow more professional.

“Are you at large?” He paused, and again the smile slid up over his bright hair: “Or have you any other occupation?”

“Not at present, sir. I’m married, but nothing else.”

For some time after that the gentleman was silent. It was interesting to see him, taking a look, making a stroke on the paper, taking another look. Hundreds of looks, hundreds of strokes. At last he said: “All right! Now we’ll have a rest. Heaven sent you here, Miss Collins. Come and get warm.”

Victorine approached the fire.

“Do you know anything about expressionism?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, it means not troubling about the outside except in so far as it expresses the inside. Does that convey anything to you?”

“No, sir.”

“Quite! I think you said you’d sit for the—er—altogether?”

Victorine regarded the bright and sliding gentleman. She did not know what he meant, but she felt that he meant something out of the ordinary.

“Altogether what, sir?”

“Nude.”

“Oh!” She cast her eyes down, then raised them to the sliding clothes of the two ladies. “Like that?”

“No, I shouldn’t be treating you cubistically.”

A slow flush was burning out the sallow in her cheeks. She said slowly:

“Does it mean more money?”

“Yes, half as much again—more perhaps. I don’t want you to if you’d rather not. You can think it over and let me know next time.”

She raised her eyes again, and said: “Thank you, sir.”

“Righto! Only please don’t ‘sir’ me.”

Victorine smiled. It was the first time she had achieved this functional disturbance, and it seemed to have a strange effect. He said hurriedly: “By George! When you smile, Miss Collins, I see you impressionistically. If you’ve rested, sit up there again.”

Victorine went back.

The gentleman took a fresh piece of paper.

“Can you think of anything that will keep you smiling?”

She shook her head. That was a fact.

“Nothing comic at all? I suppose you’re not in love with your husband, for instance?”

“Oh! yes.”

“Well, try that.”

Victorine tried that, but she could only see Tony selling his balloons.

“That won’t do,” said the gentleman. “Don’t think of him! Did you ever see ‘L’apres midi d’un Faune’?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, I’ve got an idea. ‘L’apres midi d’une Dryade.’ About the nude you really needn’t mind. It’s quite impersonal. Think of art, and fifteen bob a day. Shades of Nijinsky, I see the whole thing!”

All the time that he was talking his eyes were sliding off and on to her, and his pencil off and on to the paper. A sort of infection began to ferment within Victorine. Fifteen shillings a day! Blue butterflies!

There was a profound silence. His eyes and hand slid off and on. A faint smile had come on Victorine’s face—she was adding up the money she might earn.

At last his eyes and hand ceased moving, and he stood looking at the paper.

“That’s all for today, Miss Collins. I’ve got to think it out. Will you give me your address?”

Victorine thought rapidly.

“Please, sir, will you write to me at the post office. I don’t want my husband to know that I’m—I’m—”

“Affiliated to art? Well! Name of post office?”

Victorine gave it and resumed her hat.

“An hour and a half, five shillings, thank you. And tomorrow, at half-past two, Miss Collins—not ‘sir.’”

“Yes, s—, thank you.”

Waiting for her ‘bus in the cold January air, the altogether appeared to Victorine improbable. To sit in front of a strange gentleman in her skin! If Tony knew! The slow flush again burned up the sallow in her cheeks. She climbed into the ‘bus. But fifteen shillings! Six days a week—why, it would be four pound ten! In four months she could earn their passage out. Judging by the pictures in there, lots must be doing it. Tony must know nothing, not even that she was sitting for her face. He was all nerves, and that fond of her! He would imagine things; she had heard him say those artists were just like cats. But that gentleman had been very nice, though he did seem as if he were laughing at everything. She wished he had shown her the drawing. Perhaps she would see herself in an exhibition some day. But without—oh! And suddenly she thought: ‘If I ate a bit more, I’d look nice like that, too!’ And as if to escape from the daring of that thought, she stared up into the face opposite. It had two chins, was calm and smooth and pink, with light eyes staring back at her. People had thoughts, but you couldn’t tell what they were! And the smile which Aubrey Greene desired crept out on his model’s face.

The face Michael drew began by being Victorine’s, and ended by being Fleur’s. If physically Fleur stood up straight, was she morally as erect? This was the speculation for which he continually called himself a cad. He saw no change in her movements, and loyally refrained from enquiring into the movements he could not see. But his aroused attention made him more and more aware of a certain cynicism, as if she were continually registering the belief that all values were equal and none of much value.

Wilfrid, though still in London, was neither visible nor spoken of. “Out of sight and hearing, out of mind,” seemed to be the motto. It did not work with Michael—Wilfrid was constantly in his mind. If Wilfrid were not seeing Fleur, how could he bear to stay within such tantalising reach of her? If Fleur did not want Wilfrid to stay, why had she not sent him away? He was finding it difficult, too, to conceal from others the fact that Desert and he were no longer pals. Often the impetus to go and have it out with him surged up and was beaten back. Either there was nothing beyond what he already knew, or there was something—and Wilfrid would say there wasn’t. Michael accepted that without cavil; one did not give a woman away! But he wanted to hear no lies from a War comrade. Between Fleur and himself no word had passed; for words, he felt, would add no knowledge, merely imperil a hold weak enough already. Christmas at the ancestral manor of the Monts had been passed in covert-shooting. Fleur had come and stood with him at the last drive on the second day, holding Ting-a-ling on a lead. The Chinese dog had been extraordinarily excited, climbing the air every time a bird fell, and quite unaffected by the noise of guns. Michael, waiting to miss his birds—he was a poor shot—had watched her eager face emerging from grey fur, her form braced back against Ting-a-ling. Shooting was new to her; and under the stimulus of novelty she was always at her best. He had loved even her “Oh, Michaels!” when he missed. She had been the success of the gathering, which meant seeing almost nothing of her except a sleepy head on a pillow; but, at least, down there he had not suffered from lurking uneasiness.