Pierre Grassou by Honoré de Balzac (ebook and pdf reader txt) 📖

Fougeres silenced all envy and all recriminations. Besides, he had on his side all of his clan who had succeeded, and all who expected to succeed. Some persons, touched by the persistent energy of a man whom nothing had discouraged, talked of Domenichino and said:--

"Perseverance in the arts should be rewarded. Grassou hasn't stolen his successes; he has delved for ten years, the poor dear man!"

That exclamation of "poor dear man!" counted for half in the support and the congratulations which the painter received. Pity sets up mediocrities as envy pulls down great talents, and in equal numbers. The newspapers, it is true, did not spare criticism, but the chevalier Fougeres digested them as he had digested the counsel of his friends, with angelic patience.

Possessing, by this time, fifteen thousand francs, laboriously earned, he furnished an apartment and studio in the rue de Navarin, and painted the picture ordered by Monseigneur the Dauphin, also the two church pictures, and delivered them at the time agreed on, with a punctuality that was very discomforting to the exchequer of the ministry, accustomed to a different course of action. But--admire the good fortune of men who are methodical--if Grassou, belated with his work, had been caught by the revolution of July he would not have got his money.

By the time he was thirty-seven Fougeres had manufactured for Elie Magus some two hundred pictures, all of them utterly unknown, by the help of which he had attained to that satisfying manner, that point of execution before which the true artist shrugs his shoulders and the bourgeoisie worships. Fougeres was dear to friends for rectitude of ideas, for steadiness of sentiment, absolute kindliness, and great loyalty; though they had no esteem for his palette, they loved the man who held it.

"What a misfortune it is that Fougeres has the vice of painting!" said his comrades.

But for all this, Grassou gave excellent counsel, like those feuilletonists incapable of writing a book who know very well where a book is wanting. There was this difference, however, between literary critics and Fougeres; he was eminently sensitive to beauties; he felt them, he acknowledged them, and his advice was instinct with a spirit of justice that made the justness of his remarks acceptable. After the revolution of July, Fougeres sent about ten pictures a year to the Salon, of which the jury admitted four or five. He lived with the most rigid economy, his household being managed solely by an old charwoman. For all amusement he visited his friends, he went to see works of art, he allowed himself a few little trips about France, and he planned to go to Switzerland in search of inspiration. This detestable artist was an excellent citizen; he mounted guard duly, went to reviews, and paid his rent and provision-bills with bourgeois punctuality.

Having lived all his life in toil and poverty, he had never had the time to love. Poor and a bachelor, until now he did not desire to complicate his simple life. Incapable of devising any means of increasing his little fortune, he carried, every three months, to his notary, Cardot, his quarterly earnings and economies. When the notary had received about three thousand francs he invested them in some first mortgage, the interest of which he drew himself and added to the quarterly payments made to him by Fougeres. The painter was awaiting the fortunate moment when his property thus laid by would give him the imposing income of two thousand francs, to allow himself the otium cum dignitate of the artist and paint pictures; but oh! what pictures! true pictures! each a finished picture! chouette, Koxnoff, chocnosoff! His future, his dreams of happiness, the superlative of his hopes--do you know what it was? To enter the Institute and obtain the grade of officer of the Legion of honor; to side down beside Schinner and Leon de Lora, to reach the Academy before Bridau, to wear a rosette in his buttonhole! What a dream! It is only commonplace men who think of everything.

Hearing the sound of several steps on the staircase, Fougeres rubbed up his hair, buttoned his jacket of bottle-green velveteen, and was not a little amazed to see, entering his doorway, a simpleton face vulgarly called in studio slang a "melon." This fruit surmounted a pumpkin, clothed in blue cloth adorned with a bunch of tintinnabulating baubles. The melon puffed like a walrus; the pumpkin advanced on turnips, improperly called legs. A true painter would have turned the little bottle-vendor off at once, assuring him that he didn't paint vegetables. This painter looked at his client without a smile, for Monsieur Vervelle wore a three-thousand-franc diamond in the bosom of his shirt.

Fougeres glanced at Magus and said: "There's fat in it!" using a slang term then much in vogue in the studios.

Hearing those words Monsieur Vervelle frowned. The worthy bourgeois drew after him another complication of vegetables in the persons of his wife and daughter. The wife had a fine veneer of mahogany on her face, and in figure she resembled a cocoa-nut, surmounted by a head and tied in around the waist. She pivoted on her legs, which were tap-rooted, and her gown was yellow with black stripes. She proudly exhibited unutterable mittens on a puffy pair of hands; the plumes of a first-class funeral floated on an over-flowing bonnet; laces adorned her shoulders, as round behind as they were before; consequently, the spherical form of the cocoa-nut was perfect. Her feet, of a kind that painters call abatis, rose above the varnished leather of the shoes in a swelling that was some inches high. How the feet were ever got into the shoes, no one knows.

Following these vegetable parents was a young asparagus, who presented a tiny head with smoothly banded hair of the yellow-carroty tone that a Roman adores, long, stringy arms, a fairly white skin with reddish spots upon it, large innocent eyes, and white lashes, scarcely any brows, a leghorn bonnet bound with white satin and adorned with two honest bows of the same satin, hands virtuously red, and the feet of her mother. The faces of these three beings wore, as they looked round the studio, an air of happiness which bespoke in them a respectable enthusiasm for Art.

"So it is you, monsieur, who are going to take our likenesses?" said the father, assuming a jaunty air.

"Yes, monsieur," replied Grassou.

"Vervelle, he has the cross!" whispered the wife to the husband while the painter's back was turned.

"Should I be likely to have our portraits painted by an artist who wasn't decorated?" returned the former bottle-dealer.

Elie Magus here bowed to the Vervelle family and went away. Grassou accompanied him to the landing.

"There's no one but you who would fish up such whales."

"One hundred thousand francs of 'dot'!"

"Yes, but what a family!"

"Three hundred thousand francs of expectations, a house in the rue Boucherat, and a country-house at Ville d'Avray!"

"Bottles and corks! bottles and corks!" said the painter; "they set my teeth on edge."

"Safe from want for the rest of your days," said Elie Magus as he departed.

That idea entered the head of Pierre Grassou as the daylight had burst into his garret that morning.

While he posed the father of the young person, he thought the bottle-dealer had a good countenance, and he admired the face full of violent tones. The mother and daughter hovered about the easel, marvelling at all his preparations; they evidently thought him a demigod. This visible admiration pleased Fougeres. The golden calf threw upon the family its fantastic reflections.

"You must earn lots of money; but of course you don't spend it as you get it," said the mother.

"No, madame," replied the painter; "I don't spend it; I have not the means to amuse myself. My notary invests my money; he knows what I have; as soon as I have taken him the money I never think of it again."

"I've always been told," cried old Vervelle, "that artists were baskets with holes in them."

"Who is your notary--if it is not indiscreet to ask?" said Madame Vervelle.

"A good fellow, all round," replied Grassou. "His name is Cardot."

"Well, well! if that isn't a joke!" exclaimed Vervelle. "Cardot is our notary too."

"Take care! don't move," said the painter.

"Do pray hold still, Antenor," said the wife. "If you move about you'll make monsieur miss; you should just see him working, and then you'd understand."

"Oh! why didn't you have me taught the arts?" said Mademoiselle Vervelle to her parents.

"Virginie," said her mother, "a young person ought not to learn certain things. When you are married--well, till then, keep quiet."

During this first sitting the Vervelle family became almost intimate with the worthy artist. They were to come again two days later. As they went away the father told Virginie to walk in front; but in spite of this separation, she overheard the following words, which naturally awakened her curiosity.

"Decorated--thirty-seven years old--an artist who gets orders--puts his money with our notary. We'll consult Cardot. Hein! Madame de Fougeres! not a bad name--doesn't look like a bad man either! One might prefer a merchant; but before a merchant retires from business one can never know what one's daughter may come to; whereas an economical artist--and then you know we love Art--Well, we'll see!"

While the Vervelle family discussed Pierre Grassou, Pierre Grassou discussed in his own mind the Vervelle family. He found it impossible to stay peacefully in his studio, so he took a walk on the boulevard, and looked at all the red-haired women who passed him. He made a series of the oddest reasonings to himself: gold was the handsomest of metals; a tawny yellow represented gold; the Romans were fond of red-haired women, and he turned Roman, etc. After two years of marriage what man would ever care about the color of his wife's hair? Beauty fades,--but ugliness remains! Money is one-half of all happiness. That night when he went to bed the painter had come to think Virginie Vervelle charming.

When the three Vervelles arrived on the day of the second sitting the artist received them with smiles. The rascal had shaved and put on clean linen; he had also arranged his hair in a pleasing manner, and chosen a very becoming pair of trousers and red leather slippers with pointed toes. The family replied with smiles as flattering as those of the artist. Virginie became the color of her hair, lowered her eyes, and turned aside her head to look at the sketches. Pierre Grassou thought these little affectations charming, Virginie had such grace; happily she didn't look like her father or her mother; but whom did she look like?

During this sitting there were little skirmishes between the family and the painter, who had the audacity to call pere Vervelle witty. This flattery brought the family on the double-quick to the heart of the artist; he gave a drawing to the daughter, and a sketch to the mother.

"What! for nothing?" they said.

Pierre Grassou could not help smiling.

"You shouldn't give away your pictures in that way; they are money," said old Vervelle.

At the third sitting pere Vervelle mentioned a fine gallery of pictures which he had in his country-house at Ville d'Avray--Rubens, Gerard Douw, Mieris, Terburg, Rembrandt, Titian, Paul Potter, etc.

"Monsieur Vervelle has been very extravagant," said Madame Vervelle, ostentatiously. "He has over one hundred thousand francs' worth of pictures."

"I love Art," said the former bottle-dealer.

When Madame Vervelle's portrait was begun that of her husband was