The Mysterious Portrait

The Mysterious Portrait

PART I

Nowhere did so many people pause as before the little picture-shop in
the Shtchukinui Dvor. This little shop contained, indeed, the most
varied collection of curiosities. The pictures were chiefly
oil-paintings covered with dark varnish, in frames of dingy yellow.
Winter scenes with white trees; very red sunsets, like raging
conflagrations, a Flemish boor, more like a turkey-cock in cuffs than
a human being, were the prevailing subjects. To these must be added a
few engravings, such as a portrait of Khozreff-Mirza in a sheepskin
cap, and some generals with three-cornered hats and hooked noses.
Moreover, the doors of such shops are usually festooned with bundles
of those publications, printed on large sheets of bark, and then
coloured by hand, which bear witness to the native talent of the
Russian.

On one was the Tzarevna Miliktrisa Kirbitievna; on another the city of
Jerusalem. There are usually but few purchasers of these productions,
but gazers are many. Some truant lackey probably yawns in front of
them, holding in his hand the dishes containing dinner from the
cook-shop for his master, who will not get his soup very hot. Before
them, too, will most likely be standing a soldier wrapped in his
cloak, a dealer from the old-clothes mart, with a couple of penknives
for sale, and a huckstress, with a basketful of shoes. Each expresses
admiration in his own way. The muzhiks generally touch them with their
fingers; the dealers gaze seriously at them; serving boys and
apprentices laugh, and tease each other with the coloured caricatures;
old lackeys in frieze cloaks look at them merely for the sake of
yawning away their time somewhere; and the hucksters, young Russian
women, halt by instinct to hear what people are gossiping about, and
to see what they are looking at.

At the time our story opens, the young painter, Tchartkoff, paused
involuntarily as he passed the shop. His old cloak and plain attire
showed him to be a man who was devoted to his art with self-denying
zeal, and who had no time to trouble himself about his clothes. He
halted in front of the little shop, and at first enjoyed an inward
laugh over the monstrosities in the shape of pictures.

At length he sank unconsciously into a reverie, and began to ponder as
to what sort of people wanted these productions? It did not seem
remarkable to him that the Russian populace should gaze with rapture
upon "Eruslanoff Lazarevitch," on "The Glutton" and "The Carouser," on
"Thoma and Erema." The delineations of these subjects were easily
intelligible to the masses. But where were there purchases for those
streaky, dirty oil-paintings? Who needed those Flemish boors, those
red and blue landscapes, which put forth some claims to a higher stage
of art, but which really expressed the depths of its degradation? They
did not appear the works of a self-taught child. In that case, in
spite of the caricature of drawing, a sharp distinction would have
manifested itself. But here were visible only simple dullness,
steady-going incapacity, which stood, through self-will, in the ranks
of art, while its true place was among the lowest trades. The same
colours, the same manner, the same practised hand, belonging rather to
a manufacturing automaton than to a man!

He stood before the dirty pictures for some time, his thoughts at
length wandering to other matters. Meanwhile the proprietor of the
shop, a little grey man, in a frieze cloak, with a beard which had not
been shaved since Sunday, had been urging him to buy for some time,
naming prices, without even knowing what pleased him or what he
wanted. "Here, I'll take a silver piece for these peasants and this
little landscape. What painting! it fairly dazzles one; only just
received from the factory; the varnish isn't dry yet. Or here is a
winter scene--take the winter scene; fifteen rubles; the frame alone
is worth it. What a winter scene!" Here the merchant gave a slight
fillip to the canvas, as if to demonstrate all the merits of the
winter scene. "Pray have them put up and sent to your house. Where do
you live? Here, boy, give me some string!"

"Hold, not so fast!" said the painter, coming to himself, and
perceiving that the brisk dealer was beginning in earnest to pack some
pictures up. He was rather ashamed not to take anything after standing
so long in front of the shop; so saying, "Here, stop! I will see if
there is anything I want here!" he stooped and began to pick up from
the floor, where they were thrown in a heap, some worn, dusty old
paintings. There were old family portraits, whose descendants,
probably could not be found on earth; with torn canvas and frames
minus their gilding; in short, trash. But the painter began his
search, thinking to himself, "Perhaps I may come across something." He
had heard stories about pictures of the great masters having been
found among the rubbish in cheap print-sellers' shops.

The dealer, perceiving what he was about, ceased his importunities,
and took up his post again at the door, hailing the passers-by with,
"Hither, friends, here are pictures; step in, step in; just received
from the makers!" He shouted his fill, and generally in vain, had a
long talk with a rag-merchant, standing opposite, at the door of his
shop; and finally, recollecting that he had a customer in his shop,
turned his back on the public and went inside. "Well, friend, have you
chosen anything?" said he. But the painter had already been standing
motionless for some time before a portrait in a large and originally
magnificent frame, upon which, however, hardly a trace of gilding now
remained.

It represented an old man, with a thin, bronzed face and high
cheek-bones; the features seemingly depicted in a moment of convulsive
agitation. He wore a flowing Asiatic costume. Dusty and defaced as the
portrait was, Tchartkoff saw, when he had succeeded in removing the
dirt from the face, traces of the work of a great artist. The portrait
appeared to be unfinished, but the power of the handling was striking.
The eyes were the most remarkable picture of all: it seemed as though
the full power of the artist's brush had been lavished upon them. They
fairly gazed out of the portrait, destroying its harmony with their
strange liveliness. When he carried the portrait to the door, the eyes
gleamed even more penetratingly. They produced nearly the same
impression on the public. A woman standing behind him exclaimed, "He
is looking, he is looking!" and jumped back. Tchartkoff experienced an
unpleasant feeling, inexplicable even to himself, and placed the
portrait on the floor.

"Well, will you take the portrait?" said the dealer.

"How much is it?" said the painter.

"Why chaffer over it? give me seventy-five kopeks."

"No."

"Well, how much will you give?"

"Twenty kopeks," said the painter, preparing to go.

"What a price! Why, you couldn't buy the frame for that! Perhaps you
will decide to purchase to-morrow. Sir, sir, turn back! Add ten
kopeks. Take it, take it! give me twenty kopeks. To tell the truth,
you are my only customer to-day, and that's the only reason."

Thus Tchartkoff quite unexpectedly became the purchaser of the old
portrait, and at the same time reflected, "Why have I bought it? What
is it to me?" But there was nothing to be done. He pulled a
twenty-kopek piece from his pocket, gave it to the merchant, took the
portrait under his arm, and carried it home. On the way thither, he
remembered that the twenty-kopek piece he had given for it was his
last. His thoughts at once became gloomy. Vexation and careless
indifference took possession of him at one and the same moment. The
red light of sunset still lingered in one half the sky; the houses
facing that way still gleamed with its warm light; and meanwhile the
cold blue light of the moon grew brighter. Light, half-transparent
shadows fell in bands upon the ground. The painter began by degrees to
glance up at the sky, flushed with a transparent light; and at the
same moment from his mouth fell the words, "What a delicate tone! What
a nuisance! Deuce take it!" Re-adjusting the portrait, which kept
slipping from under his arm, he quickened his pace.

Weary and bathed in perspiration, he dragged himself to Vasilievsky
Ostroff. With difficulty and much panting he made his way up the
stairs flooded with soap-suds, and adorned with the tracks of dogs and
cats. To his knock there was no answer: there was no one at home. He
leaned against the window, and disposed himself to wait patiently,
until at last there resounded behind him the footsteps of a boy in a
blue blouse, his servant, model, and colour-grinder. This boy was
called Nikita, and spent all his time in the streets when his master
was not at home. Nikita tried for a long time to get the key into the
lock, which was quite invisible, by reason of the darkness.

Finally the door was opened. Tchartkoff entered his ante-room, which
was intolerably cold, as painters' rooms always are, which fact,
however, they do not notice. Without giving Nikita his coat, he went
on into his studio, a large room, but low, fitted up with all sorts of
artistic rubbish--plaster hands, canvases, sketches begun and
discarded, and draperies thrown over chairs. Feeling very tired, he
took off his cloak, placed the portrait abstractedly between two small
canvasses, and threw himself on the narrow divan. Having stretched
himself out, he finally called for a light.

"There are no candles," said Nikita.

"What, none?"

"And there were none last night," said Nikita. The artist recollected
that, in fact, there had been no candles the previous evening, and
became silent. He let Nikita take his coat off, and put on his old
worn dressing-gown.

"There has been a gentleman here," said Nikita.

"Yes, he came for money, I know," said the painter, waving his hand.

"He was not alone," said Nikita.

"Who else was with him?"

"I don't know, some police officer or other."

"But why a police officer?"

"I don't know why, but he says because your rent is not paid."

"Well, what will come of it?"

"I don't know what will come of it: he said, 'If he won't pay, why,
let him leave the rooms.' They are both coming again to-morrow."

"Let them come," said Tchartkoff, with indifference; and a gloomy mood
took full possession of him.

Young Tchartkoff was an artist of talent, which promised great things:
his work gave evidence of observation, thought, and a strong
inclination to approach nearer to nature.

"Look here, my friend," his professor said to him more than once, "you
have talent; it will be a shame if you waste it: but you are
impatient; you have but to be attracted by anything, to fall in love
with it, you become engrossed with it, and all else goes for nothing,
and you won't even look at it. See to it that you do not become a
fashionable artist. At present your colouring begins to assert itself
too loudly; and your drawing is at times quite weak; you are already
striving after the fashionable style, because it strikes the eye at
once. Have a care! society already begins to have its attraction for
you: I have seen you with a shiny hat, a foppish neckerchief. . . . It
is seductive to paint fashionable little pictures and portraits for
money; but talent is ruined, not developed, by that means. Be patient;
think out every piece of work, discard your foppishness; let others
amass money, your own will not fail you."

The professor was partly right. Our artist sometimes wanted to enjoy
himself, to play the fop, in short, to give vent to his youthful
impulses in some way or other; but he could control himself withal. At
times he would forget everything, when he had once taken his brush in
his hand, and could not tear himself from it except as from a
delightful dream. His taste perceptibly developed. He did not as yet
understand all the depths of Raphael, but he was attracted by Guido's
broad and rapid handling, he paused before Titian's portraits, he
delighted in the Flemish masters. The dark veil enshrouding the
ancient pictures had not yet wholly passed away from before them; but
he already saw something in them, though in private he did not agree
with the professor that the secrets of the old masters are
irremediably lost to us. It seemed to him that the nineteenth century
had improved upon them considerably, that the delineation of nature
was more clear, more vivid, more close. It sometimes vexed him when he
saw how a strange artist, French or German, sometimes not even a
painter by profession, but only a skilful dauber, produced, by the
celerity of his brush and the vividness of his colouring, a universal
commotion, and amassed in a twinkling a funded capital. This did not
occur to him when fully occupied with his own work, for then he forgot
food and drink and all the world. But when dire want arrived, when he
had no money wherewith to buy brushes and colours, when his implacable
landlord came ten times a day to demand the rent for his rooms, then
did the luck of the wealthy artists recur to his hungry imagination;
then did the thought which so often traverses Russian minds, to give
up altogether, and go down hill, utterly to the bad, traverse his. And
now he was almost in this frame of mind.

"Yes, it is all very well, to be patient, be patient!" he exclaimed,
with vexation; "but there is an end to patience at last. Be patient!
but what money have I to buy a dinner with to-morrow? No one will lend
me any. If I did bring myself to sell all my pictures and sketches,
they would not give me twenty kopeks for the whole of them. They are
useful; I feel that not one of them has been undertaken in vain; I
have learned something from each one. Yes, but of what use is it?
Studies, sketches, all will be studies, trial-sketches to the end. And
who will buy, not even knowing me by name? Who wants drawings from the
antique, or the life class, or my unfinished love of a Psyche, or the
interior of my room, or the portrait of Nikita, though it is better,
to tell the truth, than the portraits by any of the fashionable
artists? Why do I worry, and toil like a learner over the alphabet,
when I might shine as brightly as the rest, and have money, too, like
them?"

Thus speaking, the artist suddenly shuddered, and turned pale. A
convulsively distorted face gazed at him, peeping forth from the
surrounding canvas; two terrible eyes were fixed straight upon him; on
the mouth was written a menacing command of silence. Alarmed, he tried
to scream and summon Nikita, who already was snoring in the ante-room;
but he suddenly paused and laughed. The sensation of fear died away in
a moment; it was the portrait he had bought, and which he had quite
forgotten. The light of the moon illuminating the chamber had fallen
upon it, and lent it a strange likeness to life.

He began to examine it. He moistened a sponge with water, passed it
over the picture several times, washed off nearly all the accumulated
and incrusted dust and dirt, hung it on the wall before him, wondering
yet more at the remarkable workmanship. The whole face had gained new
life, and the eyes gazed at him so that he shuddered; and, springing
back, he exclaimed in a voice of surprise: "It looks with human eyes!"
Then suddenly there occurred to him a story he had heard long before
from his professor, of a certain portrait by the renowned Leonardo da
Vinci, upon which the great master laboured several years, and still
regarded as incomplete, but which, according to Vasari, was
nevertheless deemed by all the most complete and finished product of
his art. The most finished thing about it was the eyes, which amazed
his contemporaries; the very smallest, barely visible veins in them
being reproduced on the canvas.

But in the portrait now before him there was something singular. It
was no longer art; it even destroyed the harmony of the portrait; they
were living, human eyes! It seemed as though they had been cut from a
living man and inserted. Here was none of that high enjoyment which
takes possession of the soul at the sight of an artist's production,
no matter how terrible the subject he may have chosen.

Again he approached the portrait, in order to observe those wondrous
eyes, and perceived, with terror, that they were gazing at him. This
was no copy from Nature; it was life, the strange life which might
have lighted up the face of a dead man, risen from the grave. Whether
it was the effect of the moonlight, which brought with it fantastic
thoughts, and transformed things into strange likenesses, opposed to
those of matter-of-fact day, or from some other cause, but it suddenly
became terrible to him, he knew not why, to sit alone in the room. He
draw back from the portrait, turned aside, and tried not to look at
it; but his eye involuntarily, of its own accord, kept glancing
sideways towards it. Finally, he became afraid to walk about the room.
It seemed as though some one were on the point of stepping up behind
him; and every time he turned, he glanced timidly back. He had never
been a coward; but his imagination and nerves were sensitive, and that
evening he could not explain his involuntary fear. He seated himself
in one corner, but even then it seemed to him that some one was
peeping over his shoulder into his face. Even Nikita's snores,
resounding from the ante-room, did not chase away his fear. At length
he rose from the seat, without raising his eyes, went behind a screen,
and lay down on his bed. Through the cracks of the screen he saw his
room lit up by the moon, and the portrait hanging stiffly on the wall.
The eyes were fixed upon him in a yet more terrible and significant
manner, and it seemed as if they would not look at anything but
himself. Overpowered with a feeling of oppression, he decided to rise
from his bed, seized a sheet, and, approaching the portrait, covered
it up completely.

Having done this, he lay done more at ease on his bed, and began to
meditate upon the poverty and pitiful lot of the artist, and the
thorny path lying before him in the world. But meanwhile his eye
glanced involuntarily through the joint of the screen at the portrait
muffled in the sheet. The light of the moon heightened the whiteness
of the sheet, and it seemed to him as though those terrible eyes shone
through the cloth. With terror he fixed his eyes more steadfastly on
the spot, as if wishing to convince himself that it was all nonsense.
But at length he saw--saw clearly; there was no longer a sheet--the
portrait was quite uncovered, and was gazing beyond everything around
it, straight at him; gazing as it seemed fairly into his heart. His
heart grew cold. He watched anxiously; the old man moved, and
suddenly, supporting himself on the frame with both arms, raised
himself by his hands, and, putting forth both feet, leapt out of the
frame. Through the crack of the screen, the empty frame alone was now
visible. Footsteps resounded through the room, and approached nearer
and nearer to the screen. The poor artist's heart began beating fast.
He expected every moment, his breath failing for fear, that the old
man would look round the screen at him. And lo! he did look from
behind the screen, with the very same bronzed face, and with his big
eyes roving about.

Tchartkoff tried to scream, and felt that his voice was gone; he tried
to move; his limbs refused their office. With open mouth, and failing
breath, he gazed at the tall phantom, draped in some kind of a flowing
Asiatic robe, and waited for what it would do. The old man sat down
almost on his very feet, and then pulled out something from among the
folds of his wide garment. It was a purse. The old man untied it, took
it by the end, and shook it. Heavy rolls of coin fell out with a dull
thud upon the floor. Each was wrapped in blue paper, and on each was
marked, "1000 ducats." The old man protruded his long, bony hand from
his wide sleeves, and began to undo the rolls. The gold glittered.
Great as was the artist's unreasoning fear, he concentrated all his
attention upon the gold, gazing motionless, as it made its appearance
in the bony hands, gleamed, rang lightly or dully, and was wrapped up
again. Then he perceived one packet which had rolled farther than the
rest, to the very leg of his bedstead, near his pillow. He grasped it
almost convulsively, and glanced in fear at the old man to see whether
he noticed it.

But the old man appeared very much occupied: he collected all his
rolls, replaced them in the purse, and went outside the screen without
looking at him. Tchartkoff's heart beat wildly as he heard the rustle
of the retreating footsteps sounding through the room. He clasped the
roll of coin more closely in his hand, quivering in every limb.
Suddenly he heard the footsteps approaching the screen again.
Apparently the old man had recollected that one roll was missing. Lo!
again he looked round the screen at him. The artist in despair grasped
the roll with all his strength, tried with all his power to make a
movement, shrieked--and awoke.

He was bathed in a cold perspiration; his heart beat as hard as it was
possible for it to beat; his chest was oppressed, as though his last
breath was about to issue from it. "Was it a dream?" he said, seizing
his head with both hands. But the terrible reality of the apparition
did not resemble a dream. As he woke, he saw the old man step into the
frame: the skirts of the flowing garment even fluttered, and his hand
felt plainly that a moment before it had held something heavy. The
moonlight lit up the room, bringing out from the dark corners here a
canvas, there the model of a hand: a drapery thrown over a chair;
trousers and dirty boots. Then he perceived that he was not lying in
his bed, but standing upright in front of the portrait. How he had
come there, he could not in the least comprehend. Still more surprised
was he to find the portrait uncovered, and with actually no sheet over
it. Motionless with terror, he gazed at it, and perceived that the
living, human eyes were fastened upon him. A cold perspiration broke
out upon his forehead. He wanted to move away, but felt that his feet
had in some way become rooted to the earth. And he felt that this was
not a dream. The old man's features moved, and his lips began to
project towards him, as though he wanted to suck him in. With a yell
of despair he jumped back--and awoke.

"Was it a dream?" With his heart throbbing to bursting, he felt about
him with both hands. Yes, he was lying in bed, and in precisely the
position in which he had fallen asleep. Before him stood the screen.
The moonlight flooded the room. Through the crack of the screen, the
portrait was visible, covered with the sheet, as it should be, just as
he had covered it. And so that, too, was a dream? But his clenched
fist still felt as though something had been held in it. The throbbing
of his heart was violent, almost terrible; the weight upon his breast
intolerable. He fixed his eyes upon the crack, and stared steadfastly
at the sheet. And lo! he saw plainly the sheet begin to open, as
though hands were pushing from underneath, and trying to throw it off.
"Lord God, what is it!" he shrieked, crossing himself in despair--and
awoke.

And was this, too, a dream? He sprang from his bed, half-mad, and
could not comprehend what had happened to him. Was it the oppression
of a nightmare, the raving of fever, or an actual apparition? Striving
to calm, as far as possible, his mental tumult, and stay the wildly
rushing blood, which beat with straining pulses in every vein, he went
to the window and opened it. The cool breeze revived him. The
moonlight lay on the roofs and the white walls of the houses, though
small clouds passed frequently across the sky. All was still: from
time to time there struck the ear the distant rumble of a carriage. He
put his head out of the window, and gazed for some time. Already the
signs of approaching dawn were spreading over the sky. At last he felt
drowsy, shut to the window, stepped back, lay down in bed, and quickly
fell, like one exhausted, into a deep sleep.

He awoke late, and with the disagreeable feeling of a man who has been
half-suffocated with coal-gas: his head ached painfully. The room was
dim: an unpleasant moisture pervaded the air, and penetrated the
cracks of his windows. Dissatisfied and depressed as a wet cock, he
seated himself on his dilapidated divan, not knowing what to do, what
to set about, and at length remembered the whole of his dream. As he
recalled it, the dream presented itself to his mind as so oppressively
real that he even began to wonder whether it were a dream, whether
there were not something more here, whether it were not really an
apparition. Removing the sheet, he looked at the terrible portrait by
the light of day. The eyes were really striking in their liveliness,
but he found nothing particularly terrible about them, though an
indescribably unpleasant feeling lingered in his mind. Nevertheless,
he could not quite convince himself that it was a dream. It struck him
that there must have been some terrible fragment of reality in the
vision. It seemed as though there were something in the old man's very
glance and expression which said that he had been with him that night:
his hand still felt the weight which had so recently lain in it as if
some one had but just snatched it from him. It seemed to him that, if
he had only grasped the roll more firmly, it would have remained in
his hand, even after his awakening.

"My God, if I only had a portion of that money!" he said, breathing
heavily; and in his fancy, all the rolls of coin, with their
fascinating inscription, "1000 ducats," began to pour out of the
purse. The rolls opened, the gold glittered, and was wrapped up again;
and he sat motionless, with his eyes fixed on the empty air, as if he
were incapable of tearing himself from such a sight, like a child who
sits before a plate of sweets, and beholds, with watering mouth, other
people devouring them.

At last there came a knock on the door, which recalled him
unpleasantly to himself. The landlord entered with the constable of
the district, whose presence is even more disagreeable to poor people
than is the presence of a beggar to the rich. The landlord of the
little house in which Tchartkoff lived resembled the other individuals
who own houses anywhere in the Vasilievsky Ostroff, on the St.
Petersburg side, or in the distant regions of Kolomna--individuals
whose character is as difficult to define as the colour of a
threadbare surtout. In his youth he had been a captain and a braggart,
a master in the art of flogging, skilful, foppish, and stupid; but in
his old age he combined all these various qualities into a kind of dim
indefiniteness. He was a widower, already on the retired list, no
longer boasted, nor was dandified, nor quarrelled, but only cared to
drink tea and talk all sorts of nonsense over it. He walked about his
room, and arranged the ends of the tallow candles; called punctually
at the end of each month upon his lodgers for money; went out into the
street, with the key in his hand, to look at the roof of his house,
and sometimes chased the porter out of his den, where he had hidden
himself to sleep. In short, he was a man on the retired list, who,
after the turmoils and wildness of his life, had only his
old-fashioned habits left.

"Please to see for yourself, Varukh Kusmitch," said the landlord,
turning to the officer, and throwing out his hands, "this man does not
pay his rent, he does not pay."

"How can I when I have no money? Wait, and I will pay."

"I can't wait, my good fellow," said the landlord angrily, making a
gesture with the key which he held in his hand. "Lieutenant-Colonel
Potogonkin has lived with me seven years, seven years already; Anna
Petrovna Buchmisteroff rents the coach-house and stable, with the
exception of two stalls, and has three household servants: that is the
kind of lodgers I have. I say to you frankly, that this is not an
establishment where people do not pay their rent. Pay your money at
once, please, or else clear out."

"Yes, if you rented the rooms, please to pay," said the constable,
with a slight shake of the head, as he laid his finger on one of the
buttons of his uniform.

"Well, what am I to pay with? that's the question. I haven't a
groschen just at present."

"In that case, satisfy the claims of Ivan Ivanovitch with the fruits
of your profession," said the officer: "perhaps he will consent to
take pictures."

"No, thank you, my good fellow, no pictures. Pictures of holy
subjects, such as one could hang upon the walls, would be well enough;
or some general with a star, or Prince Kutusoff's portrait. But this
fellow has painted that muzhik, that muzhik in his blouse, his servant
who grinds his colours! The idea of painting his portrait, the hog!
I'll thrash him well: he took all the nails out of my bolts, the
scoundrel! Just see what subjects! Here he has drawn his room. It
would have been well enough had he taken a clean, well-furnished room;
but he has gone and drawn this one, with all the dirt and rubbish he
has collected. Just see how he has defaced my room! Look for yourself.
Yes, and my lodgers have been with me seven years, the
lieutenant-colonel, Anna Petrovna Buchmisteroff. No, I tell you, there
is no worse lodger than a painter: he lives like a pig--God have
mercy!"

The poor artist had to listen patiently to all this. Meanwhile the
officer had occupied himself with examining the pictures and studies,
and showed that his mind was more advanced than the landlord's, and
that he was not insensible to artistic impressions.

"Heh!" said he, tapping one canvas, on which was depicted a naked
woman, "this subject is--lively. But why so much black under her nose?
did she take snuff?"

"Shadow," answered Tchartkoff gruffly, without looking at him.

"But it might have been put in some other place: it is too conspicuous
under the nose," observed the officer. "And whose likeness is this?"
he continued, approaching the old man's portrait. "It is too terrible.
Was he really so dreadful? Ah! why, he actually looks at one! What a
thunder-cloud! From whom did you paint it?"

"Ah! it is from a--" said Tchartkoff, but did not finish his sentence:
he heard a crack. It seems that the officer had pressed too hard on
the frame of the portrait, thanks to the weight of his constable's
hands. The small boards at the side caved in, one fell on the floor,
and with it fell, with a heavy crash, a roll of blue paper. The
inscription caught Tchartkoff's eye--"1000 ducats." Like a madman, he
sprang to pick it up, grasped the roll, and gripped it convulsively in
his hand, which sank with the weight.

"Wasn't there a sound of money?" inquired the officer, hearing the
noise of something falling on the floor, and not catching sight of it,
owing to the rapidity with which Tchartkoff had hastened to pick it
up.

"What business is it of yours what is in my room?"

"It's my business because you ought to pay your rent to the landlord
at once; because you have money, and won't pay, that's why it's my
business."

"Well, I will pay him to-day."

"Well, and why wouldn't you pay before, instead of giving trouble to
your landlord, and bothering the police to boot?"

"Because I did not want to touch this money. I will pay him in full
this evening, and leave the rooms to-morrow. I will not stay with such
a landlord."

"Well, Ivan Ivanovitch, he will pay you," said the constable, turning
to the landlord. "But in case you are not satisfied in every respect
this evening, then you must excuse me, Mr. Painter." So saying, he put
on his three-cornered hat, and went into the ante-room, followed by
the landlord hanging his head, and apparently engaged in meditation.

"Thank God, Satan has carried them off!" said Tchartkoff, as he heard
the outer door of the ante-room close. He looked out into the
ante-room, sent Nikita off on some errand, in order to be quite alone,
fastened the door behind him, and, returning to his room, began with
wildly beating heart to undo the roll.

In it were ducats, all new, and bright as fire. Almost beside himself,
he sat down beside the pile of gold, still asking himself, "Is not
this all a dream?" There were just a thousand in the roll, the
exterior of which was precisely like what he had seen in his dream. He
turned them over, and looked at them for some minutes. His imagination
recalled up all the tales he had heard of hidden hoards, cabinets with
secret drawers, left by ancestors for their spendthrift descendants,
with firm belief in the extravagance of their life. He pondered this:
"Did not some grandfather, in the present instance, leave a gift for
his grandchild, shut up in the frame of a family portrait?" Filled
with romantic fancies, he began to think whether this had not some
secret connection with his fate? whether the existence of the portrait
was not bound up with his own, and whether his acquisition of it was
not due to a kind of predestination?

He began to examine the frame with curiosity. On one side a cavity was
hollowed out, but concealed so skilfully and neatly by a little board,
that, if the massive hand of the constable had not effected a breach,
the ducats might have remained hidden to the end of time. On examining
the portrait, he marvelled again at the exquisite workmanship, the
extraordinary treatment of the eyes. They no longer appeared terrible
to him; but, nevertheless, each time he looked at them a disagreeable
feeling involuntarily lingered in his mind.

"No," he said to himself, "no matter whose grandfather you were, I'll
put a glass over you, and get you a gilt frame." Then he laid his hand
on the golden pile before him, and his heart beat faster at the touch.
"What shall I do with them?" he said, fixing his eyes on them. "Now I
am independent for at least three years: I can shut myself up in my
room and work. I have money for colours now; for food and lodging--no
one will annoy and disturb me now. I will buy myself a first-class lay
figure, I will order a plaster torso, and some model feet, I will have
a Venus. I will buy engravings of the best pictures. And if I work
three years to satisfy myself, without haste or with the idea of
selling, I shall surpass all, and may become a distinguished artist."

Thus he spoke in solitude, with his good judgment prompting him; but
louder and more distinct sounded another voice within him. As he
glanced once more at the gold, it was not thus that his twenty-two
years and fiery youth reasoned. Now everything was within his power on
which he had hitherto gazed with envious eyes, had viewed from afar
with longing. How his heart beat when he thought of it! To wear a
fashionable coat, to feast after long abstinence, to hire handsome
apartments, to go at once to the theatre, to the confectioner's,
to . . . other places; and seizing his money, he was in the street in
a moment.

First of all he went to the tailor, was clothed anew from head to
foot, and began to look at himself like a child. He purchased perfumes
and pomades; hired the first elegant suite of apartments with mirrors
and plateglass windows which he came across in the Nevsky Prospect,
without haggling about the price; bought, on the impulse of the
moment, a costly eye-glass; bought, also on the impulse, a number of
neckties of every description, many more than he needed; had his hair
curled at the hairdresser's; rode through the city twice without any
object whatever; ate an immense quantity of sweetmeats at the
confectioner's; and went to the French Restaurant, of which he had
heard rumours as indistinct as though they had concerned the Empire of
China. There he dined, casting proud glances at the other visitors,
and continually arranging his curls in the glass. There he drank a
bottle of champagne, which had been known to him hitherto only by
hearsay. The wine rather affected his head; and he emerged into the
street, lively, pugnacious, and ready to raise the Devil, according to
the Russian expression. He strutted along the pavement, levelling his
eye-glass at everybody. On the bridge he caught sight of his former
professor, and slipped past him neatly, as if he did not see him, so
that the astounded professor stood stock-still on the bridge for a
long time, with a face suggestive of a note of interrogation.

All his goods and chattels, everything he owned, easels, canvas,
pictures, were transported that same evening to his elegant quarters.
He arranged the best of them in conspicuous places, threw the worst
into a corner, and promenaded up and down the handsome rooms, glancing
constantly in the mirrors. An unconquerable desire to take the bull by
the horns, and show himself to the world at once, had arisen in his
mind. He already heard the shouts, "Tchartkoff! Tchartkoff! Tchartkoff
paints! What talent Tchartkoff has!" He paced the room in a state of
rapture.

The next day he took ten ducats, and went to the editor of a popular
journal asking his charitable assistance. He was joyfully received by
the journalist, who called him on the spot, "Most respected sir,"
squeezed both his hands, and made minute inquiries as to his name,
birthplace, residence. The next day there appeared in the journal,
below a notice of some newly invented tallow candles, an article with
the following heading:--

"TCHARTKOFF'S IMMENSE TALENT

"We hasten to delight the cultivated inhabitants of the capital with a
discovery which we may call splendid in every respect. All are agreed
that there are among us many very handsome faces, but hitherto there
has been no means of committing them to canvas for transmission to
posterity. This want has now been supplied: an artist has been found
who unites in himself all desirable qualities. The beauty can now feel
assured that she will be depicted with all the grace of her charms,
airy, fascinating, butterfly-like, flitting among the flowers of
spring. The stately father of a family can see himself surrounded by
his family. Merchant, warrior, citizen, statesman--hasten one and all,
wherever you may be. The artist's magnificent establishment [Nevsky
Prospect, such and such a number] is hung with portraits from his
brush, worthy of Van Dyck or Titian. We do not know which to admire
most, their truth and likeness to the originals, or the wonderful
brilliancy and freshness of the colouring. Hail to you, artist! you
have drawn a lucky number in the lottery. Long live Andrei
Petrovitch!" (The journalist evidently liked familiarity.) "Glorify
yourself and us. We know how to prize you. Universal popularity, and
with it wealth, will be your meed, though some of our brother
journalists may rise against you."

The artist read this article with secret satisfaction; his face
beamed. He was mentioned in print; it was a novelty to him: he read
the lines over several times. The comparison with Van Dyck and Titian
flattered him extremely. The praise, "Long live Andrei Petrovitch,"
also pleased him greatly: to be spoken of by his Christian name and
patronymic in print was an honour hitherto totally unknown to him. He
began to pace the chamber briskly, now he sat down in an armchair, now
he sprang up, and seated himself on the sofa, planning each moment how
he would receive visitors, male and female; he went to his canvas and
made a rapid sweep of the brush, endeavouring to impart a graceful
movement to his hand.

The next day, the bell at his door rang. He hastened to open it. A
lady entered, accompanied by a girl of eighteen, her daughter, and
followed by a lackey in a furred livery-coat.

"You are the painter Tchartkoff?"

The artist bowed.

"A great deal is written about you: your portraits, it is said, are
the height of perfection." So saying, the lady raised her glass to her
eyes and glanced rapidly over the walls, upon which nothing was
hanging. "But where are your portraits?"

"They have been taken away" replied the artist, somewhat confusedly:
"I have but just moved into these apartments; so they are still on the
road, they have not arrived."

"You have been in Italy?" asked the lady, levelling her glass at him,
as she found nothing else to point it at.

"No, I have not been there; but I wish to go, and I have deferred it
for a while. Here is an arm-chair, madame: you are fatigued?"

"Thank you: I have been sitting a long time in the carriage. Ah, at
last I behold your work!" said the lady, running to the opposite wall,
and bringing her glass to bear upon his studies, sketches, views and
portraits which were standing there on the floor. "It is charming.
Lise! Lise, come here. Rooms in the style of Teniers. Do you see?
Disorder, disorder, a table with a bust upon it, a hand, a palette;
dust, see how the dust is painted! It is charming. And here on this
canvas is a woman washing her face. What a pretty face! Ah! a little
muzhik! So you do not devote yourself exclusively to portraits?"

"Oh! that is mere rubbish. I was trying experiments, studies."

"Tell me your opinion of the portrait painters of the present day. Is
it not true that there are none now like Titian? There is not that
strength of colour, that--that-- What a pity that I cannot express
myself in Russian." The lady was fond of paintings, and had gone
through all the galleries in Italy with her eye-glass. "But Monsieur
Nohl--ah, how well he paints! what remarkable work! I think his faces
have been more expression than Titian's. You do not know Monsieur
Nohl?"

"Who is Nohl?" inquired the artist.

"Monsieur Nohl. Ah, what talent! He painted her portrait when she was
only twelve years old. You must certainly come to see us. Lise, you
shall show him your album. You know, we came expressly that you might
begin her portrait immediately."

"What? I am ready this very moment." And in a trice he pulled forward
an easel with a canvas already prepared, grasped his palette, and
fixed his eyes on the daughter's pretty little face. If he had been
acquainted with human nature, he might have read in it the dawning of
a childish passion for balls, the dawning of sorrow and misery at the
length of time before dinner and after dinner, the heavy traces of
uninterested application to various arts, insisted upon by her mother
for the elevation of her mind. But the artist saw only the tender
little face, a seductive subject for his brush, the body almost as
transparent as porcelain, the delicate white neck, and the
aristocratically slender form. And he prepared beforehand to triumph,
to display the delicacy of his brush, which had hitherto had to deal
only with the harsh features of coarse models, and severe antiques and
copies of classic masters. He already saw in fancy how this delicate
little face would turn out.

"Do you know," said the lady with a positively touching expression of
countenance, "I should like her to be painted simply attired, and
seated among green shadows, like meadows, with a flock or a grove in
the distance, so that it could not be seen that she goes to balls or
fashionable entertainments. Our balls, I must confess, murder the
intellect, deaden all remnants of feeling. Simplicity! would there
were more simplicity!" Alas, it was stamped on the faces of mother and
daughter that they had so overdanced themselves at balls that they had
become almost wax figures.

Tchartkoff set to work, posed his model, reflected a bit, fixed upon
the idea, waved his brush in the air, settling the points mentally,
and then began and finished the sketching in within an hour. Satisfied
with it, he began to paint. The task fascinated him; he forgot
everything, forgot the very existence of the aristocratic ladies,
began even to display some artistic tricks, uttering various odd
sounds and humming to himself now and then as artists do when immersed
heart and soul in their work. Without the slightest ceremony, he made
the sitter lift her head, which finally began to express utter
weariness.

"Enough for the first time," said the lady.

"A little more," said the artist, forgetting himself.

"No, it is time to stop. Lise, three o'clock!" said the lady, taking
out a tiny watch which hung by a gold chain from her girdle. "How late
it is!"

"Only a minute," said Tchartkoff innocently, with the pleading voice
of a child.

But the lady appeared to be not at all inclined to yield to his
artistic demands on this occasion; she promised, however, to sit
longer the next time.

"It is vexatious, all the same," thought Tchartkoff to himself: "I had
just got my hand in;" and he remembered no one had interrupted him or
stopped him when he was at work in his studio on Vasilievsky Ostroff.
Nikita sat motionless in one place. You might even paint him as long
as you pleased; he even went to sleep in the attitude prescribed him.
Feeling dissatisfied, he laid his brush and palette on a chair, and
paused in irritation before the picture.

The woman of the world's compliments awoke him from his reverie. He
flew to the door to show them out: on the stairs he received an
invitation to dine with them the following week, and returned with a
cheerful face to his apartments. The aristocratic lady had completely
charmed him. Up to that time he had looked upon such beings as
unapproachable, born solely to ride in magnificent carriages, with
liveried footmen and stylish coachmen, and to cast indifferent glances
on the poor man travelling on foot in a cheap cloak. And now, all of a
sudden, one of these very beings had entered his room; he was painting
her portrait, was invited to dinner at an aristocratic house. An
unusual feeling of pleasure took possession of him: he was completely
intoxicated, and rewarded himself with a splendid dinner, an evening
at the theatre, and a drive through the city in a carriage, without
any necessity whatever.

But meanwhile his ordinary work did not fall in with his mood at all.
He did nothing but wait for the moment when the bell should ring. At
last the aristocratic lady arrived with her pale daughter. He seated
them, drew forward the canvas with skill, and some efforts of
fashionable airs, and began to paint. The sunny day and bright light
aided him not a little: he saw in his dainty sitter much which, caught
and committed to canvas, would give great value to the portrait. He
perceived that he might accomplish something good if he could
reproduce, with accuracy, all that nature then offered to his eyes.
His heart began to beat faster as he felt that he was expressing
something which others had not even seen as yet. His work engrossed
him completely: he was wholly taken up with it, and again forgot the
aristocratic origin of the sitter. With heaving breast he saw the
delicate features and the almost transparent body of the fair maiden
grow beneath his hand. He had caught every shade, the slight
sallowness, the almost imperceptible blue tinge under the eyes--and
was already preparing to put in the tiny mole on the brow, when he
suddenly heard the mother's voice behind him.

"Ah! why do you paint that? it is not necessary: and you have made it
here, in several places, rather yellow; and here, quite so, like dark
spots."

The artist undertook to explain that the spots and yellow tinge would
turn out well, that they brought out the delicate and pleasing tones
of the face. He was informed that they did not bring out tones, and
would not turn out well at all. It was explained to him that just
to-day Lise did not feel quite well; that she never was sallow, and
that her face was distinguished for its fresh colouring.

Sadly he began to erase what his brush had put upon the canvas. Many a
nearly imperceptible feature disappeared, and with it vanished too a
portion of the resemblance. He began indifferently to impart to the
picture that commonplace colouring which can be painted mechanically,
and which lends to a face, even when taken from nature, the sort of
cold ideality observable on school programmes. But the lady was
satisfied when the objectionable tone was quite banished. She merely
expressed surprise that the work lasted so long, and added that she
had heard that he finished a portrait completely in two sittings. The
artist could not think of any answer to this. The ladies rose, and
prepared to depart. He laid aside his brush, escorted them to the
door, and then stood disconsolate for a long while in one spot before
the portrait.

He gazed stupidly at it; and meanwhile there floated before his mind's
eye those delicate features, those shades, and airy tints which he had
copied, and which his brush had annihilated. Engrossed with them, he
put the portrait on one side and hunted up a head of Psyche which he
had some time before thrown on canvas in a sketchy manner. It was a
pretty little face, well painted, but entirely ideal, and having cold,
regular features not lit up by life. For lack of occupation, he now
began to tone it up, imparting to it all he had taken note of in his
aristocratic sitter. Those features, shadows, tints, which he had
noted, made their appearance here in the purified form in which they
appear when the painter, after closely observing nature, subordinates
himself to her, and produces a creation equal to her own.

Psyche began to live: and the scarcely dawning thought began, little
by little, to clothe itself in a visible form. The type of face of the
fashionable young lady was unconsciously transferred to Psyche, yet
nevertheless she had an expression of her own which gave the picture
claims to be considered in truth an original creation. Tchartkoff gave
himself up entirely to his work. For several days he was engrossed by
it alone, and the ladies surprised him at it on their arrival. He had
not time to remove the picture from the easel. Both ladies uttered a
cry of amazement, and clasped their hands.

"Lise, Lise! Ah, how like! Superb, superb! What a happy thought, too,
to drape her in a Greek costume! Ah, what a surprise!"

The artist could not see his way to disabuse the ladies of their
error. Shamefacedly, with drooping head, he murmured, "This is
Psyche."

"In the character of Psyche? Charming!" said the mother, smiling, upon
which the daughter smiled too. "Confess, Lise, it pleases you to be
painted in the character of Psyche better than any other way? What a
sweet idea! But what treatment! It is Correggio himself. I must say
that, although I had read and heard about you, I did not know you had
so much talent. You positively must paint me too." Evidently the lady
wanted to be portrayed as some kind of Psyche too.

"What am I to do with them?" thought the artist. "If they will have it
so, why, let Psyche pass for what they choose:" and added aloud, "Pray
sit a little: I will touch it up here and there."

"Ah! I am afraid you will . . . it is such a capital likeness now!"

But the artist understood that the difficulty was with respect to the
sallowness, and so he reassured them by saying that he only wished to
give more brilliancy and expression to the eyes. In truth, he was
ashamed, and wanted to impart a little more likeness to the original,
lest any one should accuse him of actual barefaced flattery. And the
features of the pale young girl at length appeared more closely in
Psyche's countenance.

"Enough," said the mother, beginning to fear that the likeness might
become too decided. The artist was remunerated in every way, with
smiles, money, compliments, cordial pressures of the hand, invitations
to dinner: in short, he received a thousand flattering rewards.

The portrait created a furore in the city. The lady exhibited it to
her friends, and all admired the skill with which the artist had
preserved the likeness, and at the same time conferred more beauty on
the original. The last remark, of course, was prompted by a slight
tinge of envy. The artist was suddenly overwhelmed with work. It
seemed as if the whole city wanted to be painted by him. The door-bell
rang incessantly. From one point of view, this might be considered
advantageous, as presenting to him endless practice in variety and
number of faces. But, unfortunately, they were all people who were
hard to get along with, either busy, hurried people, or else belonging
to the fashionable world, and consequently more occupied than any one
else, and therefore impatient to the last degree. In all quarters, the
demand was merely that the likeness should be good and quickly
executed. The artist perceived that it was a simple impossibility to
finish his work; that it was necessary to exchange power of treatment
for lightness and rapidity, to catch only the general expression, and
not waste labour on delicate details.

Moreover, nearly all of his sitters made stipulations on various
points. The ladies required that mind and character should be
represented in their portraits; that all angles should be rounded, all
unevenness smoothed away, and even removed entirely if possible; in
short, that their faces should be such as to cause every one to stare
at them with admiration, if not fall in love with them outright. When
they sat to him, they sometimes assumed expressions which greatly
amazed the artist; one tried to express melancholy; another,
meditation; a third wanted to make her mouth appear small on any
terms, and puckered it up to such an extent that it finally looked
like a spot about as big as a pinhead. And in spite of all this, they
demanded of him good likenesses and unconstrained naturalness. The men
were no better: one insisted on being painted with an energetic,
muscular turn to his head; another, with upturned, inspired eyes; a
lieutenant of the guard demanded that Mars should be visible in his
eyes; an official in the civil service drew himself up to his full
height in order to have his uprightness expressed in his face, and
that his hand might rest on a book bearing the words in plain
characters, "He always stood up for the right."

At first such demands threw the artist into a cold perspiration.
Finally he acquired the knack of it, and never troubled himself at all
about it. He understood at a word how each wanted himself portrayed.
If a man wanted Mars in his face, he put in Mars: he gave a Byronic
turn and attitude to those who aimed at Byron. If the ladies wanted to
be Corinne, Undine, or Aspasia, he agreed with great readiness, and
threw in a sufficient measure of good looks from his own imagination,
which does no harm, and for the sake of which an artist is even
forgiven a lack of resemblance. He soon began to wonder himself at the
rapidity and dash of his brush. And of course those who sat to him
were in ecstasies, and proclaimed him a genius.

Tchartkoff became a fashionable artist in every sense of the word. He
began to dine out, to escort ladies to picture galleries, to dress
foppishly, and to assert audibly that an artist should belong to
society, that he must uphold his profession, that artists mostly dress
like showmakers, do not know how to behave themselves, do not maintain
the highest tone, and are lacking in all polish. At home, in his
studio, he carried cleanliness and spotlessness to the last extreme,
set up two superb footmen, took fashionable pupils, dressed several
times a day, curled his hair, practised various manners of receiving
his callers, and busied himself in adorning his person in every
conceivable way, in order to produce a pleasing impression on the
ladies. In short, it would soon have been impossible for any one to
have recognised in him the modest artist who had formerly toiled
unknown in his miserable quarters in the Vasilievsky Ostroff.

He now expressed himself decidedly concerning artists and art;
declared that too much credit had been given to the old masters; that
even Raphael did not always paint well, and that fame attached to many
of his works simply by force of tradition: that Michael Angelo was a
braggart because he could boast only a knowledge of anatomy; that
there was no grace about him, and that real brilliancy and power of
treatment and colouring were to be looked for in the present century.
And there, naturally, the question touched him personally. "I do not
understand," said he, "how others toil and work with difficulty: a man
who labours for months over a picture is a dauber, and no artist in my
opinion; I don't believe he has any talent: genius works boldly,
rapidly. Here is this portrait which I painted in two days, this head
in one day, this in a few hours, this in little more than an hour. No,
I confess I do not recognise as art that which adds line to line; that
is a handicraft, not art." In this manner did he lecture his visitors;
and the visitors admired the strength and boldness of his works,
uttered exclamations on hearing how fast they had been produced, and
said to each other, "This is talent, real talent! see how he speaks,
how his eyes gleam! There is something really extraordinary in his
face!"

It flattered the artist to hear such reports about himself. When
printed praise appeared in the papers, he rejoiced like a child,
although this praise was purchased with his money. He carried the
printed slips about with him everywhere, and showed them to friends
and acquaintances as if by accident. His fame increased, his works and
orders multiplied. Already the same portraits over and over again
wearied him, by the same attitudes and turns, which he had learned by
heart. He painted them now without any great interest in his work,
brushing in some sort of a head, and giving them to his pupil's to
finish. At first he had sought to devise a new attitude each time. Now
this had grown wearisome to him. His brain was tired with planning and
thinking. It was out of his power; his fashionable life bore him far
away from labour and thought. His work grew cold and colourless; and
he betook himself with indifference to the reproduction of monotonous,
well-worn forms. The eternally spick-and-span uniforms, and the
so-to-speak buttoned-up faces of the government officials, soldiers,
and statesmen, did not offer a wide field for his brush: it forgot how
to render superb draperies and powerful emotion and passion. Of
grouping, dramatic effect and its lofty connections, there was
nothing. In face of him was only a uniform, a corsage, a dress-coat,
and before which the artist feels cold and all imagination vanishes.
Even his own peculiar merits were no longer visible in his works, yet
they continued to enjoy renown; although genuine connoisseurs and
artists merely shrugged their shoulders when they saw his latest
productions. But some who had known Tchartkoff in his earlier days
could not understand how the talent of which he had given such clear
indications in the outset could so have vanished; and strove in vain
to divine by what means genius could be extinguished in a man just
when he had attained to the full development of his powers.

But the intoxicated artist did not hear these criticisms. He began to
attain to the age of dignity, both in mind and years: to grow stout,
and increase visibly in flesh. He often read in the papers such
phrases as, "Our most respected Andrei Petrovitch; our worthy Andrei
Petrovitch." He began to receive offers of distinguished posts in the
service, invitations to examinations and committees. He began, as is
usually the case in maturer years, to advocate Raphael and the old
masters, not because he had become thoroughly convinced of their
transcendent merits, but in order to snub the younger artists. His
life was already approaching the period when everything which suggests
impulse contracts within a man; when a powerful chord appeals more
feebly to the spirit; when the touch of beauty no longer converts
virgin strength into fire and flame, but when all the burnt-out
sentiments become more vulnerable to the sound of gold, hearken more
attentively to its seductive music, and little by little permit
themselves to be completely lulled to sleep by it. Fame can give no
pleasure to him who has stolen it, not won it; so all his feelings and
impulses turned towards wealth. Gold was his passion, his ideal, his
fear, his delight, his aim. The bundles of bank-notes increased in his
coffers; and, like all to whose lot falls this fearful gift, he began
to grow inaccessible to every sentiment except the love of gold. But
something occurred which gave him a powerful shock, and disturbed the
whole tenor of his life.

One day he found upon his table a note, in which the Academy of
Painting begged him, as a worthy member of its body, to come and give
his opinion upon a new work which had been sent from Italy by a
Russian artist who was perfecting himself there. The painter was one
of his former comrades, who had been possessed with a passion for art
from his earliest years, had given himself up to it with his whole
soul, estranged himself from his friends and relatives, and had
hastened to that wonderful Rome, at whose very name the artist's heart
beats wildly and hotly. There he buried himself in his work from which
he permitted nothing to entice him. He visited the galleries
unweariedly, he stood for hours at a time before the works of the
great masters, seizing and studying their marvellous methods. He never
finished anything without revising his impressions several times
before these great teachers, and reading in their works silent but
eloquent counsels. He gave each impartially his due, appropriating
from all only that which was most beautiful, and finally became the
pupil of the divine Raphael alone, as a great poet, after reading many
works, at last made Homer's "Iliad" his only breviary, having
discovered that it contains all one wants, and that there is nothing
which is not expressed in it in perfection. And so he brought away
from his school the grand conception of creation, the mighty beauty of
thought, the high charm of that heavenly brush.

When Tchartkoff entered the room, he found a crowd of visitors already
collected before the picture. The most profound silence, such as
rarely settles upon a throng of critics, reigned over all. He hastened
to assume the significant expression of a connoisseur, and approached
the picture; but, O God! what did he behold!

Pure, faultless, beautiful as a bride, stood the picture before him.
The critics regarded this new hitherto unknown work with a feeling of
involuntary wonder. All seemed united in it: the art of Raphael,
reflected in the lofty grace of the grouping; the art of Correggio,
breathing from the finished perfection of the workmanship. But more
striking than all else was the evident creative power in the artist's
mind. The very minutest object in the picture revealed it; he had
caught that melting roundness of outline which is visible in nature
only to the artist creator, and which comes out as angles with a
copyist. It was plainly visible how the artist, having imbibed it all
from the external world, had first stored it in his mind, and then
drawn it thence, as from a spiritual source, into one harmonious,
triumphant song. And it was evident, even to the uninitiated, how vast
a gulf there was fixed between creation and a mere copy from nature.
Involuntary tears stood ready to fall in the eyes of those who
surrounded the picture. It seemed as though all joined in a silent
hymn to the divine work.

Motionless, with open mouth, Tchartkoff stood before the picture. At
length, when by degrees the visitors and critics began to murmur and
comment upon the merits of the work, and turning to him, begged him to
express an opinion, he came to himself once more. He tried to assume
an indifferent, everyday expression; strove to utter some such
commonplace remark as; "Yes, to tell the truth, it is impossible to
deny the artist's talent; there is something in it;" but the speech
died upon his lips, tears and sobs burst forth uncontrollably, and he
rushed from the room like one beside himself.

In a moment he stood in his magnificent studio. All his being, all his
life, had been aroused in one instant, as if youth had returned to
him, as if the dying sparks of his talent had blazed forth afresh. The
bandage suddenly fell from his eyes. Heavens! to think of having
mercilessly wasted the best years of his youth, of having
extinguished, trodden out perhaps, that spark of fire which, cherished
in his breast, might perhaps have been developed into magnificence and
beauty, and have extorted too, its meed of tears and admiration! It
seemed as though those impulses which he had known in other days
re-awoke suddenly in his soul.

He seized a brush and approached his canvas. One thought possessed him
wholly, one desire consumed him; he strove to depict a fallen angel.
This idea was most in harmony with his frame of mind. The perspiration
started out upon his face with his efforts; but, alas! his figures,
attitudes, groups, thoughts, arranged themselves stiffly,
disconnectedly. His hand and his imagination had been too long
confined to one groove; and the fruitless effort to escape from the
bonds and fetters which he had imposed upon himself, showed itself in
irregularities and errors. He had despised the long, wearisome ladder
to knowledge, and the first fundamental law of the future great man,
hard work. He gave vent to his vexation. He ordered all his later
productions to be taken out of his studio, all the fashionable,
lifeless pictures, all the portraits of hussars, ladies, and
councillors of state.

He shut himself up alone in his room, would order no food, and devoted
himself entirely to his work. He sat toiling like a scholar. But how
pitifully wretched was all which proceeded from his hand! He was
stopped at every step by his ignorance of the very first principles:
simple ignorance of the mechanical part of his art chilled all
inspiration and formed an impassable barrier to his imagination. His
brush returned involuntarily to hackneyed forms: hands folded
themselves in a set attitude; heads dared not make any unusual turn;
the very garments turned out commonplace, and would not drape
themselves to any unaccustomed posture of the body. And he felt and
saw this all himself.

"But had I really any talent?" he said at length: "did not I deceive
myself?" Uttering these words, he turned to the early works which he
had painted so purely, so unselfishly, in former days, in his wretched
cabin yonder in lonely Vasilievsky Ostroff. He began attentively to
examine them all; and all the misery of his former life came back to
him. "Yes," he cried despairingly, "I had talent: the signs and traces
of it are everywhere visible--"

He paused suddenly, and shivered all over. His eyes encountered other
eyes fixed immovably upon him. It was that remarkable portrait which
he had bought in the Shtchukinui Dvor. All this time it had been
covered up, concealed by other pictures, and had utterly gone out of
his mind. Now, as if by design, when all the fashionable portraits and
paintings had been removed from the studio, it looked forth, together
with the productions of his early youth. As he recalled all the
strange events connected with it; as he remembered that this singular
portrait had been, in a manner, the cause of his errors; that the
hoard of money which he had obtained in such peculiar fashion had
given birth in his mind to all the wild caprices which had destroyed
his talent--madness was on the point of taking possession of him. At
once he ordered the hateful portrait to be removed.

But his mental excitement was not thereby diminished. His whole being
was shaken to its foundation; and he suffered that fearful torture
which is sometimes exhibited when a feeble talent strives to display
itself on a scale too great for it and cannot do so. A horrible envy
took possession of him--an envy which bordered on madness. The gall
flew to his heart when he beheld a work which bore the stamp of
talent. He gnashed his teeth, and devoured it with the glare of a
basilisk. He conceived the most devilish plan which ever entered into
the mind of man, and he hastened with the strength of madness to carry
it into execution. He began to purchase the best that art produced of
every kind. Having bought a picture at a great price, he transported
it to his room, flung himself upon it with the ferocity of a tiger,
cut it, tore it, chopped it into bits, and stamped upon it with a grin
of delight.

The vast wealth he had amassed enabled him to gratify this devilish
desire. He opened his bags of gold and unlocked his coffers. No
monster of ignorance ever destroyed so many superb productions of art
as did this raging avenger. At any auction where he made his
appearance, every one despaired at once of obtaining any work of art.
It seemed as if an angry heaven had sent this fearful scourge into the
world expressly to destroy all harmony. Scorn of the world was
expressed in his countenance. His tongue uttered nothing save biting
and censorious words. He swooped down like a harpy into the street:
and his acquaintances, catching sight of him in the distance, sought
to turn aside and avoid a meeting with him, saying that it poisoned
all the rest of the day.

Fortunately for the world and art, such a life could not last long:
his passions were too overpowering for his feeble strength. Attacks of
madness began to recur more frequently, and ended at last in the most
frightful illness. A violent fever, combined with galloping
consumption, seized upon him with such violence, that in three days
there remained only a shadow of his former self. To this was added
indications of hopeless insanity. Sometimes several men were unable to
hold him. The long-forgotten, living eyes of the portrait began to
torment him, and then his madness became dreadful. All the people who
surrounded his bed seemed to him horrible portraits. The portrait
doubled and quadrupled itself; all the walls seemed hung with
portraits, which fastened their living eyes upon him; portraits glared
at him from the ceiling, from the floor; the room widened and
lengthened endlessly, in order to make room for more of the motionless
eyes. The doctor who had undertaken to attend him, having learned
something of his strange history, strove with all his might to fathom
the secret connection between the visions of his fancy and the
occurrences of his life, but without the slightest success. The sick
man understood nothing, felt nothing, save his own tortures, and gave
utterance only to frightful yells and unintelligible gibberish. At
last his life ended in a final attack of unutterable suffering.
Nothing could be found of all his great wealth; but when they beheld
the mutilated fragments of grand works of art, the value of which
exceeded a million, they understood the terrible use which had been
made of it.

PART II

A THRONG of carriages and other vehicles stood at the entrance of a
house in which an auction was going on of the effects of one of those
wealthy art-lovers who have innocently passed for Maecenases, and in a
simple-minded fashion expended, to that end, the millions amassed by
their thrifty fathers, and frequently even by their own early labours.
The long saloon was filled with the most motley throng of visitors,
collected like birds of prey swooping down upon an unburied corpse.
There was a whole squadron of Russian shop-keepers from the Gostinnui
Dvor, and from the old-clothes mart, in blue coats of foreign make.
Their faces and expressions were a little more natural here, and did
not display that fictitious desire to be subservient which is so
marked in the Russian shop-keeper when he stands before a customer in
his shop. Here they stood upon no ceremony, although the saloons were
full of those very aristocrats before whom, in any other place, they
would have been ready to sweep, with reverence, the dust brought in by
their feet. They were quite at their ease, handling pictures and books
without ceremony, when desirous of ascertaining the value of the
goods, and boldly upsetting bargains mentally secured in advance by
noble connoisseurs. There were many of those infallible attendants of
auctions who make it a point to go to one every day as regularly as to
take their breakfast; aristocratic connoisseurs who look upon it as
their duty not to miss any opportunity of adding to their collections,
and who have no other occupation between twelve o'clock and one; and
noble gentlemen, with garments very threadbare, who make their daily
appearance without any selfish object in view, but merely to see how
it all goes off.

A quantity of pictures were lying about in disorder: with them were
mingled furniture, and books with the cipher of the former owner, who
never was moved by any laudable desire to glance into them. Chinese
vases, marble slabs for tables, old and new furniture with curving
lines, with griffins, sphinxes, and lions' paws, gilded and ungilded,
chandeliers, sconces, all were heaped together in a perfect chaos of
art.

The auction appeared to be at its height.

The surging throng was competing for a portrait which could not but
arrest the attention of all who possessed any knowledge of art. The
skilled hand of an artist was plainly visible in it. The portrait,
which had apparently been several times restored and renovated,
represented the dark features of an Asiatic in flowing garments, and
with a strange and remarkable expression of countenance; but what
struck the buyers more than anything else was the peculiar liveliness
of the eyes. The more they were looked at, the more did they seem to
penetrate into the gazer's heart. This peculiarity, this strange
illusion achieved by the artist, attracted the attention of nearly
all. Many who had been bidding gradually withdrew, for the price
offered had risen to an incredible sum. There remained only two
well-known aristocrats, amateurs of painting, who were unwilling to
forego such an acquisition. They grew warm, and would probably have
run the bidding up to an impossible sum, had not one of the onlookers
suddenly exclaimed, "Permit me to interrupt your competition for a
while: I, perhaps, more than any other, have a right to this
portrait."

These words at once drew the attention of all to him. He was a tall
man of thirty-five, with long black curls. His pleasant face, full of
a certain bright nonchalance, indicated a mind free from all
wearisome, worldly excitement; his garments had no pretence to
fashion: all about him indicated the artist. He was, in fact, B. the
painter, a man personally well known to many of those present.

"However strange my words may seem to you," he continued, perceiving
that the general attention was directed to him, "if you will listen to
a short story, you may possibly see that I was right in uttering them.
Everything assures me that this is the portrait which I am looking
for."

A natural curiosity illuminated the faces of nearly all present; and
even the auctioneer paused as he was opening his mouth, and with
hammer uplifted in the air, prepared to listen. At the beginning of
the story, many glanced involuntarily towards the portrait; but later
on, all bent their attention solely on the narrator, as his tale grew
gradually more absorbing.

"You know that portion of the city which is called Kolomna," he began.
"There everything is unlike anything else in St. Petersburg. Retired
officials remove thither to live; widows; people not very well off,
who have acquaintances in the senate, and therefore condemn themselves
to this for nearly the whole of their lives; and, in short, that whole
list of people who can be described by the words ash-coloured--people
whose garments, faces, hair, eyes, have a sort of ashy surface, like a
day when there is in the sky neither cloud nor sun. Among them may be
retired actors, retired titular councillors, retired sons of Mars,
with ruined eyes and swollen lips.

"Life in Kolomna is terribly dull: rarely does a carriage appear,
except, perhaps, one containing an actor, which disturbs the universal
stillness by its rumble, noise, and jingling. You can get lodgings for
five rubles a month, coffee in the morning included. Widows with
pensions are the most aristocratic families there; they conduct
themselves well, sweep their rooms often, chatter with their friends
about the dearness of beef and cabbage, and frequently have a young
daughter, a taciturn, quiet, sometimes pretty creature; an ugly dog,
and wall-clocks which strike in a melancholy fashion. Then come the
actors whose salaries do not permit them to desert Kolomna, an
independent folk, living, like all artists, for pleasure. They sit in
their dressing-gowns, cleaning their pistols, gluing together all
sorts of things out of cardboard, playing draughts and cards with any
friend who chances to drop in, and so pass away the morning, doing
pretty nearly the same in the evening, with the addition of punch now
and then. After these great people and aristocracy of Kolomna, come
the rank and file. It is as difficult to put a name to them as to
remember the multitude of insects which breed in stale vinegar. There
are old women who get drunk, who make a living by incomprehensible
means, like ants, dragging old clothes and rags from the Kalinkin
Bridge to the old clothes-mart, in order to sell them for fifteen
kopeks--in short, the very dregs of mankind, whose conditions no
beneficent, political economist has devised any means of ameliorating.

"I have mentioned them in order to point out how often such people
find themselves under the necessity of seeking immediate temporary
assistance and having recourse to borrowing. Hence there settles among
them a peculiar race of money-lenders who lend small sums on security
at an enormous percentage. Among these usurers was a certain . . . but
I must not omit to mention that the occurrence which I have undertaken
to relate occurred the last century, in the reign of our late Empress
Catherine the Second. So, among the usurers, at that epoch, was a
certain person--an extraordinary being in every respect, who had
settled in that quarter of the city long before. He went about in
flowing Asiatic garb; his dark complexion indicated a Southern origin,
but to what particular nation he belonged, India, Greece, or Persia,
no one could say with certainty. Of tall, almost colossal stature,
with dark, thin, ardent face, heavy overhanging brows, and an
indescribably strange colour in his large eyes of unwonted fire, he
differed sharply and strongly from all the ash-coloured denizens of
the capital.

"His very dwelling was unlike the other little wooden houses. It was
of stone, in the style of those formerly much affected by Genoese
merchants, with irregular windows of various sizes, secured with iron
shutters and bars. This usurer differed from other usurers also in
that he could furnish any required sum, from that desired by the poor
old beggar-woman to that demanded by the extravagant grandee of the
court. The most gorgeous equipages often halted in front of his house,
and from their windows sometimes peeped forth the head of an elegant
high-born lady. Rumour, as usual, reported that his iron coffers were
full of untold gold, treasures, diamonds, and all sorts of pledges,
but that, nevertheless, he was not the slave of that avarice which is
characteristic of other usurers. He lent money willingly, and on very
favourable terms of payment apparently, but, by some curious method of
reckoning, made them mount to an incredible percentage. So said
rumour, at any rate. But what was strangest of all was the peculiar
fate of those who received money from him: they all ended their lives
in some unhappy way. Whether this was simply the popular superstition,
or the result of reports circulated with an object, is not known. But
several instances which happened within a brief space of time before
the eyes of every one were vivid and striking.

"Among the aristocracy of that day, one who speedily drew attention to
himself was a young man of one of the best families who had made a
figure in his early years in court circles, a warm admirer of
everything true and noble, zealous in his love for art, and giving
promise of becoming a Maecenas. He was soon deservedly distinguished
by the Empress, who conferred upon him an important post, fully
proportioned to his deserts--a post in which he could accomplish much
for science and the general welfare. The youthful dignitary surrounded
himself with artists, poets, and learned men. He wished to give work
to all, to encourage all. He undertook, at his own expense, a number
of useful publications; gave numerous orders to artists; offered
prizes for the encouragement of different arts; spent a great deal of
money, and finally ruined himself. But, full of noble impulses, he did
not wish to relinquish his work, sought to raise a loan, and finally
betook himself to the well-known usurer. Having borrowed a
considerable sum from him, the man in a short time changed completely.
He became a persecutor and oppressor of budding talent and intellect.
He saw the bad side in everything produced, and every word he uttered
was false.

"Then, unfortunately, came the French Revolution. This furnished him
with an excuse for every kind of suspicion. He began to discover a
revolutionary tendency in everything; to concoct terrible and unjust
accusations, which made scores of people unhappy. Of course, such
conduct could not fail in time to reach the throne. The kind-hearted
Empress was shocked; and, full of the noble spirit which adorns
crowned heads, she uttered words still engraven on many hearts. The
Empress remarked that not under a monarchical government were high and
noble impulses persecuted; not there were the creations of intellect,
poetry, and art contemned and oppressed. On the other hand, monarchs
alone were their protectors. Shakespeare and Moliere flourished under
their magnanimous protection, while Dante could not find a corner in
his republican birthplace. She said that true geniuses arise at the
epoch of brilliancy and power in emperors and empires, but not in the
time of monstrous political apparitions and republican terrorism,
which, up to that time, had never given to the world a single poet;
that poet-artists should be marked out for favour, since peace and
divine quiet alone compose their minds, not excitement and tumult;
that learned men, poets, and all producers of art are the pearls and
diamonds in the imperial crown: by them is the epoch of the great
ruler adorned, and from them it receives yet greater brilliancy.

"As the Empress uttered these words she was divinely beautiful for the
moment, and I remember old men who could not speak of the occurrence
without tears. All were interested in the affair. It must be remarked,
to the honour of our national pride, that in the Russian's heart there
always beats a fine feeling that he must adopt the part of the
persecuted. The dignitary who had betrayed his trust was punished in
an exemplary manner and degraded from his post. But he read a more
dreadful punishment in the faces of his fellow-countrymen: universal
scorn. It is impossible to describe what he suffered, and he died in a
terrible attack of raving madness.

"Another striking example also occurred. Among the beautiful women in
which our northern capital assuredly is not poor, one decidedly
surpassed the rest. Her loveliness was a combination of our Northern
charms with those of the South, a gem such as rarely makes its
appearance on earth. My father said that he had never beheld anything
like it in the whole course of his life. Everything seemed to be
united in her, wealth, intellect, and wit. She had throngs of
admirers, the most distinguished of them being Prince R., the most
noble-minded of all young men, the finest in face, and an ideal of
romance in his magnanimous and knightly sentiments. Prince R. was
passionately in love, and was requited by a like ardent passion.

"But the match seemed unequal to the parents. The prince's family
estates had not been in his possession for a long time, his family was
out of favour, and the sad state of his affairs was well known to all.
Of a sudden the prince quitted the capital, as if for the purpose of
arranging his affairs, and after a short interval reappeared,
surrounded with luxury and splendour. Brilliant balls and parties made
him known at court. The lady's father began to relent, and the wedding
took place. Whence this change in circumstances, this
unheard-of-wealth, came, no one could fully explain; but it was
whispered that he had entered into a compact with the mysterious
usurer, and had borrowed money of him. However that may have been, the
wedding was a source of interest to the whole city, and the bride and
bridegroom were objects of general envy. Every one knew of their warm
and faithful love, the long persecution they had had to endure from
every quarter, the great personal worth of both. Ardent women at once
sketched out the heavenly bliss which the young couple would enjoy.
But it turned out very differently.

"In the course of a year a frightful change came over the husband. His
character, up to that time so noble, became poisoned with jealous
suspicions, irritability, and inexhaustible caprices. He became a
tyrant to his wife, a thing which no one could have foreseen, and
indulged in the most inhuman deeds, and even in blows. In a year's
time no one would have recognised the woman who, such a little while
before, had dazzled and drawn about her throngs of submissive adorers.
Finally, no longer able to endure her lot, she proposed a divorce. Her
husband flew into a rage at the very suggestion. In the first outburst
of passion, he chased her about the room with a knife, and would
doubtless have murdered her then and there, if they had not seized him
and prevented him. In a fit of madness and despair he turned the knife
against himself, and ended his life amid the most horrible sufferings.

"Besides these two instances which occurred before the eyes of all the
world, stories circulated of many more among the lower classes, nearly
all of which had tragic endings. Here an honest sober man became a
drunkard; there a shopkeeper's clerk robbed his master; again, a
driver who had conducted himself properly for a number of years cut
his passenger's throat for a groschen. It was impossible that such
occurrences, related, not without embellishments, should not inspire a
sort of involuntary horror amongst the sedate inhabitants of Kolomna.
No one entertained any doubt as to the presence of an evil power in
the usurer. They said that he imposed conditions which made the hair
rise on one's head, and which the miserable wretch never afterward
dared reveal to any other being; that his money possessed a strange
power of attraction; that it grew hot of itself, and that it bore
strange marks. And it is worthy of remark, that all the colony of
Kolomna, all these poor old women, small officials, petty artists, and
insignificant people whom we have just recapitulated, agreed that it
was better to endure anything, and to suffer the extreme of misery,
rather than to have recourse to the terrible usurer. Old women were
even found dying of hunger, who preferred to kill their bodies rather
than lose their soul. Those who met him in the street experienced an
involuntary sense of fear. Pedestrians took care to turn aside from
his path, and gazed long after his tall, receding figure. In his face
alone there was sufficient that was uncommon to cause any one to
ascribe to him a supernatural nature. The strong features, so deeply
chiselled; the glowing bronze of his complexion; the incredible
thickness of his brows; the intolerable, terrible eyes--everything
seemed to indicate that the passions of other men were pale compared
to those raging within him. My father stopped short every time he met
him, and could not refrain each time from saying, 'A devil, a perfect
devil!' But I must introduce you as speedily as possible to my father,
the chief character of this story.

"My father was a remarkable man in many respects. He was an artist of
rare ability, a self-taught artist, without teachers or schools,
principles and rules, carried away only by the thirst for perfection,
and treading a path indicated by his own instincts, for reasons
unknown, perchance, even to himself. Through some lofty and secret
instinct he perceived the presence of a soul in every object. And this
secret instinct and personal conviction turned his brush to Christian
subjects, grand and lofty to the last degree. His was a strong
character: he was an honourable, upright, even rough man, covered with
a sort of hard rind without, not entirely lacking in pride, and given
to expressing himself both sharply and scornfully about people. He
worked for very small results; that is to say, for just enough to
support his family and obtain the materials he needed; he never, under
any circumstances, refused to aid any one, or to lend a helping hand
to a poor artist; and he believed with the simple, reverent faith of
his ancestors. At length, by his unintermitting labour and
perseverance in the path he had marked out for himself, he began to
win the approbation of those who honoured his self-taught talent. They
gave him constant orders for churches, and he never lacked employment.

"One of his paintings possessed a strong interest for him. I no longer
recollect the exact subject: I only know that he needed to represent
the Spirit of Darkness in it. He pondered long what form to give him:
he wished to concentrate in his face all that weighs down and
oppresses a man. In the midst of his meditations there suddenly
occurred to his mind the image of the mysterious usurer; and he
thought involuntarily, 'That's how I ought to paint the Devil!'
Imagine his amazement when one day, as he was at work in his studio,
he heard a knock at the door, and directly after there entered that
same terrible usurer.

"'You are an artist?' he said to my father abruptly.

"'I am,' answered my father in surprise, waiting for what should come
next.

"'Good! Paint my portrait. I may possibly die soon. I have no
children; but I do not wish to die completely, I wish to live. Can you
paint a portrait that shall appear as though it were alive?'

"My father reflected, 'What could be better! he offers himself for the
Devil in my picture.' He promised. They agreed upon a time and price;
and the next day my father took palette and brushes and went to the
usurer's house. The lofty court-yard, dogs, iron doors and locks,
arched windows, coffers, draped with strange covers, and, last of all,
the remarkable owner himself, seated motionless before him, all
produced a strange impression on him. The windows seemed intentionally
so encumbered below that they admitted the light only from the top.
'Devil take him, how well his face is lighted!' he said to himself,
and began to paint assiduously, as though afraid that the favourable
light would disappear. 'What power!' he repeated to himself. 'If I
only accomplish half a likeness of him, as he is now, it will surpass
all my other works: he will simply start from the canvas if I am only
partly true to nature. What remarkable features!' He redoubled his
energy; and began himself to notice how some of his sitter's traits
were making their appearance on the canvas.

"But the more closely he approached resemblance, the more conscious he
became of an aggressive, uneasy feeling which he could not explain to
himself. Notwithstanding this, he set himself to copy with literal
accuracy every trait and expression. First of all, however, he busied
himself with the eyes. There was so much force in those eyes, that it
seemed impossible to reproduce them exactly as they were in nature.
But he resolved, at any price, to seek in them the most minute
characteristics and shades, to penetrate their secret. As soon,
however, as he approached them in resemblance, and began to redouble
his exertions, there sprang up in his mind such a terrible feeling of
repulsion, of inexplicable expression, that he was forced to lay aside
his brush for a while and begin anew. At last he could bear it no
longer: he felt as if these eyes were piercing into his soul, and
causing intolerable emotion. On the second and third days this grew
still stronger. It became horrible to him. He threw down his brush,
and declared abruptly that he could paint the stranger no longer. You
should have seen how the terrible usurer changed countenance at these
words. He threw himself at his feet, and besought him to finish the
portrait, saying that his fate and his existence depended on it; that
he had already caught his prominent features; that if he could
reproduce them accurately, his life would be preserved in his portrait
in a supernatural manner; that by that means he would not die
completely; that it was necessary for him to continue to exist in the
world.

"My father was frightened by these words: they seemed to him strange
and terrible to such a degree, that he threw down his brushes and
palette and rushed headlong from the room.

"The thought of it troubled him all day and all night; but the next
morning he received the portrait from the usurer, by a woman who was
the only creature in his service, and who announced that her master
did not want the portrait, and would pay nothing for it, and had sent
it back. On the evening of the same day he learned that the usurer was
dead, and that preparations were in progress to bury him according to
the rites of his religion. All this seemed to him inexplicably
strange. But from that day a marked change showed itself in his
character. He was possessed by a troubled, uneasy feeling, of which he
was unable to explain the cause; and he soon committed a deed which no
one could have expected of him. For some time the works of one of his
pupils had been attracting the attention of a small circle of
connoisseurs and amateurs. My father had perceived his talent, and
manifested a particular liking for him in consequence. Suddenly the
general interest in him and talk about him became unendurable to my
father who grew envious of him. Finally, to complete his vexation, he
learned that his pupil had been asked to paint a picture for a
recently built and wealthy church. This enraged him. 'No, I will not
permit that fledgling to triumph!' said he: 'it is early, friend, to
think of consigning old men to the gutters. I still have powers, God
be praised! We'll soon see which will put down the other.'

"And this straightforward, honourable man employed intrigues which he
had hitherto abhorred. He finally contrived that there should be a
competition for the picture which other artists were permitted to
enter into. Then he shut himself up in his room, and grasped his brush
with zeal. It seemed as if he were striving to summon all his strength
up for this occasion. And, in fact, the result turned out to be one of
his best works. No one doubted that he would bear off the palm. The
pictures were placed on exhibition, and all the others seemed to his
as night to day. But of a sudden, one of the members present, an
ecclesiastical personage if I mistake not, made a remark which
surprised every one. 'There is certainly much talent in this artist's
picture,' said he, 'but no holiness in the faces: there is even, on
the contrary, a demoniacal look in the eyes, as though some evil
feeling had guided the artist's hand.' All looked, and could not but
acknowledge the truth of these words. My father rushed forward to his
picture, as though to verify for himself this offensive remark, and
perceived with horror that he had bestowed the usurer's eyes upon
nearly all the figures. They had such a diabolical gaze that he
involuntarily shuddered. The picture was rejected; and he was forced
to hear, to his indescribable vexation, that the palm was awarded to
his pupil.

"It is impossible to describe the state of rage in which he returned
home. He almost killed my mother, he drove the children away, broke
his brushes and easels, tore down the usurer's portrait from the wall,
demanded a knife, and ordered a fire to be built in the chimney,
intending to cut it in pieces and burn it. A friend, an artist, caught
him in the act as he entered the room--a jolly fellow, always
satisfied with himself, inflated by unattainable wishes, doing daily
anything that came to hand, and taking still more gaily to his dinner
and little carouses.

"'What are you doing? What are you preparing to burn?' he asked, and
stepped up to the portrait. 'Why, this is one of your very best works.
It is the usurer who died a short time ago: yes, it is a most perfect
likeness. You did not stop until you had got into his very eyes. Never
did eyes look as these do now.'

"'Well, I'll see how they look in the fire!' said my father, making a
movement to fling the portrait into the grate.

"'Stop, for Heaven's sake!' exclaimed his friend, restraining him:
'give it to me, rather, if it offends your eyes to such a degree.' My
father resisted, but yielded at length; and the jolly fellow, well
pleased with his acquisition, carried the portrait home with him.

"When he was gone, my father felt more calm. The burden seemed to have
disappeared from his soul in company with the portrait. He was
surprised himself at his evil feelings, his envy, and the evident
change in his character. Reviewing his acts, he became sad at heart;
and not without inward sorrow did he exclaim, 'No, it was God who
punished me! my picture, in fact, was meant to ruin my brother-man. A
devilish feeling of envy guided my brush, and that devilish feeling
must have made itself visible in it.'

"He set out at once to seek his former pupil, embraced him warmly,
begged his forgiveness, and endeavoured as far as possible to excuse
his own fault. His labours continued as before; but his face was more
frequently thoughtful. He prayed more, grew more taciturn, and
expressed himself less sharply about people: even the rough exterior
of his character was modified to some extent. But a certain occurrence
soon disturbed him more than ever. He had seen nothing for a long time
of the comrade who had begged the portrait of him. He had already
decided to hunt him up, when the latter suddenly made his appearance
in his room. After a few words and questions on both sides, he said,
'Well, brother, it was not without cause that you wished to burn that
portrait. Devil take it, there's something horrible about it! I don't
believe in sorcerers; but, begging your pardon, there's an unclean
spirit in it.'

"'How so?' asked my father.

"'Well, from the very moment I hung it up in my room I felt such
depression--just as if I wanted to murder some one. I never knew in my
life what sleeplessness was; but I suffered not from sleeplessness
alone, but from such dreams!--I cannot tell whether they were dreams,
or what; it was as if a demon were strangling one: and the old man
appeared to me in my sleep. In short, I can't describe my state of
mind. I had a sensation of fear, as if expecting something unpleasant.
I felt as if I could not speak a cheerful or sincere word to any one:
it was just as if a spy were sitting over me. But from the very hour
that I gave that portrait to my nephew, who asked for it, I felt as if
a stone had been rolled from my shoulders, and became cheerful, as you
see me now. Well, brother, you painted the very Devil!'

"During this recital my father listened with unswerving attention, and
finally inquired, 'And your nephew now has the portrait?'

"'My nephew, indeed! he could not stand it!' said the jolly fellow:
'do you know, the soul of that usurer has migrated into it; he jumps
out of the frame, walks about the room; and what my nephew tells of
him is simply incomprehensible. I should take him for a lunatic, if I
had not undergone a part of it myself. He sold it to some collector of
pictures; and he could not stand it either, and got rid of it to some
one else.'

"This story produced a deep impression on my father. He grew seriously
pensive, fell into hypochondria, and finally became fully convinced
that his brush had served as a tool of the Devil; and that a portion
of the usurer's vitality had actually passed into the portrait, and
was now troubling people, inspiring diabolical excitement, beguiling
painters from the true path, producing the fearful torments of envy,
and so forth. Three catastrophes which occurred afterwards, three
sudden deaths of wife, daughter, and infant son, he regarded as a
divine punishment on him, and firmly resolved to withdraw from the
world.

"As soon as I was nine years old, he placed me in an academy of
painting, and, paying all his debts, retired to a lonely cloister,
where he soon afterwards took the vows. There he amazed every one by
the strictness of his life, and his untiring observance of all the
monastic rules. The prior of the monastery, hearing of his skill in
painting, ordered him to paint the principal picture in the church.
But the humble brother said plainly that he was unworthy to touch a
brush, that his was contaminated, that with toil and great sacrifice
must he first purify his spirit in order to render himself fit to
undertake such a task. He increased the rigours of monastic life for
himself as much as possible. At last, even they became insufficient,
and he retired, with the approval of the prior, into the desert, in
order to be quite alone. There he constructed himself a cell from
branches of trees, ate only uncooked roots, dragged about a stone from
place to place, stood in one spot with his hands lifted to heaven,
from the rising until the going down of the sun, reciting prayers
without cessation. In this manner did he for several years exhaust his
body, invigorating it, at the same time, with the strength of fervent
prayer.

"At length, one day he returned to the cloister, and said firmly to
the prior, 'Now I am ready. If God wills, I will finish my task.' The
subject he selected was the Birth of Christ. A whole year he sat over
it, without leaving his cell, barely sustaining himself with coarse
food, and praying incessantly. At the end of the year the picture was
ready. It was a really wonderful work. Neither prior nor brethren knew
much about painting; but all were struck with the marvellous holiness
of the figures. The expression of reverent humility and gentleness in
the face of the Holy Mother, as she bent over the Child; the deep
intelligence in the eyes of the Holy Child, as though he saw something
afar; the triumphant silence of the Magi, amazed by the Divine
Miracle, as they bowed at his feet: and finally, the indescribable
peace which emanated from the whole picture--all this was presented
with such strength and beauty, that the impression it made was
magical. All the brethren threw themselves on their knees before it;
and the prior, deeply affected, exclaimed, 'No, it is impossible for
any artist, with the assistance only of earthly art, to produce such a
picture: a holy, divine power has guided thy brush, and the blessing
of Heaven rested upon thy labour!'

"By that time I had completed my education at the academy, received
the gold medal, and with it the joyful hope of a journey to Italy--the
fairest dream of a twenty-year-old artist. It only remained for me to
take leave of my father, from whom I had been separated for twelve
years. I confess that even his image had long faded from my memory. I
had heard somewhat of his grim saintliness, and rather expected to
meet a hermit of rough exterior, a stranger to everything in the
world, except his cell and his prayers, worn out, tried up, by eternal
fasting and penance. But how great was my surprise when a handsome old
man stood before me! No traces of exhaustion were visible on his
countenance: it beamed with the light of a heavenly joy. His beard,
white as snow, and his thin, almost transparent hair of the same
silvery hue, fell picturesquely upon his breast, and upon the folds of
his black gown, even to the rope with which his poor monastic garb was
girded. But most surprising to me of all was to hear from his mouth
such words and thoughts about art as, I confess, I long shall bear in
mind, and I sincerely wish that all my comrades would do the same.

"'I expected you, my son,' he said, when I approached for his
blessing. 'The path awaits you in which your life is henceforth to
flow. Your path is pure--desert it not. You have talent: talent is the
most priceless of God's gifts--destroy it not. Search out, subject all
things to your brush; but in all see that you find the hidden soul,
and most of all, strive to attain to the grand secret of creation.
Blessed is the elect one who masters that! There is for him no mean
object in nature. In lowly themes the artist creator is as great as in
great ones: in the despicable there is nothing for him to despise, for
it passes through the purifying fire of his mind. An intimation of
God's heavenly paradise is contained for the artist in art, and by
that alone is it higher than all else. But by as much as triumphant
rest is grander than every earthly emotion, by so much is the lofty
creation of art higher than everything else on earth. Sacrifice
everything to it, and love it with passion--not with the passion
breathing with earthly desire, but a peaceful, heavenly passion. It
cannot plant discord in the spirit, but ascends, like a resounding
prayer, eternally to God. But there are moments, dark moments--' He
paused, and I observed that his bright face darkened, as though some
cloud crossed it for a moment. 'There is one incident of my life,' he
said. 'Up to this moment, I cannot understand what that terrible being
was of whom I painted a likeness. It was certainly some diabolical
apparition. I know that the world denies the existence of the Devil,
and therefore I will not speak of him. I will only say that I painted
him with repugnance: I felt no liking for my work, even at the time. I
tried to force myself, and, stifling every emotion in a hard-hearted
way, to be true to nature. I have been informed that this portrait is
passing from hand to hand, and sowing unpleasant impressions,
inspiring artists with feelings of envy, of dark hatred towards their
brethren, with malicious thirst for persecution and oppression. May
the Almighty preserve you from such passions! There is nothing more
terrible.'

"He blessed and embraced me. Never in my life was I so grandly moved.
Reverently, rather than with the feeling of a son, I leaned upon his
breast, and kissed his scattered silver locks.

"Tears shone in his eyes. 'Fulfil my one request, my son,' said he, at
the moment of parting. 'You may chance to see the portrait I have
mentioned somewhere. You will know it at once by the strange eyes, and
their peculiar expression. Destroy it at any cost.'

"Judge for yourselves whether I could refuse to promise, with an oath,
to fulfil this request. In the space of fifteen years I had never
succeeded in meeting with anything which in any way corresponded to
the description given me by my father, until now, all of a sudden, at
an auction--"

The artist did not finish his sentence, but turned his eyes to the
wall in order to glance once more at the portrait. The entire throng
of auditors made the same movement, seeking the wonderful portrait
with their eyes. But, to their extreme amazement, it was no longer on
the wall. An indistinct murmur and exclamation ran through the crowd,
and then was heard distinctly the word, "stolen." Some one had
succeeded in carrying it off, taking advantage of the fact that the
attention of the spectators was distracted by the story. And those
present long remained in a state of surprise, not knowing whether they
had really seen those remarkable eyes, or whether it was simply a
dream which had floated for an instant before their eyesight, strained
with long gazing at old pictures.

-THE END-
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol's short story: The Mysterious Portrait

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