But still, I did catch that flicker in your eye, something of the sort that I had seen once before. A hidden pleasure, a satisfaction. Power controls the artist. You were laying claim to that power, flexing your muscles. You decided who was or was not to be counted in the ranks. And you expelled Anderson.
I know; you didn’t realise how badly you hurt him, but why you look so concerned now I don’t understand. It wouldn’t have made any difference. Besides, you never asked, and Anderson was expert at hiding his sadness. What are schools for, after all? And he had been to a good one which had taught him how to present the right face to the world. So, to you, who did not trouble to look below the surface, he was more interested in money than painting. Nonsense. He longed to starve in a garret, poor man. Desired nothing better than to be shunned by the public, scorned by the galleries. If only he could please himself, he would have been more than happy. But he could not please himself, and you explained why not.
Were I meaner than I am, I could make much of this in my portrait, you know. Is not a critic someone who is meant to see below the surface? Can you be a judge of art but know nothing of the people who produce it? If you cannot understand your fellow man, can you understand what he produces? Is this your weakness, that no matter how skillful your judgements, you never see the humanity which must lie underneath it? Or might I take the other view and think that perhaps you did see, and in your comments you were deliberately turning the knife in the wound, adding ridicule to the sense of failure he already felt in abundance?
Either way, you made a quiet enemy that evening. So when he came to visit me and saw my Gauguin, the thought occurred to him. A little joke, we told ourselves, but both of us knew it was more than that. We were going to expose you. You had just come out with that article on the primitive folk of the South Seas, where you praised the clarity of vision that could not be achieved in England. And so on, and so on. Magisterial, informed, influential, nonsense. There was always a side of you which could tip slightly into windbaggery, and this was one of those occasions. So next time you visited Anderson’s gallery, he got his assistant to whisper that you should go into his office, and look at the picture leaning against the wall.
“The boss doesn’t like it,” he was told to say. “What do you think?”
Oh! the pleasure we had—don’t squirm so in your seat; you’ll ruin the pose—as we used your money to pay for our celebratory meal. We went to the Café Royal, far beyond my normal range at the time. I remember the food being delicious, far more so than it could actually have been. Fish soup, roast lamb, followed by a crème brûlée of such perfection that it was a work of art itself, equal to the greatest productions of the old masters. It was the moment that made it taste so good. And do you know what happened, as we were toasting you for your generosity? Evelyn came in, with Sickert. I felt a pang of jealousy when I saw them together; it was the only brown shade on an otherwise gaily tinted evening. Sickert was at the height of his powers, and irresistible to all he chose to attract—until he decided to unleash that strain of cruelty which always lay hidden inside him. I imagined Evelyn being drawn into his circle, becoming one of his admirers, slowly having her originality drained away as she was coerced by his personality into producing second-rate imitations of his style. He was persuasive and forceful in ways even you could not manage. You bludgeon people with your intellect; he uses terror, fascination and that hypnotic charm which always worked best on women. Have you noticed how few men actually like him? And how few women have ever been drawn to you? That is an observation, not an insult, by the way; you and he divided the artistic world between you, one sex apiece. A pity; a contest between you would have been something to watch.
He failed with Evelyn, though, and as completely as you did. She found his charm absurd, his blandishments all too easily resistible. He, in turn, found her to be cold, devoid of emotion, frigid. She was too locked in herself, would never amount to anything until she let go—by which he meant, I imagine, until she submitted to him. Well, maybe there was something to that; certainly her caution was her best defence, and must have been hard learned. She wanted an artistic liaison, and turned away without hesitation when it became clear he had something less subtle in mind. He should have asked me first; I could have saved him the price of a few expensive meals.
Anyway, in they came and joined us for the last course. Do you know, it was the most delicious dessert I have ever eaten? Every mouthful made the more sweet by the possibility that, once it was swallowed, one of us was going to say, “Do you know who’s paying for this meal . . . ?” Then the story would be let loose from its cage, and we would see it take wing, and flutter around London, leaving gales of laughter every time its shadow fell on the ground. But we didn’t; that was the real joy. We exchanged many glances of complicity, came close to choking, on occasion, but we hugged it to us. You were
And, yes, perhaps there was a little fear as well. I remember all too well how much you hate being talked about. I remember what you did to take your revenge on poor Rothenstein when some harmless comment he made about you came to your ears. You isolated him, humiliated him. Never let up; more than a decade later you went out of your way to exclude him from your exhibition. You forbade me, and anyone else close to you, to see him, talk to him, have anything to do with him. We were a little group before you arrived to reorganise us, we English speakers in Paris, companionable, trusting, easygoing. We weren’t close, but naturally gravitated towards each other, learnt from each other, helped each other out.
We split into friends of Rothenstein and friends of yours, those who thought Evelyn was pleasant enough and those who delighted in making fun of her. Those who liked one painter, preferred another, this school or that school. You made sure little preferences became matters of principle important enough to cause bad feeling and rancour. Was Rodin a better sculptor than Bernini? David better than Ingres? Pissarro or Monet? It didn’t matter which; I heard you argue on both sides. Divide and rule, the first principle of the despot.
Even I said you were being ridiculous, but always I treasured those walks, the conversations along the Seine or in the parks. I didn’t want to risk too much, lest I lose them. My protests were muted.
“Are you with me or not?” was your only response. “Whose side are you on?”
“Is it a question of sides?”
“Yes. A few friends, the rest enemies. That’s the way the world is. If you don’t destroy them, they’ll destroy you. You’ll learn that eventually.”
Then you went on a tirade about all those people—most of the world—you did not trust. It was a side of you I had never seen before; until then I had only seen the kindness, the generosity, the warmth. But all that was reserved for your loyalists; the punishment meted out to others showed something very different. Where did it all come from? Where did you learn to think that the world was a battle, with only winners and losers? Where did you learn the need to destroy your opponents before they destroyed you?
So my budding disloyalties remained hidden. You were my friend, after all, and I believe you should forgive friends their failings. It made me begin to think, though. I am not generally a nasty person, as I hope you will agree. And yet, underneath the surface of that little piece of cleverness over the Gauguin there was something decidedly unpleasant. I would not have enjoyed it so much had the painting been foisted on anyone else, however great their reputation, however skilled their judgement. It was because it was
It is taking shape nicely now; I can do without you for the rest of the day. I am no Whistler, I do not like to torture my sitters, drive them to an early grave with my demands on their patience. When I need you back I will send a message. I will work in your absence for a couple of days on the toning and the light, which I can manage just as well in an empty room. Better, in fact, as you won’t distract me. I can enter into your soul through the canvas and the paint, and make sense of you the better if you are somewhere else. I must paint what you were, and what you will become as well. Having you here in person is a complete nuisance.
I THOUGHT I would find a loophole in the rule I set. I don’t intend to let you see the picture I am doing now; not least because I know you will not leave until you see it. It is my best hope of keeping you here until the bitter end. Someone who hates not being in the know will never leave until he has seen something so personal as his own portrait. I am surprised you have managed to contain yourself so far. I half expected you to hurl yourself across the room and grab the canvas. I wouldn’t, if I were you. I could push you away easily, and it would merely make me more secretive. You do not give your subjects an advance look at the reviews you write about them, do you? So you can’t expect a glimpse of something that is not even half completed. But I suppose there can be no harm in showing you the one I began eight years ago. It’s yours, after all; paid for but never delivered. I’ve often wondered if you were irritated by the way I took the money and never gave anything in return for it. You can’t
