The real motive

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But This Is Also Everlasting Life (Poem) . 2

The Pragmatist 3

II

It was three o'clock before they rose from the bench. " I have not had in years so long a break in a working-day," averred the old gentleman, " nor so agreeable a one as our talk together has made."

Jules did not answer, but allowed the other to take his arm and lead him along to the Grand Canal, and then up the stone steps toward the chateau.

" It is indeed a rare privilege to introduce such a painting to such an artist," the old man went on, " and you must not reproach yourself that you have overlooked it heretofore in your inspection of the graiid art treasures of Versailles. It is but a small canvas. Its greatness lies in its subject; a greatness I have not begun to exhaust, after my lifetime of study of it."

Jules nodded. He was trying to conceal the fact that he had never in his life been inside the chateau, regarding it, with all of his sophisticated and knowing generation, as a chamber of horror of bad paintings, bought and preserved by political demagogues because of the cheap patriotism of their subjects. Not only was he a painter of the last hue of modernity, but he was a Socialist of the latest hue of Internationalism; and he found immensely diverting the fate which thus dragged him forward to admire all that was anathema to him.

" Pardon me," said his old companion. " It— I — " he hesitated, looking down at his feet. Long before this Jules had been shocked to notice that they were encased in heavy wooden shoes, such as the poorest v^orkmen wear. " I — to a fellow-artist, M. Dorival, there can be no shame in admitting the shifts to which devotion to our common profession has brought me. Wooden shoes are not allowed in the gallery — ^the fine floors you know — and I have no others. The list slippers to which I change are kept for me by an obliging custodian, but as he is not yet returned, I shall be forced to wait a few moments." He was in a fidget of impatience at the delay to the other's pleasure. " Pray do not wait for me. It is the third small room after the long gallery. My easel with a half-finished copy stands before it, and as I am, alas! the only copyist here — "

Jules went forward alone, cheering himself with the reflection that after all the pictures could not be as bad as — his mouth fell open at his first glimpse of the long gallery. He traversed it in an absolute silence, looking faithfully at each of the huge canvases. He went into the first of the small rooms. He went into the second. He went into the third, and passing rapidly to the window leaned his forehead against the pane. " If I had not seen the first small room, I would have upheld against any man, with the weapons of his choice, that nothing could be more dreadful than the long gallery. And if I had not seen the second small room, I would have sworn that the first was — and oh! Apollos and the Muses! here is the third!"

He faced about and resolutely took in the picturecovered walls. His eye fell on the canvas, its face turned to the easel. He went bravely across the room and stared at the painting before which it stood. Then, raising his right hand above his head, " The worst painting in the world," he said solemnly, " I have seen it ! " He turned, knocking with his elbow the canvas from the easel. He picked it up, held it at arm's length, and leaned against the wall for support as he palely gazed at it.

A quick, shuffling step came down the long gallery and through the two small rooms. " You are looking at my work, I see," said the old copyist, with a shy haste to know the other's opinion. " Dare I ask you how it seems to you ? "

Jules looked at the old man, his emaciated little person at once shrinking and eager, his lips dropped apart like a wistful child's. He took his hand and pressed it hard. " I think it," he said with generous emphasis, " I think it the very most faithful copy I ever saw in my life."

Ill

Seated around a table at Laveille's, blowing the foam from their bocks, rolling their cigarettes, abusing the pictures in that year's Salon, and light-heartedly delivering themselves of the last cry in incendiary socialism, eight of " The Immortal Nine," as they called themselves with an artless candor, welcomed the returning Jules with shouts of affectionate derision.

" He would play the poet and see spring in the country, would he?"

" No more tawdry boulevard trees for him ! "

" The only man in Paris sane enough to leave it ! "

Jules dropped into a chair and took off his hat. At the sight of his face they were silent. He began to speak. They listened. Their cigarettes went out. After a time they drew their chairs closer to where he sat. At this sign that his listeners were with him, his voice warmed.

" This day, while I idled, full-fed, in the sun, this day he ate his bread seasoned with despair — ^with an old man's hopeless despair. I asked him, ' Can it be you do not know of the Lavignac Home for Old Artists? Surely there would be a retreat for you there.' At that it all came out with a rush. Yes, he knew the Home — knew much more about it than I. For many years he had planned to spend his days there, in the pleasant and honorable company of others who had devoted their lives to art. But the number is limited, vacancies come seldom. There was one now, and the director had stretched the rules to hold the place open for him. It was of no avail. A thousand francs are required for entrance, and he could not begin to make up that vast sum. No, it was impossible. To-morrow is his last day of grace, his last opportunity to escape — ah, everything that old age fears the most.

" ' But, my dear Monsieur,' I said, ' what will you then do when your failing eyes compel you to stop painting? ' And he answered, ' I could be one of the old men who sell post-cards before the door of the chateau — and I could eat less bread.' I ask you, my friends, have you seen those old men ?

" I went with him to his garret," he sketched it in quick, picture-making gestures ; " a bed — such a bed ! — a table — a chair — and everywhere else, copies, copies, copies, copies of that horror. He said no one had bought one for — ^he would not tell me for the honor of Young France for how many years. He has been living on what he had saved for entrance to the Lavignac Home, and now that is gone."

The cigarettes were not relighted, the foam on the bocks sank down and disappeared, no one moved. Jules's voice went on and on. A handkerchief appeared, and then others. Lachrymose Gallic noses were blown resoundingly. Sure of his audience, Jules now let himself go. " It is as a service to his country — to our country ! — that he has spent a lifetime copying that nightmare of a — ^voyons ! I've told you what the picture is from our stand-point of paint and brushes. But listen! This is how he described it to me. ' There is the grand symbolical figure of La Republique,' he took off his dreadful old hat at the name, ' lifting up France, crushed and despairing, as the last Uhlan, loaded with French gold, rides out of her territory. La Republique points ahead, above. France raises her head, her eyes kindle, she strides forward on the stony path to rehabilitation. And behind her come the French, soldiers and bourgeois, young and old, men and women, all worn, pale, draped in black, but animated with indomitable courage, struggling forward, the strong helping the weak — ah, M. Dorival, a dream of France, as every Frenchman would have her ! ' "

Jules drew a long breath and flung out his hands. " Oh, I know we are all moderns, and have no belief in frontiers, and laugh at the old-fashioned jargon of patriotism." Without transition he passed swiftly on : " Why, every drop of French blood in me burned as he told me his story. For longer than any of us has lived he has toiled incessantly, not for gain — ^he was so proud to tell me that even in the days of the picture's great popularity he had never sold his copies for more than would barely support him. This he has done so that he might go on sending out over the country that he adores — what ? Mediocre copies of an execrable picture? No! His vision of the ideal! 'I am but a dull and commonplace person,' he told me. ' In that black hour of France's need I could help her in no other way. This one thing I could do, and I would.' He is seventy years old. Mes amis ! Frenchmen all!"

A little black-bearded youth from Gascony sprang to his feet, snatching off his hat. " A collection, comrades ! " he cried.

Jules stopped him with a gesture. " He is not a beggar, but a member of our own profession, not to be helped with alms ! "

They turned disconcerted and inquiring faces to him.

" I will tell you what. I want of you," cried Jules, and embarked upon the second half of his plea. The chairs were still drawn close, the cigarettes were still unlighted, the listeners were still breathless, but this time no handkerchiefs followed Jules's eloquence. Instead there were nods, quick gestures of understanding, outbreaks of delighted laughter, and, at the end, a storm of hilarious and voluble acquiescence. Jules rose, hailed a taxicab, and stood with one foot on the step, calculating rapidly : " Eight I leave here — ^the copies are fifty francs apiece, admission to the Lavignac Home is a thousand francs — twenty are needed. I must find twelve more before to-morrow, and I must select them with care ! With care! " He gave an address in Montmartre to the cocher, leaped into the cab, and was off.