Daniel Deronda, George Eliot [portable ebook reader .TXT] 📗

“I knew you would like to see my casts and antiquities,” said Hans, after the first hearty greetings and inquiries, “so I didn’t scruple to unlade my chests here. But I’ve found two rooms at Chelsea not many hundred yards from my mother and sisters, and I shall soon be ready to hang out there⁠—when they’ve scraped the walls and put in some new lights. That’s all I’m waiting for. But you see I don’t wait to begin work: you can’t conceive what a great fellow I’m going to be. The seed of immortality has sprouted within me.”

“Only a fungoid growth, I dare say⁠—a growing disease in the lungs,” said Deronda, accustomed to treat Hans in brotherly fashion. He was walking toward some drawings propped on the ledge of his bookcases; five rapidly-sketched heads⁠—different aspects of the same face. He stood at a convenient distance from them, without making any remark. Hans, too, was silent for a minute, took up his palette and began touching the picture on his easel.

“What do you think of them?” he said at last.

“The full face looks too massive; otherwise the likenesses are good,” said Deronda, more coldly than was usual with him.

“No, it is not too massive,” said Hans, decisively. “I have noted that. There is always a little surprise when one passes from the profile to the full face. But I shall enlarge her scale for Berenice. I am making a Berenice series⁠—look at the sketches along there⁠—and now I think of it, you are just the model I want for the Agrippa.” Hans, still with pencil and palette in hand, had moved to Deronda’s side while he said this, but he added hastily, as if conscious of a mistake, “No, no, I forgot; you don’t like sitting for your portrait, confound you! However, I’ve picked up a capital Titus. There are to be five in the series. The first is Berenice clasping the knees of Gessius Florus and beseeching him to spare her people; I’ve got that on the easel. Then, this, where she is standing on the Xystus with Agrippa, entreating the people not to injure themselves by resistance.”

“Agrippa’s legs will never do,” said Deronda.

“The legs are good realistically,” said Hans, his face creasing drolly; “public men are often shaky about the legs⁠—‘Their legs, the emblem of their various thought,’ as somebody says in The Rehearsal.”

“But these are as impossible as the legs of Raphael’s Alcibiades,” said Deronda.

“Then they are good ideally,” said Hans. “Agrippa’s legs were possibly bad; I idealize that and make them impossibly bad. Art, my Eugenius, must intensify. But never mind the legs now: the third sketch in the series is Berenice exulting in the prospects of being Empress of Rome, when the news has come that Vespasian is declared Emperor and her lover Titus his successor.”

“You must put a scroll in her mouth, else people will not understand that. You can’t tell that in a picture.”

“It will make them feel their ignorance then⁠—an excellent aesthetic effect. The fourth is, Titus sending Berenice away from Rome after she has shared his palace for ten years⁠—both reluctant, both sad⁠—invitus invitam, as Suetonius hath it. I’ve found a model for the Roman brute.”

“Shall you make Berenice look fifty? She must have been that.”

“No, no; a few mature touches to show the lapse of time. Dark-eyed beauty wears well, hers particularly. But now, here is the fifth: Berenice seated lonely on the ruins of Jerusalem. That is pure imagination. That is what ought to have been⁠—perhaps was. Now, see how I tell a pathetic negative. Nobody knows what became of her⁠—that is finely indicated by the series coming to a close. There is no sixth picture.” Here Hans pretended to speak with a gasping sense of sublimity, and drew back his head with a frown, as if looking for a like impression on Deronda. “I break off in the Homeric style. The story is chipped off, so to speak, and passes with a ragged edge into nothing⁠—le néant; can anything be more sublime, especially in French? The vulgar would desire to see her corpse and burial⁠—perhaps her will read and her linen distributed. But now come and look at this on the easel. I have made some way there.”

“That beseeching attitude is really good,” said Deronda, after a moment’s contemplation. “You have been very industrious in the Christmas holidays; for I suppose you have taken up the subject since you came to London.” Neither of them had yet mentioned Mirah.

“No,” said Hans, putting touches to his picture, “I made up my mind to the subject before. I take that lucky chance for an augury that I am going to burst on the world as a great painter. I saw a splendid woman in the Trastevere⁠—the grandest women there are half Jewesses⁠—and she set me hunting for a fine situation of a Jewess at Rome. Like other men of vast learning, I ended by taking what lay on the surface. I’ll show you a sketch of the Trasteverina’s head when I can lay my hands on it.”

“I should think she would be a more suitable model for Berenice,” said Deronda, not knowing exactly how to express his discontent.

“Not a bit of it. The model ought to be the most beautiful Jewess in the world, and I have found her.”

“Have you made yourself sure that she would like to figure in that character? I should think no woman would be more abhorrent to her. Does she quite know what you are doing?”

“Certainly. I got her to throw herself precisely into this attitude. Little mother sat for Gessius Florus, and Mirah clasped her knees.” Here Hans went a little way off and looked at the effect of his touches.

“I dare say she knows nothing about Berenice’s history,” said Deronda, feeling more indignation than he would have been able to justify.

“Oh, yes, she does⁠—ladies’ edition. Berenice was a fervid patriot, but was beguiled by love and ambition into attaching