by Unknown
itself, in a fit of humility, with effluvia that made one doubt its reality. After pushing away this suffocating presence -he did not know how he had come to this and had the impression of having struggled against an adver sary who had latched onto him, who stubbornly refused to go away -he remained paralyzed and numb, not caring to straighten out his suit, which had been almost entirely stripped away during the struggle. At some point, he must have woken up. When he opened his eyes, he was surprised to see that one of the walls of the small room was the door of a cabinet, which the guardian had just opened and entered. Inside it there was a meticulously ordered row of suits of all colors hanging down to the floor. The guardian examined several pieces of clothing- he looked especially at the cut of the back - and he settled on a well-cut black suit, a little old fashioned but of good quality. The jacket - which was much longer than necessary- and the gray-striped pants were placed on a chair next to Thomas, who quickly took off all his clothes. Seeing how poor and worn out they were, he was pleased by the attention of the guardian, who was providing for him at little cost an extra suit that was almost new. First he put on the pants. The style was not current. All sorts of pockets and buttons, whose use escaped him, transformed these formal clothes into work clothes. Three crude-looking belts with efiormous buckles closed around the waist. Folds ran here and there along the legs. The whole suit fit Thomas quite well; he appreciated the elegance of the jacket and was hardly bothered by the ungenerous arm holes that felt too tight. Immediately afterward, he made his way to the door, through which he entered a large room lit by a bright light. This room was completely different from the one he had just left. The light emitted by a spotlight attached to the ceiling shone with such brilliance that everything it illu minated seemed truly precious. A divan with beautifully reflective velvet was directly lit, but, with the exception of a chair and a small table that received their share of light, the rest of the room was almost completely dark. Nevertheless, a feeling of luxury and wealth permeated everything. An enormous painter's easel with a large canvas on it divided the room in two, and anyone entering had to wonder how he could ever cross through the network of ropes, the heap of stools, and various other random ob jects that formed the great central barricade. Thomas thought that this odd structure had been hastily put together so that the painter could execute an important commission, perhaps a grand historical scene. From one of 11
the ropes hung several palettes of various sizes, each one showing the frag ment of an image that was meticulously and pleasantly painted in thick layers of color. The figures were lovely, but Thomas did not take the time to look at them closely - he would have hesitated to do so anyway -and his gaze wandered toward the enormous brushes soaking in pools of black liquid that stained the carpet. The whole thing gave off an unpleasant odor of rancid oil. The impression it gave was not that of a lively disorder left by interrupted work but of something deliberately ruined, as if the task of the man working there was not to paint but to defile his work instruments and to create around himself a useless and unseemly decor. Despite these traces of disorder and vulgarity, the room left an impres sion of wealth. What a fortune was spent on this setup! A mirror covered with a dirty sheet was attached to the easel, close to where the painter's face would be, as if he had planned to do his own portrait someday. On the other side, a sundial, chosen perhaps as an object of study for a future painting, was lit by a few rays from the spotlight. It was difficult to tell what in this arrangement was supposed to be used for painting and what was supposed to be painted. One had the impression that the painting was there, already finished, and that the artist, exhausting himself in a destruc tive effort of transcription, was the only one who did not know it. One could even wonder whether in distributing colors on a canvas he had not intended to destroy the painting whose existence shocked him. Thomas wanted to look at everything in detail. There were so many interesting things in the painter's paraphernalia. A crystal carafe of unusual dimen sions was filled with liquid colors in a mixture that, under the brightness of the spotlight, shone like a single color, so pure and pleasing to the eye that it did not seem to be formed from the dirty residue of work. A twist ing iron stopper sealed it, and a glass tube extended down into the colors. Thomas raised the implement to eye level. The liquid was naturally flat and dark, but some reflections floated on the surface resembling particles of metal, and one could well believe that thanks to the siphon a very pure mixture would be transferred onto the canvas. In a corner of the room he picked out a stool. Taking it upon himself to place it in front of the easel, he sat down to appreciate the painter's work methods. The canvas stood directly in from of him now, and he saw that a painting had been sketched on it, representing, like all the others, a fur nished room, precisely the one in which he found himself at that moment. 12
He could see the great concern for precision in the painter's work. Every detail was reproduced. This was still only a sketch, but every last object, with the exception, indeed, of the divan, was put in its place, such that one might well wonder what a more complete study would add to the faith fulness of the imitation: it would become impossible to distinguish the room from the painting. The only problem was that the color was lacking. Thomas noticed with a slight malaise that the stool on which he was sitting was represented on the canvas. Perhaps he had acted without thinking. When he stood up, he almost knocked against the guardian. So he was still there. As soon as he saw him, Thomas could not help shouting: "Who are you? " for he was surprised and almost terrified by the change that had occurred in his person. The guardian had put on a large gray smock. Either because of the length of the overcoat, or else for a completely different rea son, he seemed to cut a more towering figure, and the deformities of his body were no longer visible. On his face, which continued to be disfigured by the difficulty of seeing, there was a rather attractive and delicate expres sion. But Thomas was struck immediately by the disagreeable quality of the transformation. It was the same miserable man standing before him, but his misery was no longer humble. He took on the appearance of some thing temptihg, toward which one felt irresistibly drawn, and although there was nothing noble in this attraction, it seemed that one was obliged to the man who inspired so much gratitude and admiration for it. Thomas thought he recognized his face. But when would he have seen him? Every thing he had encountered outside was already so far away, and here he had not yet seen anyone else. Nevertheless, the guardian spoke to him in the same way as before. Only he was a little more talkative. "There is the painting," he said. "We will begin it now. Do you wish to remain standing, or would you not prefer to lie down on the divan? The work will not take very long, but I have noticed that you are subject to weak spells." Despite his fatigue, Thomas hesitated to follow this advice. He only moved back a little. The room was so cluttered that when he took a step back, he slipped on the puddles of oil and was able to stop himself from falling only by hanging onto the guardian's arm. "You see there," said the latter. "You still need some rest. Let me help you over." The path was incredibly complicated. They had to pass through ropes, 13
slide zigzag between benches, and back up again in order to avoid step ping on the portraits that the painter had painted directly onto the floor. It seemed that the journey would never end. When they finally reached the divan, Thomas thought the obstacles were overcome and let himself fall rather than lie down on the velvet-covered cushions. It was a real fall; the divan was very low to the ground. The shock was so great that he lay there as if inanimate. The guardian held him under his arms and raised him up, only to sink him into a heap of pillows, which he arranged not for the comfort of the position but for the purposes of the decor. This position did not suit him in any case. He lifted his model up again so that the jacket would be more visible, unbuttoned his vest, and finally crossed his two hands on his chest in an attitude of quiet self-absorption. Thomas, who had begun by cursing this tormentor, was finally grateful to him for this at tention. He felt a strange well-being, as if eve
rything that was happening to him had already taken place sometime before. The rays from the spotlight gently bathed his body; it seemed that this light also gave him the form of a memory and that it made him lighter with the heaviest things, like marble and precious metals. Had all this not already happened? Had he not already once before witnessed this scene of crossing his hands, open ing and closing his eyes, being plunged into darkness by light itself, and had it not then had a meaning that it would never have again? He tried to lower his eyelids, for the brilliant light falling on him was burning him, but the painter called out to him: "Are you as tired as all that? Can you not re main a few moments without turning your eyes away? You're not making my task any easier." There was no pleasure in hearing this, but Thomas was not affected by it. He was no longer of a mind to be ruffled by harsh words, which, in this room, in any case, did not sound like threatening words but rather like true words before which one could only bow. So he looked directly at the painter. But the painter, who had so sternly demanded the attention of his model, seemed to have lost sight of him. His only thought now was to stir the contents of the carafe in which a horrid mixture of colored residues swirled around, and as he had not found the shade he desired, he began to spread onto the crystal a layer of dirty red that he scooped up from the puddles on the floor. "What a filthy worker," thought Thomas. "So this is the painter they have given me." All the same, he could not help looking with interest at these gestures; they recalled for him the childish behavior 14
of great artists, steeped for too long in the seriousness of their task and intent on making the common world understand, by the frivolity of their distractions, the sublimity of the work that has drawn them into such fool ish obsessions. In any case, the painter did not altogether neglect his paint ing. For brief moments he worked at it with great ardor, without for all that worrying much more about his model. Thomas had the impression of not being there, or, by the fact that he had been put in this spot, of already being a part of the painting, such that the reproduction of his features no longer had any importance. From time to time the painter pulled from his pocket a miniature, which he consulted with care and which he then shamelessly copied. Copying seemed to be his preferred artistic method. He worried always about forgetting certain details, and three-quarters of his time was spent in a feverish comparison that left him simultaneously satisfied and worried. Thomas had great difficulty in maintaining his pose. Added to his fatigue was the temptation to change his position slightly so as to be able to feel the intensity of the painter's attention. No one both ered about him, and yet he was not free to move as he pleased. He ended up falling into a light sleepy state, but he took care to keep his eyes open, fixing on his executioner an impassive gaze unmoved by any hope for rest. "There, it's done!" cried the painter. "Now it's your turn. When you have said what you have to say, we'll be finished." So they were consulting him. Benumbed and miserable, Thomas saw a few inches before his face the canvas that was being presented to him as finished. Finished? He noticed first of all that the sketch, so precise before, had been smeared in several spots and that the divan was quite clumsily represented. But this did not prevent the painter from being satisfied; he pointed with an extraordinary joviality at certain details, as if they were the expression of a unique artfulness. Thomas politely approved; the clothes were reproduced exactly; in fact, they were so faithfully drawn and painted that in studying this meticulous copy, one felt a bizarre and quite un pleasant sensation; were these clothes then so important? As for the face, Thomas wondered in vain how the painter could imagine passing it off as that of its model. There was not the slightest resemblance. It was a sad and aged face on which the blurry features, as though erased by time, had lost all significance. What still mattered was the gaze. The painter had given it a strange expression, in no way alive - for it seemed on the contrary to con demn existence -but bound to life by a reminiscence lost among rubble 15
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and ruins. This gaze did not appear to Thomas any stranger than the rest. Of whom did it remind him? He looked around. It reminded him natu rally enough of the guardian, whose troubled eyes rested on things with an expression that held them at a distance; one might have thought that these eyes looked by virtue of an internal light whose gleam might be ex tinguished from one moment to the next and that continued only out of a perverse stubbornness. The painter did not grow tired of admiring his work. The joy he drew from this contemplation rejuvenated and fortified him. This did not make him any more beautiful to look at, but however inappropriate his conduct was, it had an exalted and feverish quality from which it was impossible to turn away. Thomas watched him move about the room, carrying the painting in his outstretched arms, holding it under the light, placing it back in the dark ness. From a distance the portrait did not conform to reality as vividly as he had thought; only the suit was visible, but the suit bore a striking re semblance. In any case, these details did not seem to him to be of any real importance. Only the painter's gestures and movements held any interest for him, an interest explained by his curious behavior. After a few mo ments, the painter regained his sense of seriousness. He placed the paint ing in a frame and covered it with a piece of cloth. Then he took off his smock and appeared again in the worn-out suit covered with decorations and tarnished braids in which he had first appeared. He went on arranging certain things in the room, poured the water from the carafe onto the floor, and stirred the brushes around in the puddles. He carried out this action as though it were perfectly natural, which was enough to explain the state of the room itself. This room lost the chaotic aspect that the light had made so pleasant. Darkness invaded it almost completely. The guardian spread a tightfitting cover over the divan, and by means of a curtain rod, he lowered a large drop cloth that covered the easel. The rest of the furniture disap peared beneath a few other covers. The last object to be concealed was a canvas hanging on the wall; then it was over. Thomas saw that it was time to leave; the room was already empty. Still, he asked the guardian: "Can you give me some time?" At that moment he heard a knock. The guardian answered by shouting: ''I'm coming." ''I'm coming too," shouted Thomas, as if he had to put a word in as well. The door did not open right away. The sound of jangling keys -there 16
must have been a huge bunch of them - rang through the wall. One had the impression that the visitor was amusing himself with his keys but had no intention of using them. This game continued until the visitor dropped the mass of metal to the ground with a loud crash. Thomas opened the door and caught the man just as he was bending down to pick up the mass of iron instruments that had slipped away from him. He was a solid, hearty fellow, with a youthful and scheming air about him. He gave a look of annoyance, and, with quick and skillful movements, he took hold of Thomas's wrists, and the latter suddenly found himself bound in hand cuffs. It was an unpleasant sensation to feel the coldness of the steel against his skin, but he offered no resistance. "This was bound to happen," he said to himself. He followed the young man who, unhindered by the darkness, led him down a hallway at a rapid pace. On each side of the hallway there were doors that stood out in the darkness because of the black color that had been painted over them. Thomas could not see much of anything. One of his hands was bound to the left wrist of the newcomer who was pulling him along without paying much attention. After a few abrupt and halting steps, the hallway became so narrow that it was no longer possible to con tinue. "Okay," thought Thomas, "this pause will give me an opportunity to question my companion." At this moment the sound of a bell made him look up. He had no reason to believe that this bell was meant for him, but when the sound died down, he saw the bell still swinging slightly over the door right next to him, and he approached it. Who could have rung it? The guardian gave him no time to reflect; in his hand was a key, which he slid into the lock. When the door was partly open, he pushed it with his foot and stood aside. Thomas looked in to see an ordinary bedroom, well lit and carefully furnished. Its only amenities were two
armchairs and two beds arranged side by side. The colors of each set were different; the light falling on them brought out their nuances, and they seemed to comple ment one another harmoniously. The carpet had not been so well chosen, but in the center of the wall there was a painting that Thomas liked and that he promised himself to examine more closely if he ever had the op portunity. While he was glancing around at the room, the door closed; the guardian had left. He then took a few steps, carefully avoiding the stools, the almost miniature tables, the small shelves on the floor covered with worthless ceramics that made it difficult to walk around. The room seemed 17