If I painted her as I see her instead of as a composition in forms it would look like any conventional representational portrait. Or maybe, and here self-doubt overwhelmed him, a slick magazine cover. The great ones painted beauties of course—Rubens, Botticelli, Renoir. But what makes the difference between a good literal painting and a work of art? There must be a key somewhere. Depression hit bottom and its thud made rebound inevitable. Perhaps I don't see what I do and my painting is better than I think.
"You must know a lot of artists besides that Raymond Figente in New York," Lucy was saying.
"What—oh—some."
This wasn't the time to ask Clem about herself because he was busy working. That he did know artists in the magic city was assurance he could help when the time came.
How is it that not until this moment have I grasped her proper style? Botticelli—nonsense! Modigliani. A delicate clamshell face with outlined eyes and a pansy mouth. She will like such a portrait because of its childlike directness. Well, not exactly childlike but simple, essential form. Ma will like it too. That would be funny—Ma approving modern art. He shouldn't have forgotten to hang a May basket on the front door this morning. It would have tickled her.
"When I was a little boy," he returned from his thoughts, "the day before May Day we kids went to the woods on the other side of the river and picked spring flowers—hepaticas, violets, anemones, trillium, cowslips, jack-in-the-pulpit. Early the next morning I'd hang baskets on the doorknobs of neighbors and on our own front door to surprise Ma. Then I'd ring the doorbell and run away. It's an old custom from Europe. I thought everyone knew about it."
"That's nicer than Easter when you only buy something new to wear yourself. It's so—friendly. I've never been in a woods. In Denver I went to a school picnic in a park. The teachers came along to chaperon, but it was all right."
On the other side of the river ran the road along which the sleigh-ride party had jingled. A ghostly area frozen in memory. The prickle of the blanket under her skin and scratch of hay on her bottom and between her legs because of the struggles to defeat the forays of Harry's thick red hands. The horsy smell tingled frostily through the passages of her nose to excite the inside of her head. The clammy aftermath of the cold automobile seat and on the
