On the Bright Shore/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
The promised miracle came on the following morning at nine. Svirski was dressed and waiting with impatience and nervousness; happily his fears proved unfounded. The first glance satisfied him. The model was tall, slender, very graceful; she had a small head, a delicate face, a beautiful structure of forehead, long eyelashes, and great freshness of complexion. But, beyond all, Svirski was charmed by this, that she had "her own" style of face, and in her expression there was something girl-like. "She has noble movements," thought he; "and if she is formed as she seems, then 'Eureka!' I will engage her for a long time, and take her with me."
He was struck also by her timidity and a look, as it were, of fright. He knew, it is true, that models sometimes feign timidity. He admitted, however, that this one did not.
"What is thy name, my child?" asked he.
"Maria Cervi."
"Art thou from Nice?"
"From Nice."
"Hast ever been a model?"
"No, sir."
"Trained models know what is needed; with new ones there is trouble. Thou hast never been a model in thy life?"
"No, sir."
"How didst thou get the wish to be a model?"
She hesitated, and blushed somewhat.
"Pani Lageat told me that I should be able to earn something."
"True, but evidently thou art afraid. What dost thou fear? I will not eat thee! How much dost thou ask for a sitting?"
"Pani Lageat told me that you would pay five francs."
"Pani Lageat was mistaken. I pay ten."
Joy gleamed in the girl's face, and her cheeks grew still redder.
"When must I begin?" asked she, with a somewhat trembling voice.
"To-day, immediately," answered Svirski, pointing to the picture already begun. "There is the screen; go behind, undress to the waist only. Thou wilt sit for the head, the bosom, and a part of the stomach."
She turned to him an astonished face; her hands dropped slowly along her dress.
"How is that, sir?" asked she, looking at him with terrified eyes.
"My child," answered the artist, a little impatiently, "I understand that it may be difficult the first time. But either thou art a model, or thou art not. I need the head, the bosom, and a part of the stomach; I need these absolutely; dost thou understand? And be sure, at the same time, that there is nothing bad in me; but, first of all, think it over—and quickly; for, if thou art not willing, I shall look for another."
He spoke as a man somewhat vexed; for in his mind the point was that just she should be the model, and that he should not have to look for another. Meanwhile silence came. The model grew pale very evidently; still, after a while, she went behind the screen.
Svirski fell to pushing the easel toward the window, with a noise, thinking meanwhile,—
"She will gain the habit, and in a week will laugh at her scruples."
Next, he arranged the sofa on which the model was to lie, took his brush, and began to grow impatient.
"Well, how is it? Art thou ready?"
Silence.
"Well, make up thy mind. What jokes are these?"
Just then from behind the screen came a trembling, imploring voice, with the prayer,—
"I have thought it over, sir. In our house there is poverty; but still—I—cannot! If you would be kind and take the head—for three francs, or even for two—if you would have the kindness."
And these words came with sobbing. Svirski turned toward the screen, dropped his brush, and opened his mouth. Unparalleled astonishment seized him, for the model was speaking in his own native tongue.
"Is the lady a Pole?" asked he at last, forgetting that a moment before he had said thou to her.
"Yes, sir. That is, my father was an Italian, but my grandfather is a Pole."
A moment of silence ensued. Svirski recovered, and said,—
"Arrange your dress; I will take only your head."
But evidently she had not begun to undress, for she came from behind the screen at once, confused, full of fear yet, and with traces of tears on her cheeks.
"I thank you," said she. "You are—I beg your pardon; but—"
"Be at rest," said Svirski. "Here is the chair; have no fear. You will pose for your head; I had no wish to offend you. You see that picture. I wanted a model for this figure here. But since it is so painful to you, the question is changed, especially as you are a Pole."
Tears began to flow over her cheeks again; but she looked at him through her blue eyes with gratitude; he found a bottle of wine, poured out half a glass, and, giving it to her, said,—
"Drink this. I have biscuits here somewhere, but deuce knows where they are. I ask you to drink. There, it is all right. Your hand trembles; but there is no danger here—I beg you to be calm."
And saying this, he looked at her with the sympathy of his honest eyes, and said after a while,—
"Poor child!"
Then he stepped aside, and put the easel in its old place, saying while he did so,—
"There is no posing to-day. You are too much excited. To-morrow we will begin work early; to-day we will talk a little. Who could guess that Maria Cervi was a Pole! Your grandfather is a Pole, then, is he not? Is he alive?"
"Yes; but he has not walked for the last two years."
"What is his name?"
"Orysevich," answered she, speaking somewhat with a foreign accent.
"I know that name. Has he been long in this country?"
"Grandfather has been sixty-five years out of Poland. First, he was in the Italian army, and then in the bank of Nice."
"How old is he?"
"Nearly ninety."
"Your father's name was Cervi?"
"Yes. My father was from Nice; but he served also in the Italian army."
"Then he is dead?"
"Five years."
"And your mother is alive?"
"She is. We live together in Old Nice."
"Very well. But now one more question. Does your mother know that you want to become a model?"
To this the girl answered in a hesitating voice: "No, mamma does not know. Pani Lageat told me that in this way I could earn five francs a day; and as there is poverty in our house,—very great poverty,—I had no other way."
Svirski took in the girl from head to foot with quick glance, and understood that he was listening to truth. Everything testified to poverty,—her hat, her dress, which was so worn, or rather consumed by age, that every thread in it was visible, her gloves darned and faded.
"Go home now," said he, "and tell your mother that there is an artist named Svirski who wishes you to sit to him as a model for the head. Say also that this artist will come, at recommendation of Pani Lageat, to ask you to sit with your mother in his studio, for which he offers you ten francs a day."
Panna Cervi began to thank him, without knowing how to find speech, weeping and confusing her words, with a voice full both of tears and delight. He saw what was happening within her, and said,—
"Very well. I shall come in an hour. You seem to me a very honest girl. Have confidence in me. I am something of a bear, but I understand more things than one. We shall arrange this affair, and the trouble will pass. Ah! yes, one point more. I do not wish to give you money at once, for you would have to explain the matter; but in an hour I will bring all that is needed on account. I too had troubles formerly, and know what prompt aid means. You have nothing to give thanks for, a trifle! Till we meet again—in an hour."
So, after he had asked again for her address, he conducted the girl to the steps; and when an hour had passed, he took his seat in a carriage and gave directions to drive to Old Nice.
All that had happened seemed to him so peculiar that he could think of nothing else. He felt too the delight which every honest man feels when he has acted as he ought, and when he may become a providence to some person.
"If that is not an honest and a good girl," thought he of Panna Cervi, "I am the dullest mule in Liguria."
But he did not admit that anything similar could happen. On the contrary, he felt that he had struck a very honest woman’s soul, and at the same time he was delighted that that soul was enclosed in such a young and beautiful body.
The carriage stopped at last in front of an old and battered house near the harbor. The woman at the gate pointed contemptuously enough to Pani Cervi's apartments.
"Poverty indeed!" thought the artist, as he went up the sloping steps. After a while he knocked at the door.
"Come in!" answered a voice.
Svirski entered. A woman about forty years of age received him; she was dressed in black; a brunette, sad, thin, evidently broken by life: but she had nothing common about her. At her side stood Panna Maria.
"I know all, and I thank you from my soul and heart!" said Pani Cervi; "may God reward and bless you."
Thus speaking, she caught his hand and bent her head as if to kiss it; but he withdrew the hand quickly; anxious to drive away ceremony at the earliest, and break the ice of first acquaintance, he turned to Panna Maria, and, shaking his finger at her, said, with the freedom of an old acquaintance,—
"Ah, this little girl has let out the secret!"
Panna Maria smiled at him in answer, a little sadly, a little perplexed. She seemed to him fair, more beautiful than in the studio. He noticed also that she had around her neck a narrow, lily-colored ribbon which she had not worn before; and this touched him still more as a proof that evidently she did not consider him an old grandfather, since she had dressed for him. Then Pani Cervi said,—
"Yes, Maria told everything. God watched over her and over us, so that she met such a man as you."
"Panna Maria told me of the difficult circumstances in which you are living," answered Svirski; "but, believe me, that even in those circumstances it is happiness to have such a daughter."
"Yes," said Pani Cervi, calmly.
"Meanwhile I owe gratitude to you; for I was looking, and looking in vain, till at last a head fell from heaven to me. Now I am sure of my picture. I must only make sure that my model does not run away!"
Meanwhile he drew out three hundred francs and forced Pani Cervi to take them, assuring her that he would make a great profit, for he would receive much money, thanks to Panna Maria; and then he declared that he would like to make the acquaintance of the "grandfather," for he had always had a weakness for old soldiers.
Hearing this, Panna Maria ran to the adjoining chamber; soon the noise of a wheeled chair was heard, and the grandfather was rolled into the room. Evidently the old man had been prepared to receive the guest, for he was in uniform, with all his orders acquired in Italy. Svirski saw before him an old man whose face had grown small and wrinkled; his moustaches and hair were white as milk; his blue eyes opened widely, and looked something like the eyes of an infant.
"Grandfather," said Maria, bending over him in such fashion that the old man could see her lips, and speaking not in a loud voice, but slowly and precisely, "this is Pan Svirski, a fellow-countryman and an artist."
The old man turned his blue eyes toward the visitor, and looked at him persistently, meanwhile blinking as if summoning his mind.
"A fellow-countryman?" repeated he. "Yes!—a fellow-countryman."
Then he smiled, looked at his daughter, his granddaughter, and again at Svirski; he sought words for a time, and asked at last, with an aged, trembling voice,—
"And what will there be in spring?"
Evidently there remained to him some single thought, which had outlived all the others, but which he had not been able to express. So, after a while, he leaned his trembling head against the back of the chair, and began to look at the window, smiling, however, at that thought, and repeating,—
"Yes, yes! It will be!"
"Grandfather always acts that way," said Maria.
Svirski looked at him for a time with emotion; then Pani Cervi began to speak of her father and her husband. Both had taken part in the wars against Austria for Italian independence. They had lived some time in Florence; and only after the occupation of Rome did they return to Nice, where Cervi's family originated. There Orysevich gave his daughter to his young comrade in arms. Both men found places in the bank, thanks to relatives in Nice. All succeeded well till Cervi was killed in a railroad accident, a few years before, and Orysevich lost his place through old age. From that time their trouble began, for the only capital which the three persons had to support them was sixty lires, which the Italian government gave the old man. That was enough to keep them from dying, but not enough to give them life. The two women earned a little by sewing or teaching; but during summer, when life died away in Nice, when it was impossible to earn anything, their slender supplies were swallowed up. Two years before the old soldier had lost the use of his legs altogether; he was frequently sick, and had to be cared for; through this their condition grew worse and worse.
Svirski, while listening to this narrative, made note of two things: First, that Pani Cervi did not speak as good Polish as her daughter. Evidently the old man, in the years of his campaigning, could not devote himself to the education of his daughter in the same degree as he had afterward to the education of his granddaughter. But the second thing was more important for Svirski. "This granddaughter," thought he, "being such a beautiful girl, might, especially in Nice, on that shore where idlers squander millions every year, keep carriages, servants, and have a drawing-room finished in satin. But she wears a threadbare dress, and her only ornament is a faded lily-colored ribbon. There must be some strength which has kept her from evil. For this," said he to himself, "two things are requisite,—pure nature and honorable traditions; there is no doubt that I have found both."
And he began to have a pleasant feeling among those people. He noticed also that poverty had not destroyed in the two women traces of good-breeding, a certain elegance which comes from within and seems inborn. Both mother and daughter had received him as a providence; but in their words and manners one could notice more delight at making the acquaintance of an honest man, than at the aid which he brought them. It might be that the three hundred francs which he left with the mother saved the family from many cares and humiliations, but still he felt that mother and daughter were more thankful to him because he had acted in the studio like a man of true and tender heart, who understood the girl's pain, her modesty, and sacrifice. But to him the greatest pleasure came from noting that in Panna Maria's timidity, and in her charming glances, there was an anxiety which a young girl might experience before a man to whom she feels obliged with her whole soul, but who at the same time, according to Svirski's expression, "is not out of the current yet." He was forty-five years of age, but, in spite of a young heart, he began at moments to doubt himself, so that the lily-colored ribbon and this observation caused him real pleasure. Finally, he talked to them with the same respect and attention as with women of the best society, and, seeing that he entertained them more and more by this means, he felt satisfied. At parting, he pressed the hands of both; and when Panna Maria returned the pressure, with drooping eyelashes, but with all the strength of her warm young hand, he went out a little dazed, and with a head so full of the fair model that the driver of the carriage in which he took a seat had to ask him twice where he wished to go.
On the road he thought that it would not do to put the head of "Panna Maria" on a body naked to the waist, and he began to persuade himself that even for the picture it would be better to cast some light drapery over the bosom of the sleeping maiden.
"When I get back, I will bring in the first model I find, and work the picture over, so that to-morrow the thing will be ready," said he to himself.
Then it occurred to him that still he would not be able to hire such a model as Panna Cervi permanently and take her with him; at this thought he was sorry.
Meanwhile the carriage stopped at the studio. Svirski paid, and stepped out.
"A despatch for you," said the concierge.
The artist was roused as if from sleep.
"Ah! Very well, give it here!" And taking the despatch, he opened it impatiently.
But he had scarcely cast his eyes on it, when astonishment and terror were reflected on his face, for the telegram was as follows:—
Kresovich shot himself an hour ago. Come.