Chapter 47 Chapter Forty Seven

By March, the studio was buzzing with everyone busy submitting drawings for the annual Paris Art Fair.Clutton, however, remained aloof, did not prepare any work, and made a big mockery of the two head portraits Lawson sent.These two paintings are obviously from the hands of beginners, and they are directly sketched from the models, but they are vigorous and majestic, and what Clutton pursues is perfect art. The work of wandering and wandering.He shrugged his shoulders and said to Lawson that it was a little ignorant to send some studies that could not even be taken out of the studio door.Even after the two portraits were accepted by the art exhibition, he still insisted on his own opinion.Flanagan also tried his luck, but the painting sent was returned.Mrs. Otter sent a "Portrait of the Mother," an accomplished and unquestionably second-rate work, which hung prominently.

Lawson and Philip planned to hold a dinner party in their studio to celebrate Lawson's work being exhibited publicly.At this time, Hayward also came to Paris to stay a few days, and just joined in the excitement.Philip had not seen him since he left Heidelberg.Philip had been looking forward to seeing Hayward again, but now that he really met, he felt a little disappointed.Hayward's appearance changed.A head of soft golden hair became sparse, and with the rapid decline of his beautiful face, he also looked shriveled and lifeless.His blue eyes had lost their luster, and his whole face was a little gray, but his thoughts seemed unchanged.Unfortunately, the culture that so impressed eighteen-year-old Philip seemed to inspire only contempt for twenty-one Philip.Philip was not what he had been: the whole set of views about art, life, and literature was nothing; and he could not bear those who still cling to them.He didn't seem to realize how anxious he was to show off to Hayward.When he accompanied Hayward on a tour of the art gallery, he couldn't help bringing out the revolutionary views that he had only just accepted.Philip led Hayward to Manet's Olumbia, and said in a rather dramatic tone:

"I would exchange all the works of the old masters for the masterpiece in front of me, except of course the works of Velázquez, Rembrandt and Vermeer." "Who is Vermeer?" Hayward asked. "Oh, my dear man, you don't even know Vermeer? You're not civilized or something. If you don't even know Vermeer, what's the point of being alive. He's the only classical Grandmaster." Philip dragged Hayward out of the Luxembourg, and urged him to the Louvre. "Have you seen all the pictures here?" asked Hayward, with the tourist's fear of missing something.

"The rest are trivial works, which you can look at later with your own guide book." Having arrived at the Louvre, Philip led his friend straight into the gallery. "I'd love to see that 'Eternal Smile,'" Hayward said. "Oh, my dear fellow, it's not a masterpiece, it's celebrated by men of letters," replied Philip. Finally in a small room Philip stopped in front of Vermeer van Delft's painting The Weaver Girl. "Look, this is one of the greatest treasures in the Louvre Palace, and it looks exactly like it was written by Manet."

Philip raised his expressive thumb, detailing the fascination of this masterpiece.He speaks the jargon of a painter, which makes people have to be impressed by it. "I don't know if I get the best of it," Hayward said. "Of course, it's a painter's work," said Philip. "I dare say that the layman can't see how famous it is." "Door—what?" said Heyward. "layman." Like most art lovers, Hayward wanted to be a connoisseur and was most afraid of being exposed to others.If the other party is evasive and dare not express his opinion decisively, he will put on an authoritative posture; if the other party quotes classics and plausible words, he will act as if he is listening humbly.Hayward couldn't help being dissatisfied with Philip's resolute and confident tone. He obediently recognized Philip's implication: only painters are qualified to judge the quality of paintings, and they are not too arbitrary anyway.

A day or two later Philip and Lawson had a dinner party.Cronshaw also made an exception this time, agreeing to come and taste the food they made by themselves.Miss Chalice volunteered to help with the cooking.She was not interested in women, and asked them not to invite other ladies for her sake.Clutton, Flanagan, Potter, and two other guests were present at the dinner party.There was nothing in the room, so we had to use the model stand as the dining table.Guests can sit on suitcases if they like; if not, sit on the floor.Dishes consisted of Miss Chalice's vegetable broth, and a roast shank of lamb brought from a restaurant around the corner, steaming and delicious (Miss Chalice had already put the potatoes When it was done, the studio still smelled of fried carrots, Miss Chalice's specialty), followed by a course of brandy pears, which Cronshaw volunteered to cook.The last dish will be a surprisingly large piece of fromage de Brie, which is sitting by the window at the moment, adding a strong fragrance to the studio already full of all kinds of strange smells.Cronshaw took the lead, sitting on a traveling suitcase with his legs crossed, like a Turkish pasha, smiling generously at the young people around him.In spite of the fire and heat in the studio, he still wore his overcoat, the collar turned up, out of habit, and the stiff-brimmed hat on his head.He stared contentedly at the four bottles of Italian Cianti wine in front of him.The four bottles of wine lined up in front of him, with a bottle of whiskey in between.Cronshaw said it aroused his association, as if four potbellied eunuchs guarded a slender, handsome Circassian woman.Hayward wore a tweed suit and a Trinity Hall tie, so as not to make others feel restrained.He looked so queer in his English attire.The people present treated him politely and respected him like a guest of honor.Over the vegetable broth, they discussed the weather and the political situation.While waiting for the mutton to be served, there was a moment of silence during the dinner.Miss Chalice lit a cigarette.

"Lamponzel, Lamponzel, let your hair down," she said suddenly. She raised her hand in a graceful manner, untied the silk ribbon on her head, and let her long hair fall to her shoulders.Then he shook his head again. "I always feel more comfortable with my hair down." Looking at her big brown eyes, her thin ascetic face, her pale skin, and her broad forehead, one might have thought she had stepped out of a Bouine-Jones painting.Her hands, with slender fingers, are really beautiful, but the fingertips have been sallowed by nicotine.She wore a dress of green and purple, and she exuded a romantic atmosphere unique to the ladies of Kensington High Street.She is dissolute, but she is easy-going and kind-hearted, and she is an outstanding stunner in the world, but her emotions are relatively shallow.At this time, someone knocked on the door suddenly, and the people at the banquet cheered in unison.Miss Chalice rose to answer the door.She took the leg of lamb and held it high above her head as if it were the head of St. John the Baptist on a plate.She still had a cigarette in her mouth, and she took solemn and sacred steps.

"Wonderful! Daughter of Herodias!" cried Cronshaw. All the people at the banquet gnawed on his lamb leg with relish, especially the gluttonous appearance of the girl with a face like pink jade, which was even more interesting to see.On her left and right sat Clutton and Potter.Everyone present knew in their hearts that she would never play tricks on these two men.State of mud.With most men, she got bored within six weeks, but she knew how to deal with the lovers who had fallen for her afterward.She had loved them, and she had not loved them, but she had no grudge against them for that, and she was friendly with them, but not too intimately.Now and then she cast a melancholy glance at Lawson.The brandy-fired pear was popular, partly because of the brandy in it, and partly because Miss Chalice insisted on eating it with cheese.

"Whether this stuff is delicious or disgusting, I can't really tell," she commented after tasting the medley to the fullest. Coffee and cognac were brought up quickly, in case any sticky situations arose.Everyone sat and smoked comfortably.Ruth Chalice tried to show her artistry with every movement of her hand and every throw of her foot.She sat melancholy beside Cronshaw, and leaned her little head on his shoulder.She gazed thoughtfully into the air, as if wishing to pierce the dark abyss of time, throwing long, pensive glances at Lawson now and then, accompanied by a long sigh.

In the blink of an eye, summer is here.These young men couldn't sit still any longer.The deep blue sky lured them to plunge into the sea; the gentle breeze, sighing softly among the sycamore leaves of the boulevard, lured them to roam the country.Everyone was planning to leave Paris.They were debating what size canvas to take with them; they had also stocked up with canvases for sketching;At last Flanagan and Potter went to Concanou; Mrs. Otter and her mother, preferring the unobstructed view of nature, to Pont-aven; Philip and Lawson resolved to go to the Forest of Fontainebleau.Miss Chalice knew that there was a very fine hotel at Morey, where there was much to write about, and it was not far from Paris, and Philip and Lawson were not indifferent to the fare.Ruth Chalice was going there too.Lawson intended to paint a portrait of her in the field.In those days, the Parisian art fairs were filled with such portraits; sunny gardens inhabited by people blinking, their faces dappled with green shadows as the sunlight filtered through the foliage.They asked Clutton to travel with them, but Clutton liked to spend the summer alone.He had just discovered Cézanne and was in a hurry to get to Provence.He longed for the sky with the clouds hanging low, and the hot blue dots seemed to drip from the clouds like beads of sweat.He longed for the wide, dusty white roads, the sun-pale roofs, and the olive trees grayed by the heat.

Just the day before he was going to leave, after class in the morning, Philip said to Fanny Price while packing his painting supplies: "I'm leaving tomorrow," he said cheerfully. "Where are you going?" she asked immediately, "you're not leaving here, are you?" Her face fell. "I'm looking for a place to escape the heat, how about you?" "I'm not going. I'm staying in Paris. I thought you were staying too. I was hoping..." She stopped abruptly and shrugged. "Isn't it hot enough here in summer? It's not good for your health." "It doesn't matter if it's good for me or not. Where are you going?" "Morey." "Charles went there too. You didn't go with her, did you?" "I'm going with Lawson. She's going there too, but I don't know." She let out a soft grunt in her throat, her big face was flushed with suffocation, and her face was terribly gloomy. "Shameless, I thought you were a decent man, probably the only decent man here. The woman had affairs with Clutton, Potter and Flanagan, and even old Foinet." Take—that's why he's taking so much trouble for her—and now it's you and Lawson again, and it makes me sick!" "Why, what nonsense are you talking about. She's a decent woman, and they pretty much take her for a man." "Yo, I don't want to hear it! I don't want to hear it!" "Well, what does it matter to you?" demanded Philip. "Where I wish to spend the summer is entirely my business." "I've been looking forward to this opportunity," she gasped, as if talking to herself, "I thought you had no money to go out. When the time comes, there will be no one else here, and the two of us will be together." Let's paint, let's go out and have a look together." Speaking of this, she suddenly thought of Ruth Chalice. "That bitch," she yelled, "isn't even worthy to talk to me." Philip looked at her with an indescribable feeling in his heart.He is not a passionate person who thinks that all the girls in the world will fall in love with him; on the contrary, because he is very sensitive to his disability, he always feels awkward in front of women and appears clumsy in speech.At this moment, he didn't know that her outburst could have any meaning other than venting her anger.She was standing in front of him in that lovely brown dress, with disheveled hair, disheveled clothes, and two streams of angry tears hanging down her cheeks, which was unbearable.Philip glanced towards the door, wishing instinctively that someone would come in at this moment, and put an end to the embarrassing situation at once. "I'm so sorry," he said. "You and they are all the same goods. If you can catch them, you will take them all. In the end, you won't even say thank you. Aren't I teaching you what you have learned now? Other than me, Who else would worry about you. Did Foinet care about you? To tell you the truth, even if you study there for a thousand years, you will never be good. You have no talent. , not at all. It's not just me--that's what they all say. You'll never be a painter in your life." "That's none of your business, is it?" said Philip, blushing. "Why, you think I'm just losing my temper and talking? Go ask Clutton, go ask Lawson, go ask Chalice! You'll never be a painter. Never! Never! Never." ! You are not this material at all!" Philip shrugged and walked out.She directed at his back and shouted loudly: "Never! Never! Never!" At that time, Morey was an old-fashioned town with only one street, close to the edge of the Fontainebleau forest. The "Golden Shield" inn is a small inn that still maintains the legacy of the royal government, facing the meandering Luoying River.Miss Chalice's room had a small veranda overlooking the river, from which there was a peculiar view of an old bridge and its fortified passageway.Every night after dinner, they just sit here, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, and talking about art.Not far from here, there is a narrow canal that joins the Luoying River, with poplar trees planted on both sides.After work, they often stroll along the embankment of the canal for a while.During the day, they all used to paint.Like most young people at the same time, they have a headache for the poetic and picturesque scenery; they just turn a blind eye to the beautiful scenery of the town in front of them, and deliberately capture some simple and unpretentious scenery.They scoffed at everything that was pretty.Sisley and Monet once painted the canal shaded by poplars here, and they also wanted to try their hand at drawing a landscape painting with a typical French sentiment, but they were afraid of the symmetrical beauty of the scenery in front of them, so they painstakingly painted To be avoided.Miss Challis, who is ingenious and ingenious, deliberately omitted the top part of the tree when she wrote the pen, so as to make the picture unique and out of the ordinary.Although Lawson always looked down on women's works of art, this time he had to admire her originality.As for himself, he had an idea to add a large billboard of blue Menier chocolate candy in the foreground of the painting to show his dislike of chocolate box candies. Now Philip began to learn to paint in oils.When he first used this lovely artistic medium, he couldn't help but feel a surge of ecstasy.In the morning, he went out with Lawson with a small painting box, sat beside Lawson, and daubed strokes on the canvas.He is handy and enjoys painting, but he doesn't know that what he does is at best just copying the pattern.He was so influenced by this friend that he could almost be said to see the world through his friend's eyes.Lawson likes to use very low tones when painting, the emerald grass turns into dark velvet to them, and the bright and shining sky turns into a deep blue under their pens.The whole of July was sunny and hot, and the heat wave seemed to have dried Philip's inspiration. He was listless all day long, and he didn't even bother to pick up his paintbrush, and his mind was full of distracting thoughts.In the morning, he often hides sideways in the thick shade by the river, reads a few short poems, and then meditates in a trance for half an hour.Sometimes he rode a broken rented bicycle and headed for the forest along dusty paths.Then choose a clearing in the forest to lie down and let yourself be immersed in romantic fantasies.He seemed to see those lively, careless and careless fair ladies in Watteau's works, accompanied by knights, wandering among the towering giant trees; Somehow, it seems that I can't get rid of a kind of nameless fear. They were the only people in the entire inn except for a fat middle-aged French woman.The woman was quite like a character in Rabelais's works, she grinned frequently and let out bursts of lascivious laughter.She used to go to the river and fish patiently all day long, though she never caught a single one.Sometimes Philip went up to her and spoke to her.Philip found that she had been in that trade--and the most famous person in that trade was Mrs. Warren in our generation.She had made enough money, and now went to the country to live her bourgeois leisure.She told Philip nasty and obscene stories. "You've got to go to Seville," she said--she could speak some broken English, "the women there are the most beautiful in the world." She cast a lewd glance at Philip, and nodded at him again.Her upper and lower jaws, as well as her protruding belly, kept shaking with giggles. The temperature is getting higher and higher, and it is almost impossible to sleep at night.The heat lingers among the trees like a tangible substance.They did not want to leave the starry night, and the three of them sat quietly on the verandah of Ruth Chalice's room, hour after hour, neither of them bothering to say a word, but enjoying the summer night to its fullest. quiet.They listened attentively to the gurgling water until the church bell struck once, twice, sometimes even three times, and then dragged their tired bodies to bed.Philip suddenly realized that Ruth and Lawson were a couple.This, he guessed from his own intuition, from the girl's gaze on the young painter and the latter's obsessed manner.As Philip sat with them he felt that they were eyeing each other, sending some kind of jet, and the air seemed to be heavy with something strange.This unexpected discovery really surprised Philip.He had always thought of Miss Chalice as a good company, enjoyed talking to her, and never seemed to have dreamed of a deeper relationship with her.One Sunday, the three of them went into the forest together with a tea basket.They came to an ideal glade surrounded by green trees. Miss Chalice thought it was idyllic and insisted on taking off her shoes and socks.It's a pity that her feet are too big, and there is a big corn on the third toe of both feet, otherwise her feet are charming enough.Perhaps, Philip thought to himself, that was the reason she had a somewhat ridiculous gait when she walked.But now Philip looked at her with admiration.Her big eyes and her olive skin all revealed the gentleness of a woman.Philip felt what a fool he was not to have noticed how attractive she was.It seemed to him that she looked down on him a little, because he was too slow to feel the presence of such a thing as her; and he noticed that Lawson now seemed to have a certain air of superiority.He was jealous of Lawson, but not Lawson himself, but his love.If only he could take Lawson's place and love like Lawson.Philip was disturbed and worried lest love should slip away from him.He hoped that a torrent of emotion would suddenly hit him and sweep him away.He was willing to be at the mercy of the current, and he didn't care where it went.Miss Chalice and Lawson seemed strange to him, and their constant presence disturbed him.He is very dissatisfied with himself.What he wants, life just doesn't give.He felt very uncomfortable, feeling that he was wasting his time. The fat French woman did not take long to guess the connection between the young man and woman, and she was outspoken to Philip. "And you," she said, with that smile of the man who has fattened himself on the devotion of his fellow men, "do you have a petite amie? "No," said Philip, blushing. "Why not? Cest de votre age. Philip shrugged.Holding a collection of Verlaine's poems in his hand, he wandered away.He wanted to read, but lust was turmoil in his heart.He thought of the absurd tales Flanagan had told him of men's quests: alcoves in alleys, parlors upholstered in Utrecht velvets, and painted laughing girls.Thinking of this, Philip couldn't help shivering.He fell onto the grass and lay sprawled like a young animal just woken from sleep.The rippling water, the poplars dancing in the breeze, the blue sky--all this was almost unbearable to Philip.He is now caught in a web of self-woven love.He was dreaming, and seemed to feel two warm lips kissing him, and a pair of gentle hands around his neck.He imagined how he was lying in Ruth Chalice's arms, and thought of her pair of dark eyes, her delicate and smooth skin, he missed this good fate for nothing, no wonder he was not crazy!If Lawson did it, why shouldn't he?But it was only when she wasn't there--when he couldn't sleep in bed at night, or when he meditated by the canal during the day--that he felt it.And as soon as he saw her, his feelings changed suddenly. He neither wanted to hug her nor imagined how he would kiss her.This is really a rare strange thing in the world!When she is not in front of him, he thinks she is charming and charming, and he only thinks of her haunting eyes and pale face that is slightly creamy; but when he is with her, he only sees her ordinary face. Straight breasts and those slightly decayed teeth, and I can't forget the corns on her toes.He simply could not understand himself.Could it be due to his deformed vision that seems to be exaggerating Yi Ren's unsatisfactory aspects, that he can only love when his sweetheart is not in front of him forever, and once he has the opportunity to meet her face to face, the anti-party is a disappointment of it? The climate change announced the end of the long summer.They returned to Paris, and Philip felt no regrets.