OLD HOPES
The door which Ariel had entered opened upon a narrow hall, and down this she ran to her own room, passing, with face averted, the entrance to the broad, low-ceilinged chamber that had served Roger Tabor as a studio for almost fifty years.He was sitting there now, in a hopeless and disconsolate attitude, with his back towards the double doors, which were open, and had been open since their hinges had begun to give way, when Ariel was a child.Hearing her step, he called her name, but did not turn; and, receiving no answer, sighed faintly as he heard her own door close upon her.
Then, as his eyes wandered about the many canvases which leaned against the dingy walls, he sighed again.Usually they showed their brown backs, but to-day he had turned them all to face outward.Twilight, sunset, moonlight (the Courthouse in moonlight), dawn, morning, noon (Main Street at noon), high summer, first spring, red autumn, midwinter, all were there--illimitably detailed, worked to a smoothness like a glaze, and all lovingly done with unthinkable labor.
And there were "Italian Flower-Sellers,"
damsels with careful hair, two figures together, one blonde, the other as brunette as lampblack, the blonde--in pink satin and blue slippers--leaning against a pillar and smiling over the golden coins for which she had exchanged her posies; the brunette seated at her feet, weeping upon an unsold bouquet.There were red-sashed "Fisher Lads "wading with butterfly-nets on their shoulders;there was a "Tying the Ribbon on Pussy's Neck";there were portraits in oil and petrifactions in crayon, as hard and tight as the purses of those who had refused to accept them, leaving them upon their maker's hands because the likeness had failed.
After a time the old man got up, went to his easel near a window, and, sighing again, began patiently to work upon one of these failures--a portrait, in oil, of a savage old lady, which he was doing from a photograph.The expression of the mouth and the shape of the nose had not pleased her descendants and the beneficiaries under the will, and it was upon the images of these features that Roger labored.He leaned far forward, with his face close to the canvas, holding his brushes after the Spencerian fashion, working steadily through the afternoon, and, when the light grew dimmer, leaning closer to his canvas to see.When it had become almost dark in the room, he lit a student-lamp with a green-glass shade, and, placing it upon a table beside him, continued to paint.
Ariel's voice interrupted him at last.
"It's quitting-time, grandfather," she called, gently, from the doorway behind him.
He sank back in his chair, conscious, for the first time, of how tired he had grown."I suppose so," he said, "though it seemed to me that I was just getting my hand in." His eyes brightened for a moment."I declare, I believe I've caught it a great deal better.Come and look, Ariel.Doesn't it seem to you that I'm getting it? Those pearly shadows in the flesh--""I'm sure of it.Those people ought to be very proud to have it." She came to him quietly, took the palette and brushes from his hands and began to clean them, standing in the shadow behind him.
"It's too good for them."
"I wonder if it is," he said, slowly, leaning forward and curving his hands about his eyes so as to shut off everything from his view except the canvas."I wonder if it is!" he repeated.Then his hands dropped sadly in his lap, and he sank back again with a patient kind of revulsion."No, no, it isn't! I always think they're good when I've just finished them.I've been fooled that way all my life.They don't look the same afterwards.""They're always beautiful," she said, softly.
"Ah, ah!" he sighed.
"Now, Roger!" she cried, with cheerful sharpness, continuing her work.
"I know," he said, with a plaintive laugh,--"Iknow.Sometimes I think that all my reward has been in the few minutes I've had just after finishing them.During those few minutes I seem to see in them all that I wanted to put in them;I see it because what I've been trying to express is still so warm in my own eyes that I seem to have got it on the canvas where I wanted it.""But you do," she said."You do get it there.""No," he murmured, in return."I never did.
I got out some of the old ones when I came in this morning, some that I hadn't looked at for years, and it's the same with them.You can do it much better yourself--your sketches show it.""No, no!" she protested, quickly.
"Yes, they do; and I wondered if it was only because you were young.But those I did when I was young are almost the same as the ones Ipaint now.I haven't learned much.There hasn't been any one to show me! And you can't learn from print, never! Yet I've grown in what I SEE--grown so that the world is full of beauty to me that I never dreamed of seeing when I began.
But I can't paint it--I can't get it on the canvas.
Ah, I think I might have known how to, if Ihadn't had to teach myself, if I could only have seen how some of the other fellows did their work.
If I'd ever saved money to get away from Canaan --if I could have gone away from it and come back knowing how to paint it--if I could have got to Paris for just one month! PARIS--for just one month!""Perhaps we will; you can't tell what MAY happen."It was always her reply to this cry of his.
"PARIS--for just one month!" he repeated, with infinite wistfulness, and then realizing what an old, old cry it was with him, he shook his head, impatiently sniffing out a laugh at himself, rose and went pottering about among the canvases, returning their faces to the wall, and railing at them mutteringly.
"Whatever took me into it, I don't know.Imight have done something useful.But I couldn't bring myself ever to consider doing anything else--I couldn't bear even to think of it! Lord forgive me, I even tried to encourage your father to paint.
Perhaps he might as well, poor boy, as to have put all he'd made into buying Jonas out.Ah me!
