Read Online Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) by Rudyard Kipling - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Rudyard Kipling
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face to Dick.
‘Wait a minute,’ said he. ‘That mouth is down at the corners a little.
Who’s been worrying you, Maisie?’
‘No one but myself. I never seem to get on with my work, and yet I try hard enough, and Kami says — — ’
‘“Continuez, mesdemoiselles. Continuez toujours, mes enfants.” Kami is depressing. I beg your pardon.’
‘Yes, that’s what he says. He told me last summer that I was doing better and he’d let me exhibit this year.’
‘Not in this place, surely?’
‘Of course not. The Salon.’
‘You fly high.’
‘I’ve been beating my wings long enough. Where do you exhibit, Dick?’
‘I don’t exhibit. I sell.’
‘What is your line, then?’
‘Haven’t you heard?’ Dick’s eyes opened. Was this thing possible? He cast about for some means of conviction. They were not far from the Marble Arch. ‘Come up Oxford Street a little and I’ll show you.’
A small knot of people stood round a print-shop that Dick knew well.
‘Some reproduction of my work inside,’ he said, with suppressed triumph. Never before had success tasted so sweet upon the tongue. ‘You see the sort of things I paint. D’you like it?’
Maisie looked at the wild whirling rush of a field-battery going into action under fire. Two artillery-men stood behind her in the crowd.
‘They’ve chucked the off lead-’orse’ said one to the other. ‘‘E’s tore up awful, but they’re makin’ good time with the others. That lead-driver drives better nor you, Tom. See ‘ow cunnin’ ‘e’s nursin’ ‘is ‘orse.’
‘Number Three’ll be off the limber, next jolt,’ was the answer.
‘No, ‘e won’t. See ‘ow ‘is foot’s braced against the iron? ‘E’s all right.’
Dick watched Maisie’s face and swelled with joy — fine, rank, vulgar triumph. She was more interested in the little crowd than in the picture.
That was something that she could understand.
‘And I wanted it so! Oh, I did want it so!’ she said at last, under her breath.
‘Me, — all me!’ said Dick, placidly. ‘Look at their faces. It hits ‘em. They don’t know what makes their eyes and mouths open; but I know. And I know my work’s right.’
‘Yes. I see. Oh, what a thing to have come to one!’
‘Come to one, indeed! I had to go out and look for it. What do you think?’
‘I call it success. Tell me how you got it.’
They returned to the Park, and Dick delivered himself of the saga of his own doings, with all the arrogance of a young man speaking to a woman.
From the beginning he told the tale, the I — I — I’s flashing through the records as telegraph-poles fly past the traveller. Maisie listened and nodded her head. The histories of strife and privation did not move her a hair’s-breadth. At the end of each canto he would conclude, ‘And that gave me some notion of handling colour,’ or light, or whatever it might be that he had set out to pursue and understand. He led her breathless across half the world, speaking as he had never spoken in his life before.
And in the flood-tide of his exaltation there came upon him a great desire to pick up this maiden who nodded her head and said, ‘I understand. Go on,’ — to pick her up and carry her away with him, because she was Maisie, and because she understood, and because she was his right, and a woman to be desired above all women.
Then he checked himself abruptly. ‘And so I took all I wanted,’ he said, ‘and I had to fight for it. Now you tell.’
Maisie’s tale was almost as gray as her dress. It covered years of patient toil backed by savage pride that would not be broken thought dealers laughed, and fogs delayed work, and Kami was unkind and even sarcastic, and girls in other studios were painfully polite. It had a few bright spots, in pictures accepted at provincial exhibitions, but it wound up with the oft repeated wail, ‘And so you see, Dick, I had no success, though I worked so hard.’
Then pity filled Dick.
‘Wait a minute,’ said he. ‘That mouth is down at the corners a little.
Who’s been worrying you, Maisie?’
‘No one but myself. I never seem to get on with my work, and yet I try hard enough, and Kami says — — ’
‘“Continuez, mesdemoiselles. Continuez toujours, mes enfants.” Kami is depressing. I beg your pardon.’
‘Yes, that’s what he says. He told me last summer that I was doing better and he’d let me exhibit this year.’
‘Not in this place, surely?’
‘Of course not. The Salon.’
‘You fly high.’
‘I’ve been beating my wings long enough. Where do you exhibit, Dick?’
‘I don’t exhibit. I sell.’
‘What is your line, then?’
‘Haven’t you heard?’ Dick’s eyes opened. Was this thing possible? He cast about for some means of conviction. They were not far from the Marble Arch. ‘Come up Oxford Street a little and I’ll show you.’
A small knot of people stood round a print-shop that Dick knew well.
‘Some reproduction of my work inside,’ he said, with suppressed triumph. Never before had success tasted so sweet upon the tongue. ‘You see the sort of things I paint. D’you like it?’
Maisie looked at the wild whirling rush of a field-battery going into action under fire. Two artillery-men stood behind her in the crowd.
‘They’ve chucked the off lead-’orse’ said one to the other. ‘‘E’s tore up awful, but they’re makin’ good time with the others. That lead-driver drives better nor you, Tom. See ‘ow cunnin’ ‘e’s nursin’ ‘is ‘orse.’
‘Number Three’ll be off the limber, next jolt,’ was the answer.
‘No, ‘e won’t. See ‘ow ‘is foot’s braced against the iron? ‘E’s all right.’
Dick watched Maisie’s face and swelled with joy — fine, rank, vulgar triumph. She was more interested in the little crowd than in the picture.
That was something that she could understand.
‘And I wanted it so! Oh, I did want it so!’ she said at last, under her breath.
‘Me, — all me!’ said Dick, placidly. ‘Look at their faces. It hits ‘em. They don’t know what makes their eyes and mouths open; but I know. And I know my work’s right.’
‘Yes. I see. Oh, what a thing to have come to one!’
‘Come to one, indeed! I had to go out and look for it. What do you think?’
‘I call it success. Tell me how you got it.’
They returned to the Park, and Dick delivered himself of the saga of his own doings, with all the arrogance of a young man speaking to a woman.
From the beginning he told the tale, the I — I — I’s flashing through the records as telegraph-poles fly past the traveller. Maisie listened and nodded her head. The histories of strife and privation did not move her a hair’s-breadth. At the end of each canto he would conclude, ‘And that gave me some notion of handling colour,’ or light, or whatever it might be that he had set out to pursue and understand. He led her breathless across half the world, speaking as he had never spoken in his life before.
And in the flood-tide of his exaltation there came upon him a great desire to pick up this maiden who nodded her head and said, ‘I understand. Go on,’ — to pick her up and carry her away with him, because she was Maisie, and because she understood, and because she was his right, and a woman to be desired above all women.
Then he checked himself abruptly. ‘And so I took all I wanted,’ he said, ‘and I had to fight for it. Now you tell.’
Maisie’s tale was almost as gray as her dress. It covered years of patient toil backed by savage pride that would not be broken thought dealers laughed, and fogs delayed work, and Kami was unkind and even sarcastic, and girls in other studios were painfully polite. It had a few bright spots, in pictures accepted at provincial exhibitions, but it wound up with the oft repeated wail, ‘And so you see, Dick, I had no success, though I worked so hard.’
Then pity filled Dick.
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