Read Online The Governess and Other Stories by Stefan Zweig, Anthea Bell - Free Book Online
Authors: Stefan Zweig, Anthea Bell
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“The man my friend had sent was quiet and reserved. I never learnt anything about his life beyond hints that a beautiful woman had played a painful part in his story, and it was because of her that he had left his native Italy. And although I have no proof of it, and such an idea seems heretical and unchristian, I think that the picture you have seen, which he painted within a few weeks without a model, working with careful preparation from memory, bears the features of the woman he had loved. Whenever I came to see him at work I found him painting another version of that same sweet face again, or lost in dreamy contemplation of it. Once the painting was finished, I felt secretly afraid of the godlessness of painting a woman who might be a courtesan as the Mother of God, and asked him to choose a different model for the companion piece that I also wanted. He did not reply, and when I went to see him next day he had left without a word of goodbye. I had some scruples about adorning the altar with that picture, but the priest whom I consulted felt no such doubt in accepting it.”
“And he was right,” interrupted the painter, almost vehemently. “For how can we imagine the beauty of Our Lady if not from looking at the woman we see in the picture? Are we not made in God’s image? If so such a portrayal, if only a faint copy of the unseen original must be the closest to perfection that we can offer to human eyes. Now, listen—you want me to paint that second picture. I am one of those poor souls who cannot paint without a living model. I do not have the gift of painting only from within myself, I work from nature in trying to show what is true in it. I would not choose a woman whom I myself loved to model for a portrait worthy of the Mother of God—it would be sinful to see the immaculate Virgin through her face—but I would look for a lovely model and paint the woman whose features seem to me to show the face of the Mother of God as I have seen it in devout dreams. And believe me, although those may be the features of a sinful human woman, if the work is done in pious devotion none of the dross of desire and sin will be left. The magic of such purity, like a miraculous sign, can often be expressed in a woman’s face. I think I have often seen that miracle myself.”
“Well, however that may be, I trust you. You are a mature man, you have endured and experienced much, and if you see no sin in it …”
“Far from it! I consider it laudable. Only Protestants and other sectarians denounce the adornment of God’s house.”
“You are right. But I would like you to begin the picture soon, because my vow, still only half-fulfilled, still burns in me like a sin. For twenty years I forgot about the second picture in the altarpiece. Then, quite recently, when I saw my wife’s sorrowful face as she wept by our child’s sickbed, I thought of the debt I owed and renewed my vow. And as you are aware, once again the Mother of God worked a miracle of healing, when all the doctors had given up in despair. I beg you not to leave it too long before you start work.”
“I will do what I can, but to be honest with you, never in my long career as an artist has anything struck me as so difficult. If my picture is not to look a poor daub, carelessly constructed, beside the painting of that young master—and I long to know more about his work—then I shall need to have the hand of God with me.”
“God never fails those who are loyal to him. Goodbye, then, and go cheerfully to work. I hope you will soon bring good news to my house.”
The merchant shook hands cordially with the painter once again outside the door of his house, looking confidently into the artist’s clear eyes, set in his honest German, angular face like the waters of a bright mountain lake surrounded by weathered peaks and rough rocks. The painter had another parting remark on his lips, but left it unspoken and firmly clasped the hand offered to
“The man my friend had sent was quiet and reserved. I never learnt anything about his life beyond hints that a beautiful woman had played a painful part in his story, and it was because of her that he had left his native Italy. And although I have no proof of it, and such an idea seems heretical and unchristian, I think that the picture you have seen, which he painted within a few weeks without a model, working with careful preparation from memory, bears the features of the woman he had loved. Whenever I came to see him at work I found him painting another version of that same sweet face again, or lost in dreamy contemplation of it. Once the painting was finished, I felt secretly afraid of the godlessness of painting a woman who might be a courtesan as the Mother of God, and asked him to choose a different model for the companion piece that I also wanted. He did not reply, and when I went to see him next day he had left without a word of goodbye. I had some scruples about adorning the altar with that picture, but the priest whom I consulted felt no such doubt in accepting it.”
“And he was right,” interrupted the painter, almost vehemently. “For how can we imagine the beauty of Our Lady if not from looking at the woman we see in the picture? Are we not made in God’s image? If so such a portrayal, if only a faint copy of the unseen original must be the closest to perfection that we can offer to human eyes. Now, listen—you want me to paint that second picture. I am one of those poor souls who cannot paint without a living model. I do not have the gift of painting only from within myself, I work from nature in trying to show what is true in it. I would not choose a woman whom I myself loved to model for a portrait worthy of the Mother of God—it would be sinful to see the immaculate Virgin through her face—but I would look for a lovely model and paint the woman whose features seem to me to show the face of the Mother of God as I have seen it in devout dreams. And believe me, although those may be the features of a sinful human woman, if the work is done in pious devotion none of the dross of desire and sin will be left. The magic of such purity, like a miraculous sign, can often be expressed in a woman’s face. I think I have often seen that miracle myself.”
“Well, however that may be, I trust you. You are a mature man, you have endured and experienced much, and if you see no sin in it …”
“Far from it! I consider it laudable. Only Protestants and other sectarians denounce the adornment of God’s house.”
“You are right. But I would like you to begin the picture soon, because my vow, still only half-fulfilled, still burns in me like a sin. For twenty years I forgot about the second picture in the altarpiece. Then, quite recently, when I saw my wife’s sorrowful face as she wept by our child’s sickbed, I thought of the debt I owed and renewed my vow. And as you are aware, once again the Mother of God worked a miracle of healing, when all the doctors had given up in despair. I beg you not to leave it too long before you start work.”
“I will do what I can, but to be honest with you, never in my long career as an artist has anything struck me as so difficult. If my picture is not to look a poor daub, carelessly constructed, beside the painting of that young master—and I long to know more about his work—then I shall need to have the hand of God with me.”
“God never fails those who are loyal to him. Goodbye, then, and go cheerfully to work. I hope you will soon bring good news to my house.”
The merchant shook hands cordially with the painter once again outside the door of his house, looking confidently into the artist’s clear eyes, set in his honest German, angular face like the waters of a bright mountain lake surrounded by weathered peaks and rough rocks. The painter had another parting remark on his lips, but left it unspoken and firmly clasped the hand offered to
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