Read Online The Unknown Masterpiece by Honoré de Balzac - Free Book Online
Authors: Honoré de Balzac
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Just a rich man who makes no more than what he buys ...I’ve created nothing!” He studied his canvas through his tears, suddenly standing up with great pride and darting an angry glance at the two painters. “By the body and blood of Christ, the two of you are envious thieves who want me to believe I’ve spoiled her so you can steal her from me! But I can see her!” he exclaimed. “I see her, and she’s marvelously beautiful!”
At that moment, Poussin heard the sound of weeping—it was Gillette, forgotten in a corner.
“What’s the matter, angel?” the young painter asked, suddenly becoming a lover again.
“Kill me!” she cried. “I’d be vile to love you still—you fill me with contempt. I admire you, yet you horrify me. I love you, and I think I hate you already!”
While Poussin was listening to Gillette, Frenhofer again draped a green serge cloth over his Catherine, with the intent composure of a jeweler locking his velvet trays, imagining he is in the company of clever thieves. He cast a sly glance, full of suspicion and scorn, at the two painters, and without a word led them to his studio door. Then, at the bottom of the stairs, on the threshold of his house, he said to them, “Farewell, my little friends.”
That farewell made the two painters’ blood run cold. The next day, a worried Porbus visited Frenhofer again and was told that he had died during the night, after burning his canvases.
—Paris, February 1832
GAMBARA
To the Marquis of Belloy
It was during afternoon tea at the fireside of a mysterious retreat which no longer exists save as memory will preserve it, overlooking Paris from the hills of Bellevue to those of Belleville, from Montmartre to the Arc de Triomphe, that amid the myriad ideas which exploded and expired like rockets in your sparkling conversation, you offered my pen, with characteristic generosity, this character worthy of Hoffmann, a bearer of unknown treasures and a pilgrim at the gates of Paradise, endowed with ears to hear angelic harmonies yet no longer a tongue to repeat them, touching the keyboard with fingers deformed by the contractions of divine inspiration, under the illusion he was playing celestial music to stupefied listeners. You created Gambara, I merely costumed him. Let me render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, regretting you did not take up the pen at a period when noblemen might employ it as well as the sword in their country’s service. You may well take no thought for yourself, but your talents you owe to us.
New Year’s Day of the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-one was emptying its packet of holiday sugarplums: four o’clock had struck, restaurants were beginning to fill, and there was a crowd in the Palais Royal. Presently a carriage stopped at the entrance and out of it stepped a young man of proud bearing, doubtless a foreigner or he would not have been attended by such an aristocratically plumed footman nor displayed on his carriage doors the quarterings still coveted by heroes of the July monarchy. The stranger entered the Palais Royal and joined the crowd under the arcades, patient with the slow pace to which the press of idlers condemned his progress. He appeared accustomed to the measured gait ironically known as “an ambassador’s walk,” though his dignity seemed a trifle theatrical: handsome and severe as his countenance was, his hat, beneath which emerged a tuft of curly black hair, tilted perhaps a little too far over his right ear, belying his gravity by a slightly roguish look; his inattentive, half-closed eyes cast disdainful glances at the crowd.
“Now there’s a really good-looking man,” murmured a shopgirl, stepping aside to let him pass.
“Who’s well aware of the fact,” her homely companion replied in a loud voice.
After a turn around the arcades, the young man glanced at the sky and then at his watch, made an impatient gesture, and entered a tobacconist’s shop where he lit a
At that moment, Poussin heard the sound of weeping—it was Gillette, forgotten in a corner.
“What’s the matter, angel?” the young painter asked, suddenly becoming a lover again.
“Kill me!” she cried. “I’d be vile to love you still—you fill me with contempt. I admire you, yet you horrify me. I love you, and I think I hate you already!”
While Poussin was listening to Gillette, Frenhofer again draped a green serge cloth over his Catherine, with the intent composure of a jeweler locking his velvet trays, imagining he is in the company of clever thieves. He cast a sly glance, full of suspicion and scorn, at the two painters, and without a word led them to his studio door. Then, at the bottom of the stairs, on the threshold of his house, he said to them, “Farewell, my little friends.”
That farewell made the two painters’ blood run cold. The next day, a worried Porbus visited Frenhofer again and was told that he had died during the night, after burning his canvases.
—Paris, February 1832
GAMBARA
To the Marquis of Belloy
It was during afternoon tea at the fireside of a mysterious retreat which no longer exists save as memory will preserve it, overlooking Paris from the hills of Bellevue to those of Belleville, from Montmartre to the Arc de Triomphe, that amid the myriad ideas which exploded and expired like rockets in your sparkling conversation, you offered my pen, with characteristic generosity, this character worthy of Hoffmann, a bearer of unknown treasures and a pilgrim at the gates of Paradise, endowed with ears to hear angelic harmonies yet no longer a tongue to repeat them, touching the keyboard with fingers deformed by the contractions of divine inspiration, under the illusion he was playing celestial music to stupefied listeners. You created Gambara, I merely costumed him. Let me render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, regretting you did not take up the pen at a period when noblemen might employ it as well as the sword in their country’s service. You may well take no thought for yourself, but your talents you owe to us.
New Year’s Day of the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-one was emptying its packet of holiday sugarplums: four o’clock had struck, restaurants were beginning to fill, and there was a crowd in the Palais Royal. Presently a carriage stopped at the entrance and out of it stepped a young man of proud bearing, doubtless a foreigner or he would not have been attended by such an aristocratically plumed footman nor displayed on his carriage doors the quarterings still coveted by heroes of the July monarchy. The stranger entered the Palais Royal and joined the crowd under the arcades, patient with the slow pace to which the press of idlers condemned his progress. He appeared accustomed to the measured gait ironically known as “an ambassador’s walk,” though his dignity seemed a trifle theatrical: handsome and severe as his countenance was, his hat, beneath which emerged a tuft of curly black hair, tilted perhaps a little too far over his right ear, belying his gravity by a slightly roguish look; his inattentive, half-closed eyes cast disdainful glances at the crowd.
“Now there’s a really good-looking man,” murmured a shopgirl, stepping aside to let him pass.
“Who’s well aware of the fact,” her homely companion replied in a loud voice.
After a turn around the arcades, the young man glanced at the sky and then at his watch, made an impatient gesture, and entered a tobacconist’s shop where he lit a
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