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Read Ebook: In Bohemia with Du Maurier: The First of a Series of Reminiscences by Moscheles Felix
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Ebook has 204 lines and 20916 words, and 5 pages
THE ATELIER GLEYRE 18
MY BLOUSE 20
PEGGY AND DU MAURIER AT THE RAILWAY STATION IN MALINES 27
FROM DU MAURIER'S PAINTING 30
MOSCHELES ET MOI SI NOUS AVIONS ?T? DU BEAU SEXE 32
SI NOUS AVIONS ?T? BEAUX 32
MOSCHELES ET MOI SI NOUS N'AVIONS PAS ?T? ARTISTES #33
SI NOUS AVIONS ?T? CHEVAUX 33
F. S'IL ?TAIT CHEVAL 33
SI NOUS AVIONS ?T? MILITAIRES 34
"CE SACR? V?SICATOIRE" 35
ISABEL DU MAURIER 35
MOSCHELES, OR MEPHISTOPHELES?--WHICH 40
"INSPIRATION PAPILLOTIQUE" 42
DU MAURIER IMPROVISING 43
HOW RAG TRIES TO D?SILLUSIONER CARRY ON BOBTAIL, AND BOBTAIL TRIES TO DITTO DITTO ON RAG 44
THE INGENIOUS USE WHICH RAG MAKES OF BOBTAIL'S PLIABLE HAT 46
"BESHREW THEE, NOBLE SIR RAGGE! LET US TO THE FAIR TOBACCONISTE" 49
"SALUT ? LA GENTE ET ACCORTE PUCELLE" 50
A MESMERIC S?ANCE IN MRS. L.'S BACK PARLOUR 57
THE MIDNIGHT PRESENCE OF THE UNCANNY 60
"RACHEL" AND FRIENDS CELEBRATE BOBTAIL'S BIRTHDAY 65
RAG 72
BOBTAIL 72
"WHAT THE DEUCE AM I TO DO WITH THIS CONFOUNDED ROPE? HANG MYSELF, I WONDER." 76
COFFEE AND BRASSIN IN BOBTAIL'S ROOMS 80
CLARA MOSCHELES 83
"HERR RAG SCHICKT ZU FR?ULEIN MOSCHELES SEIN EMPFEHLUNG UND IHREN BRUDER." 87
DU MAURIER AT WORK AGAIN 90
DOUBLE-BEDDED ROOM IN BRUSSELS 93
THE HEIGHT OF ENJOYMENT 95
YE CELEBRATED RAG TREATETH HIMSELF TO A PRIVATE PERFORMANCE OF YE PADRE FURIOSO E FIGLIA INFELICE 97
AT THE HOFRATH'S DOOR 99
"I SAY, GOVERNOR, MIND YOU DON'T GASH HIS THROAT AS YOU DID THAT POOR OLD SPANIARD'S" 100
MR KENNEDY, WHO IS QUITE BLIND, DISCREETLY INFORMS THE PROFESSOR THAT CAPTAIN MARIUS BLUEBLAST "IS NA BUT A SINFU' BLACKGUARD" 101
MEETING IN D?SSELDORF 103
SCENE FROM MACPHERSON'S OSSIAN 106
PORTRAIT OF PICCIOLA 115
"ON THEIR HONEYMOON" 116
"TUMBLINGS"
"I well remember" my first meeting with du Maurier in the class-rooms of the famous Antwerp Academy.
I was painting and blagueing, as one paints and blagues in the storm and stress period of one's artistic development.
It had been my good fortune to commence my studies in Paris; it was there, in the atelier Gleyre, I had cultivated, I think I may say, very successfully, the essentially French art of chaffing, known by the name of "La blague parisienne," and I now was able to give my less lively Flemish friends and fellow-students the full benefit of my experience. Many pleasant recollections bound me to Paris; so, when I heard one day that a "Nouveau" had arrived, straight from my old atelier Gleyre, I was not a little impatient to make his acquaintance.
The new-comer was du Maurier. I sought him out, and, taking it for granted that he was a Frenchman, I addressed him in French; we were soon engaged in lively conversation, asking and answering questions about the comrades in Paris, and sorting the threads that associated us both with the same place. "Did you know 'un nomm? Pointer'?" he asked, exquisitely Frenchy-fying the name for my benefit. I mentally translated this into equally exquisite English, my version naturally being: "A man called Poynter."
Later on an American came up, with whom I exchanged a few words in his and my native tongue. "What the D. are you--English?" broke in du Maurier. "And what the D. are you?" I rejoined. I forget whether D. stood for Dickens or for the other one; probably it was the latter. At any rate, whether more or less emphatic in our utterances, we then and there made friends on a sound international basis.
It seemed to me that at this our first meeting du Maurier took me in at a glance--the eager, hungry glance of the caricaturist. He seemed struck with my appearance, as well he might be. I wore a workman's blouse that had gradually taken its colour from its surroundings. To protect myself from the indiscretions of my comrades I had painted various warnings on my back, as, for instance, "Bill stickers beware," "It is forbidden to shoot rubbish here," and the like. My very black hair, ever inclined to run riot, was encircled by a craftily conceived band of crochet-work, such as only a fond mother's hand could devise, and I was doubtless colouring some meerschaum of eccentric design. My fellow-student, the now famous Matthew Maris, immortalised that blouse and that piece of crochet-work in the admirable oil-sketch here reproduced.
It has always been a source of legitimate pride to me to think that I should have been the tool selected by Providence to sharpen du Maurier's pencil; there must have been something in my "Verfluchte Physiognomie," as a very handsome young German, whom I used to chaff unmercifully, called it, to reveal to du Maurier hidden possibilities and to awaken in him those dormant capacities which had betrayed themselves in the eager glance above named.
The comrade without arms was a most assiduous worker; it was amusing to watch his mittened feet step out of their shoes and at the shortest notice proceed to do duty as hands; his nimble toes would screw and unscrew the tops of the colour tubes or handle the brush as steadily as the best and deftest of fingers could have done. Very much unlike any of us, he was most punctilious in the care he bestowed on his paint box, as also on his personal appearance. Maris, Neuhuys, Heyermans, and one or two others equally gifted, but whose thread of life was soon to be cut short, were painting splendid studies, some of which I was fortunate enough to rescue from destruction and have happily preserved.
Quite worthy to be placed next to these are Van-der-something's studies. That was the name of a wiry, active little man who in those days painted in a garret; there everything was disarranged chaotically, mostly on the floor, for there was no furniture that I can recollect beyond a stool, an easel, and a fine old looking-glass. He had a house, though, and a wife, in marked contrast with his appearance and the garret. The house was not badly appointed, and she was lavishly endowed with an exuberance of charms and graces characteristic of a Rubens model.
A fellow-student of mine was their lodger, a handsome young German, brimful of talent, but sadly deficient in health. He had always held most rigid principles on questions of morality, but unfortunately they failed one day in their application, owing to the less settled views entertained by Madame Van-der-something on such subjects. She certainly gave him much affection on the one hand, but on the other she so audaciously appropriated those of his goods and chattels that could be turned into money, that the police had to intervene, and she eventually found herself before a judge and jury. There, however, she managed so well to cast all responsibility on her husband, who, to this day, I believe was quite innocent, that--"cherchez la femme"--she got off, and he was sentenced to a term of imprisonment.
Now if Van Ostade or Teniers had risen to prosecute him for forging their signatures, and he had been found guilty and condemned to severe punishment, it would have served him right. He was a perfect gem of a forger. He picked up a stock of those dirty old pictures painted on worm-eaten panels that used to abound in the sale-rooms of Antwerp. On these he would paint what might be called replicas with variations, cribbing left and right from old mildewed prints that were scattered all about the floor. He would scrape and scumble, brighten and deaden with oils and varnishes; he would dodge and manipulate till his picture, after a given time spent in a damp cellar, would emerge as a genuine old master. I once asked a dealer whom I knew to be a regular customer of his, at what price he sold one of those productions. "I really can't say," he answered; "I only do wholesale business. I buy for exportation to England and America." If any of my friends here or over there possess some work of Van-der-something's, I sincerely congratulate them, for the little man was a genius in his way.
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