Read Ebook: An Art Shop in Greenwich Village by Cummings Ray

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Ebook has 109 lines and 7813 words, and 3 pages

The rugs and all the hangings were somber in tone. The whole room bore an air of splendid, lavish luxury; and yet there was about it something oppressive--a brooding silence, perhaps, or the heavy scent of incense.

I noticed then that there was one other door to the room, in the side wall near the front where there were two very large windows almost like a side skylight; and that this other door stood slightly ajar.

There was a huge fireplace with a blazing log-fire. I think that without its cheery crackle the oppressive feeling of mystery that hung over the room would have been almost unbearable.

Over by the windows a large canvas, its face covered with a cloth, stood upon an easel; in front of the easel, nearer the side of the room, by the fireplace, I saw there was a model stand--a small board platform resting on the floor.

"You have a luxurious workshop," I said casually.

The little old man looked over the room with an appraising, approving eye.

"Come here," he said. The whine had left his voice. He spoke the words as though now unconsciously he had slipped into the role of master, displaying to his pupil a great work of art.

He grasped me by the coat-sleeve, pulling me forward until I stood with my back against the portieres, and faced the shrouded canvas. Then abruptly he jerked down the cloth, and in the brilliant white glare from overhead the painting stood revealed.

I stared at the canvas. What I expected to see I do not know. What I saw left me gasping--first with amazement, then pity, then with an almost irrepressible desire to laugh. For upon the canvas was only a huge smear of many colored pigments--utterly formless, without meaning. I stared an instant, then turned and met the eyes of the little old man beside me. They gleamed into mine with triumph and pride, and in them I saw again--and this time plainly--the look of madness.

I held back the smile that struggled to my lips. "This--this painting--is it you who--"

"Was it you who painted that--that picture?" A great pity rose in my heart for this poor, deluded madman.

I said nothing, but gazed again at the miserably grotesque daubs on the canvas.

His voice rose sharp and shrill with triumph, and he ended again with his horrible senile laughter.

The jangling of a bell rang through the house. The little old man met my glance and hesitated. Then as the ring was repeated--I could hear it now; it was in the shop down-stairs--he muttered a Spanish oath softly to himself.

"Yes," I said; "I will wait for you here."

When he had left the room I stood again before the canvas, partly enveloped in the great folds of the heavy window portieres. On the stairs outside I could hear the dragging footsteps of the old man as he tottered back to the shop below. I examined the canvas more closely now. There was upon it every color and combination of color, like the heaped-up pigments on a huge, untidy palette. But I noticed that brown seemed to predominate--a dirty, drab, faded brown, inexpressibly ugly, and somehow very sinister. It seemed a pigment color I had never seen before. I could see, too, that the paints were laid on very thick--it was done in oils--as though it had been worked over and over again, for months or even years.

A light footfall sounded near at hand, a rustling of silk, the click of a latch. A girl stood in the partly opened side door--a young girl, hardly more than fifteen or sixteen, dressed in Moorish costume. She stood an instant hesitating, with her back partly turned to me, looking about the room. Then, leaving the door open behind her, she picked up a lute that was standing against the wall--I had net noticed before that it was there--and crossed the room toward the fireplace.

The girl crossed the room slowly; her back was still partly turned as she passed me. It took her but a moment to reach the fireplace, yet in that moment I had a vague but unmistakable feeling of being in the presence of an overpowering physical exhaustion. Her shoulders seemed to droop; she trailed the lute in her loose fingers over the heavy nap of the carpet; there was about her white figure as she walked a slackness of muscle, a limpness, a seeming absence of energy that was almost uncanny.

She reached the fireplace and sank on a hassock, holding the lute across her knees, her eyes staring away into the distance behind me. It was as though without conscious thought she had dropped into a model's pose.

I must have stepped forward into plainer view, or made some slight noise, for the girl's gaze abruptly shifted downward and met mine full.

I tried to speak quietly. "He will be here in a moment," I said. "I have been looking at your--your portrait."

The girl did not smile, as I think I hoped she would, but stared at me apathetically. I held her glance a moment; then it wandered vaguely to the easel as though her thoughts were still groping with the import of my words.

In the shop down-stairs I could hear footsteps on the board flooring. After a moment I stepped forward out of the window recess, and, drawing up a chair, sat down beside the girl.

She dropped her gaze to mine without emotion. I could see her face had once been beautiful. From this close view-point I could see, too, that her lips were pale with an almost bluish paleness. Her cheeks were very white--a whiteness that was not a pallor, but seemingly more an absence of red. And then I got the vague, absurd impression that I could see into her skin--as though it contained nothing to render it opaque.

Her manner was utterly impersonal; her eyes still held that listless, apathetic stare. I gazed into them steadily: and then, far down in their depths, I seemed to see lurking a shadowy look of appeal.

"I have been examining your portrait," I said. "It is a very--curious picture, is it not?"

A faint little glow of color came into the girl's cheeks. She seemed somehow stronger now; but it was a gain of strength rather more mental than physical. I sensed dimly that, talking with me, her mind was clearing. She hesitated, regarding me appraisingly.

She looked searchingly into my eyes; then she swiftly drew back her loose sleeve. The white flesh of her upper arm was scarred with many scars.

And with her words, in a sudden flood of horror, the meaning of all that I had seen came clear to my mind. I realized now how this miserable madman, painting formless daubs upon his canvas, was using the life-blood of his victim. With revulsion in my heart, I understood at last the meaning of those ugly brown smears that mingled and predominated among the pigments on the canvas--the dried and faded stains of human blood. And here, sitting close beside me, was the victim of this insane necromancy--the shell of what had once been womanhood--this body of a girl being drained of its life drop by drop.

The girl's voice brought me back to myself with a start.

I was about to answer when dragging footsteps sounded on the stairs; the front door of the room opened and the little old man stood upon the threshold. A look of incredulous astonishment came over his seared yellow face, supplanted in an instant by rage. His lips parted in a snarl.

"Thou, Malella--thou art here in the presence of a stranger?" He spoke in Spanish, his voice vibrating tense with the fierceness of his passion.

The girl turned slowly around on the hassock; the lute slipped from her lap to the floor.

The little old man was coming forward, and the malevolent gleam in his eyes made me leap to my feet.

"Go thou to thy room, Malella--to thy room--at once."

The girl rose slowly and stood drooping beside me, as a flower droops for long lack of the water that gives it life.

I saw the old man hold her gaze with his glittering eyes. I realized there was about those snakelike little eyes of his an hypnotic power. The girl seemed to follow and to obey, involuntarily almost, his unspoken commands.

She laid the lute on the mantel above the fireplace, and, turning slowly back, faced the old man as he stood close beside me.

"Say good night to the gentleman," he commanded, speaking this time in English. He spoke less harshly than before, as though by using my own language he unconsciously recognized the restraint my presence put upon him.

Then he added to me, and again the miserable, groveling whine came back to his voice:

I found myself very near to her, staring straight down into the clear, empty depths of her blue eyes. And there again I saw that look of appeal--like the patient look of a dog in pain--whispering to me, asking for my aid. As if to answer it, all the pent-up torrent of emotion within me burst forth. I swept the girl behind me with my arm and fronted the old man.

The old man seemed unable at first to grasp my meaning. He stood quavering before me, his lower jaw hanging slack, his eyes widening with surprise, a look of confusion on his face.

"She is going with me now," I repeated firmly. I turned around to her.

"Get some long wrap, Malella, that will cover you. Hasten--I will wait for you here."

The girl stood irresolute. Confusion and fear were written on her face; her glance swung from one to the other of us, undecided.

"At once. Malella, do you hear?" I added sharply. "Get your wrap--I will wait for you."

I pushed her away from me, and she stumbled forward toward the door through which she had entered the room.

Her movement seemed to awaken the little old man into sudden action. He flung himself on me with a snarl, his shaking, shriveled fingers clutching at my throat. I shook him off, but he came back instantly, throwing himself at me fearlessly, with a shrill, maniacal, blood-curdling cry.

Reason left me; for an instant the room swam red before my eyes. I tore his fingers again from my throat, and seizing him around the waist, hurled his frail body violently to the floor. His head struck a corner of the model stand; his body quivered a moment and then lay still.

The girl, with livid, terror-stricken face, was shrinking against the side wall of the room, with one hand pressed tightly over her mouth. I hurried to her.

"Never mind the wrap, Malella--we will go without it."

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