— I'm awfully sorry, I fear there's nothing I can do about that. Even Fuller's command of the language is quite beyond me, Basil Valentine said, and then the smile left his face, for he realized that the man had turned his back and was walking toward one of the chairs before the fireplace, where he stood looking down at the table, and placed there the book he carried before he sat down.
— Where is Fuller? he asked. He looked up at them, and Basil Valentine stopped, looking into the sunken green eyes staring from among the lines of the face which turned immediately from him to Recktall Brown, who said, — Fuller's busy.
— What are you. are you punishing him again?
— He's working on some crucifixes, Recktall Brown said to both of them. — He's got twenty ivory ones up there, perfect thirteenth century, softened in vinegar to be cut, and hardened up in water. I told him if he wants his prayers to come true all he has to do is rub them with a sweaty hand. I guess a nigger's sweat will yellow them up as good as any.
— You're not concerned about Fuller's. trustworthiness? Valentine said.
— He doesn't know what he's doing. I gave him a big frame and told him to rub bird crap into the wormholes and hang it up in this chimney, you should have seen him. Christ only knows where he gets the bird crap. He brings it in in little white packages. Recktall Brown stood, unwrapping a cigar as he spoke.
Basil Valentine offered a cigarette across the table, took one himself and laid the case there between them. Then he held a light, waiting.
— The eggs. He did get me the eggs, did he?
— Your fresh country eggs, laid yesterday. They're in the hall, but why the hell they have to be just laid within a matter of hours.
— Yes, yes, they do. They do. They have to be fresh.
— Egg tempera? Basil Valentine asked, holding the light.
— Why. why yes, how did you know? He looked at Valentine only long enough to get the light, and then turned to Recktall Brown with an expression which asked the same question. Brown was, for the moment, obscured by smoke himself. Basil Valentine took the opportunity to study the man seated across from him. His hair, closely cut, showed the lines of his skull clearly, a skull of squarish proportions. The dark unpadded jacket hung from shoulders which looked barely able to support it. The fingertips, too, were squared, tapping together in the smoke from the cigarette, the narrow tightly packed Virginia tobacco which Valentine preferred, lying in the ashtray between them.
Brown emerged from the cigar smoke and sat down unsteadily. — You look like hell, he said to him.
Basil Valentine watched him closely. He was staring down at the table, and his lips barely moved, shaping Soberbia, Ira, Lujuria, Pereza. —That's because I'm. I've been working like hell, he said looking at Basil Valentine, a quick anxious look cast up like his words which were separate immediate sounds. When neither of them spoke he said, — You keep it too hot in here, and looked up at Brown as though to provoke him to explain everything which this observation did not include. Brown grinned. — For the art? he demanded.
— It's just too hot. This dead steam heat. He looked down again.
— Now that you finally got here, Brown said, — we can get started.
— Yes, I was late. I was asleep.
— Sleeping now? Brown demanded.
— Yes, I… I work at night, you know that, and I… You can't imagine how hungry I get for the night to come sometimes, he said suddenly, looking up at them both. — Sometimes it seems like it… won't come at all, so I try to sleep. Waiting for it. When I was in school, a schoolboy, he went on rapidly, — we had this written on our report cards, "Here hath been dawning another blue day. Think! Wilt thou let it slip useless away?" Do you understand? That's. it's quite upsetting, that "another blue day". Do you understand? he said, looking at Valentine. Then he looked down at the magazine opened in Valentine's lap. — That… I didn't know… I hadn't seen that reproduction.
— Sit down, my boy, relax, we.
— I… excuse me just a minute. He left them sitting there, and hurried toward the door where Basil Valentine had gone a few minutes before.
— You know, Valentine murmured, holding the color reproduction up before him, — it's not at all difficult to understand now, why he never comes to these showings.
— What do you mean?
— Look at this. He's stepped right out of the canvas.
— O.K., just don't get him started on it. You see what I mean about this, this "another blue day" stuff? You have to be careful, or he'll end up like this van. van. Recktall Brown motioned at the opened pages with the diamond-laden hand.
— It's all right, my dear fellow. You may say van Gogh. Van Gogh went mad too. Quite, quite mad. Valentine leaned forward and laid the magazine on the table.
They both glanced up when he returned, by way of the pulpit across the room where he stopped to get a bottle of brandy and a glass. These he placed on the table beside the book he had brought in, and picked up the Collectors Quarterly. He read the caption half aloud, —". that most characteristic expression of the genius of Flemish art, which seems to enliven us with increased powers of eyesight, in this recently discovered painting, The Descent from the Cross, by the late fifteenth-century master Hugo van der Goes. " That's. well you can't really say "most characteristic," whoever.
— Valentine here wants to…
— But "increased powers of eyesight," I've seen that somewhere. Yes, it gives that sense of projecting illumination, instead of receiving it from outside, do you. don't you read it that way?
— Yes. I wrote it, said Basil Valentine, looking him in the eyes.
— You wrote it? he repeated.
— I meant it, too. I congratulate you.
— Then you know it's mine? That this is mine? He flattened his hand against the page on the table.
— My dear fellow, "If the public believes that a picture is by Raphael, and will pay the price of a Raphael," Valentine said, offering a cigarette, — "then it is a Raphael."
The cigarette was accepted heedlessly. — Yes, I… but the reproductions, they don't… I haven't seen this one, but they're a bad thing all round, they. here, you can see, this space right here, it loses almost all its value, because the blue, it doesn't quite… it isn't.
— Not bad, for a reproduction, Valentine said, watching him pour brandy into his glass. — But I've looked at the thing itself, and it is magnificent. It is, almost perfect. Perfect van der Goes.
— Yes, but I… it isn't that simple, you know. I mean, the thing itself, van der Goes, he repeated, his hand covering the sky behind the Cross, — this is… mine.
— Yours? Basil Valentine said, smiling, and watching him as he sat down. — You work at night, then, do you?
— Yes, I usually do now.
— This element of secrecy, it becomes rather pervasive, does it?
— No. No, don't start that. That's what they used to say, so don't say that. It isn't so simple. He drank off some of the brandy. — It's the same sense. yes, this sense of a blue day in summer, do you understand? It's too much, such a day, it's too fully illuminated. It's defeating that way, it doesn't allow you to project this illumination yourself, this. selective illumination that's necessary to paint. like this, he added, indicating the picture.
— Seeing you now, you know, it's answered one of the questions I've had on my mind for some time. The first thing I saw, it was a small Dierick Bouts, I wondered then if you used a model when you worked.
— Well I…
— But now, it's quite obvious isn't it, Valentine went on, nodding at the picture between them. — Mirrors?
— Yes, yes of course, mirrors. He laughed, a constricted sound, and lit a cigarette.
— You have one, you know, Basil Valentine said, watching him levelly as he started, looked at the cigarette in his hand, and crushed it out for the one he had just accepted. — You're very tired, aren't you.