— Then I am not to be the lady in the painting any more? The blue cloth slipped from her shoulder, taking the strap of her slip with it. She drew it back slowly. — And then I must. dress like they are now.
— You. you. what you like, he said turning away, to look for a knife on the table.
— To play you the lute, she said, getting down all of a sudden, — like you said they did for him. In the convent where he came, they tried to soothe and comfort him, playing the lute, she said gently, standing near to him. He looked up. — You told me, she said, gently, as though defending herself against the eyes he turned upon her.
— And did it help, their damned lute? And did it help?
— You told me, it did not, she said. She took three steps past him. — You don't need me then?
— I don't need you.
— Shall I go away?
He did not answer.
— Shall I go away?
Then he said, — Is there someone there, waiting?
— If there is no one there, and there is no one here?
He said nothing; but stood before the painting with a sketch of it in one hand, a sketch on which large blemishes were indicated.
She picked a book up from the floor. — I could read to you, she said. His lips parted, but he did not speak. He tapped his thumb on the knife blade. She sat on the edge of the low bed, running her fingertips over the print on the page. Then she commenced, — In den alien Zeiten, wo das Wünschen noch geholfen hat, lebte ein König, dessen Töchter waren alle schön, aber die jüngste war so schön, dass die Sonne selber, die doch so vieles gesehen hat, sich verwunderte, so oft sie ihr ins Gesicht schien. She looked up, smiling.
— But you read it beautifully. I… I didn't know you could.
— Nor did I, she said.
— Where did you learn it, to read German?
— Just now, she answered.
— You don't understand it?
— Not the words, she answered. — It is very beautiful.
— I learned in this book, he said, taking it from her, and he stared at the cover. — Die Brüder Grimm. He handed it back. — Shall I tell you what they mean, the words?
She smiled to him, in answer.
— "In olden times, when wishes still availed, there lived a king, whose daughters all were fair, but the youngest was so fair. "
Her lips followed his voice from the page, — aber die jüngste war so schön, dass die Sonne selber.
— "That the sun itself. " He stood over her, looking down at her shoulder, and he stopped. — Wait, he said. — Have you. have you got. you don't have to go now?
— No, she said looking up, her eyes widely open. — I'm here.
— Will you sit up there for a minute? He gestured to the far stool, and went to the wall where he pulled one canvas after another aside.
She sat, her head half turned; and her face emptied of the curiosity and life of an instant before. If anything of life was left, it was a vague look of yearning, but that without expectation. All that moved in the room were his eyes, and his arm, touching with a pencil at the monochrome on the soiled surface of the gesso, pausing, rubbing the lines away with his thumb.
Suddenly she turned. — What's that?
— Be quiet. What?
— That. You were working on a piece of wood, and here is a piece of canvas.
— Linen, he said. — Be quiet. Turn your head back. Where it was. Where it was, damn it.
— When?
— There. Yes, yes, he said in a hoarse whisper. She was silent, beyond the outlines which she fitted perfectly enough to have cast them there in a quick reflection done without intent, without knowing. Some time passed. With each motion of his hand the form under it assumed a reality to exclude them both, to empty their words of content if they spoke, or, breathing, their breath of that transitory detail of living measured to one end; but left them, his motions only affirmations of this presence which projected her there in a form it imposed, in lines it dictated and colors it assumed, and the accidents of flesh which it disdained.
— Draw the cloth up, he said. — There, draw it up there. Just that part.
She turned, as quickly as a thing is dropped, and broken. His eyes were fixed part closed as though looking into a strong light. — A part every day, she cried, laughing, for his arm had stopped moving. — That's the way you wash when you have no tub, you wash a part every day, Monday is for the feet, Tuesday is knees day, Wednesday is thighs day. She stopped speaking, and hid her face away from him in embarrassment. He had not been looking at her arm or shoulder, or the line of the bone around her eye, not just a part but at her.
— Thursday? he asked, smiling, from the stool where he sat.
She got up, shedding the length of blue cloth to the dirty floor between them. She came and stood over him. She stood with a hand on his shoulder, gripping him there, bending over him, and her small breast spilled toward him, breaking its shape easily.
— It's my picture! You're making a picture of me!
— Do you think so? he asked quietly.
— Why does it look so old? A picture of me that looks so old.
— It's a study. The next picture, the next. painting I'm going to do, this. little.
— You.
— I
She had both arms around his shoulders; and the breath denied by the form before them came the more quickly. He straightened up and stood, straightened her to her feet and turned away from her. — That's all, he said. — We'll stop for today, very much the way he always said it. He took the soiled thing down from the easel. — I have to work on this, he said, approaching the large finished painting which stood on the floor almost between them. — Can you help me lift it up.
She stood staring at him, as though to stop his motions with the seizure of her eyes.
— Esme?
She lifted the other end of the thing, and they raised it. He picked up the knife again.
Kinder- und Hausmärchen lay at her feet, one of half a dozen books in the place. — How beautiful she is, no longer me, Esme said, looking at the prolonged figure in the painting, — for she is dead.
Over the emphatic drawing and the underpainting, translucent colors were fixed in intimate detail upon the established forms, colors added separately, unmixed on the palette, layer upon layer, constructed from within as necessity disposed these faces emptied in this perfect moment of the transient violence of life.
Round the closed eyes of the Virgin, where she looked now, the highlights were not opaque colors on the surface, but from the light underpainting tinted with ultramarine.
— Dead before death was defamed, she said, — as it is by those who die around us now, dying absurdly, for no reason, in embarrassment that the secret, the dirty secret kept so long, is being exposed, and they cannot help it, cannot hide it longer, nor pretend as they have spent their life in doing, that it does not exist. Yes, the blue, the beautiful blue of Her mantle there. How abashed they are to leave us, making up excuses and apologies with every last breath, so ashamed are we to die alone. How shocking it will be to see the day come again, out where they are, where the law does not permit him to sell lilies.
She moved away, to pull on a dress, and a coat, and treading on the length of blue cloth she approached him again from behind, where he stood in the strong light with the knife, and raised it to the face laid with closed eyes near the top of the composition.
— Before death was dishonored, she said, watching his hand move, — as you are dishonoring it now.