The Hidden Masterpiece

by Honore de Balzac
Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley

CHAPTER I
On a cold morning in December, towards the close of the year 1612, a

young man, whose clothing betrayed his poverty, was standing before
the door of a house in the Rue des Grands-Augustine, in Paris. After

walking to and fro for some time with the hesitation of a lover who
fears to approach his mistress, however complying she may be, he ended

by crossing the threshold and asking if Maitre Francois Porbus were
within. At the affirmative answer of an old woman who was sweeping out

one of the lower rooms the young man slowly mounted the stairway,
stopping from time to time and hesitating, like a newly fledged

courier doubtful as to what sort of reception the king might grant
him.

When he reached the upper landing of the spiralascent, he paused a
moment before laying hold of a grotesque knocker which ornamented the

door of the atelier where the famous painter of Henry IV.--neglected
by Marie de Medicis for Rubens--was probably at work. The young man

felt the strong sensation which vibrates in the soul of great artists
when, in the flush of youth and of their ardor for art, they approach

a man of genius or a masterpiece. In all human sentiments there are,
as it were, primeval flowers bred of noble enthusiasms, which droop

and fade from year to year, till joy is but a memory and glory a lie.
Amid such fleeting emotions nothing so resembles love as the young

passion of an artist who tastes the first deliciousanguish of his
destined fame and woe,--a passiondaring yet timid, full of vague

confidence and sure discouragement. Is there a man, slender in
fortune, rich in his spring-time of genius, whose heart has not beaten

loudly as he approached a master of his art? If there be, that man
will forever lack some heart-string, some touch, I know not what, of

his brush, some fibre in his creations, some sentiment in his poetry.
When braggarts, self-satisfied and in love with themselves, step early

into the fame which belongs rightly to their future achievements, they
are men of genius only in the eyes of fools. If talent is to be

measured by youthful shyness, by that indefinable modesty which men
born to glory lose in the practice of their art, as a pretty woman

loses hers among the artifices of coquetry, then this unknown young
man might claim to be possessed of genuine merit. The habit of success

lessens doubt; and modesty, perhaps, is doubt.
Worn down with poverty and discouragement, and dismayed at this moment

by his own presumption, the young neophyte might not have dared to
enter the presence of the master to whom we owe our admirable portrait

of Henry IV., if chance had not thrown an unexpectedassistance in his
way. An old man mounted the spiralstairway. The oddity of his dress,

the magnificence of his lace ruffles, the solid assurance of his
deliberate step, led the youth to assume that this remarkable

personage must be the patron, or at least the intimate friend, of the
painter. He drew back into a corner of the landing and made room for

the new-comer; looking at him attentively and hoping to find either
the frank good-nature of the artistictemperament, or the serviceable

disposition of those who promote the arts. But on the contrary he
fancied he saw something diabolical in the expression of the old man's

face,--something, I know not what, which has the quality of alluring
the artistic mind.

Imagine a bald head, the brow full and prominent and falling with deep
projection over a little flattened nose turned up at the end like the

noses of Rabelais and Socrates; a laughing, wrinkled mouth; a short
chin boldlychiselled and garnished with a gray beard cut into a

point; sea-green eyes, faded perhaps by age, but whose pupils,
contrasting with the pearl-white balls on which they floated, cast at

times magnetic glances of anger or enthusiasm. The face in other
respects was singularly withered and worn by the weariness of old age,

and still more, it would seem, by the action of thoughts which had
undermined both soul and body. The eyes had lost their lashes, and the

eyebrows were scarcely traced along the projecting arches where they
belonged. Imagine such a head upon a lean and feeble body, surround it

with lace of dazzling whiteness worked in meshes like a fish-slice,
festoon the black velvetdoublet of the old man with a heavy gold

chain, and you will have a faint idea of the exterior of this strange
individual, to whose appearance the dusky light of the landing lent

fantastic coloring. You might have thought that a canvas of Rembrandt
without its frame had walked silently up the stairway, bringing with

it the dark atmosphere which was the sign-manual of the great master.
The old man cast a look upon the youth which was full of sagacity;

then he rapped three times upon the door, and said, when it was opened
by a man in feeble health, apparently about forty years of age, "Good-

morning, maitre."
Porbus bowed respectfully, and made way for his guest, allowing the

youth to pass in at the same time, under the impression that he came
with the old man, and taking no further notice of him; all the less

perhaps because the neophyte stood still beneath the spell which holds
a heaven-born painter as he sees for the first time an atelier filled

with the materials and instruments of his art. Daylight came from a
casement in the roof and fell, focussed as it were, upon a canvas

which rested on an easel in the middle of the room, and which bore, as
yet, only three or four chalk lines. The light thus concentrated did

not reach the dark angles of the vast atelier; but a few wandering
reflections gleamed through the russet shadows on the silvered

breastplate of a horseman's cuirass of the fourteenth century as it
hung from the wall, or sent sharp lines of light upon the carved and

polished cornice of a dresser which held specimens of rare pottery and
porcelains, or touched with sparkling points the rough-grained texture

of ancient gold-brocaded curtains, flung in broad folds about the room
to serve the painter as models for his drapery. Anatomical casts in

plaster, fragments and torsos of antique goddesses amorously polished
by the kisses of centuries, jostled each other upon shelves and

brackets. Innumerable sketches, studies in the three crayons, in ink,
and in red chalk covered the walls from floor to ceiling; color-boxes,

bottles of oil and turpentine, easels and stools upset or standing at
right angles, left but a narrow pathway to the circle of light thrown

from the window in the roof, which fell full on the pale face of
Porbus and on the ivory skull of his singular visitor.

The attention of the young man was taken exclusively by a picture
destined to become famous after those days of tumult and revolution,

and which even then was precious in the sight of certain opinionated
individuals to whom we owe the preservation of the divine afflatus

through the dark days when the life of art was in jeopardy. This noble
picture represents the Mary of Egypt as she prepares to pay for her

passage by the ship. It is a masterpiece, painted for Marie de
Medicis, and afterwards sold by her in the days of her distress.

"I like your saint," said the old man to Porbus, "and I will give you
ten golden crowns over and above the queen's offer; but as to entering

into competition with her--the devil!"
"You do like her, then?"

"As for that," said the old man, "yes, and no. The good woman is well
set-up, but--she is not living. You young men think you have done all

when you have drawn the form correctly, and put everything in place
according to the laws of anatomy. You color the features with flesh-

tones, mixed beforehand on your palette,--taking very good care to
shade one side of the face darker than the other; and because you draw

now and then from a nude woman standing on a table, you think you can
copy nature; you fancy yourselves painters, and imagine that you have

got at the secret of God's creations! Pr-r-r-r!--To be a great poet it
is not enough to know the rules of syntax and write faultless grammar.

Look at your saint, Porbus. At first sight she is admirable; but at
the very next glance we perceive that she is glued to the canvas, and

that we cannot walk round her. She is a silhouette with only one side,
a semblance cut in outline, an image that can't turn nor change her

position. I feel no air between this arm and the background of the
picture; space and depth are wanting. All is in good perspective; the

atmospheric gradations are carefully observed, and yet in spite of
your conscientious labor I cannot believe that this beautiful body has

the warm breath of life. If I put my hand on that firm, round throat I
shall find it cold as marble. No, no, my friend, blood does not run

beneath that ivory skin; the purple tide of life does not swell those
veins, nor stir those fibres which interlace like net-work below the

translucent amber of the brow and breast. This part palpitates with
life, but that other part is not living; life and death jostle each

other in every detail. Here, you have a woman; there, a statue; here
again, a dead body. Your creation is incomplete. You have breathed

only a part of your soul into the well-beloved work. The torch of
Prometheus went out in your hands over and over again; there are

several parts of your painting on which the celestial flame never
shone."

"But why is it so, my dear master?" said Porbus humbly, while the