"Now, place yourself here!" she cried, when the figure was entirely exposed. "To be sure she is divine seen from any side, but viewed in half-profile--taking in just a little of the back and the outline standing out so clearly against the bright sky--is it not ravishing? Does not one feel as if it were just going to spring from its pedestal and rush through the room, dragging one with it in its mad whirl? I can never look at this work without my old love for dancing coming back to me in my old age, and vibrating through every limb! It is a pity that I am such an ungraceful person, otherwise you would have to tuck up your dress and dance a reel with me."
And she did indeed make a few very lively movements, which were grotesque enough.
"I entreat you, Angelica, be sensible! You are, to be sure, thoroughly at home here. But it takes away my breath! Everything is so strange to me--"
"Isn't it so--one doesn't see anything of this sort every day? How every part lives and breathes! One might actually believe that the blooming young flesh must yield when one touches it; and, with all that, so pure and magnificent and full of style, that one never thinks of the model when looking at it."
"Is it modeled after life?"
"Do you think that this kind of thing is imagined out of thin air?"
"And girls can actually be found who allow themselves to be made use of for--"
"More than enough, you darling innocent. To be sure--of a sort that one of us would not touch with gloves. But Rosenbusch says that, for all that, they are better than their reputation. He has found very respectable creatures among them--one, indeed, who had a regular husband and a number of children, and who went to the studios as soberly as others go to the seamstress or the milliner. Yes, yes, my dearest, we good children of good families have no conception of all this. Look," she continued, turning to Felix's modeling-board, "there is where the young baron works. He has copied the foot of the anatomical model, and now, as a reward, he is permitted to recruit himself over the foot of an Æginite. Not bad!--by no means without talent! An uncommonly handsome and agreeable man, too, whom I like very much. But--remember what I tell you--he will always remain a cavalier, and will never in all his life become a true artist!"
She accented the word "cavalier," in the contemptuous manner in which a sailor talks about a landsman. Then she stepped up to the large central group of the Adam and Eve, and began cautiously to undo the covering.
"How is this?" said she. "Why he has actually fastened the group with clothes-pins since I last saw it, a fortnight ago. Well, I think I may be allowed to unfasten it somewhat, and, after all, he will never notice it. What eyes you will make at it, Giulietta! È una magia, as the Italians say. It is much grander, more imposing and unprecedented than the 'Dancing Girl' over there. There! Now, just let me unwind this towel very carefully indeed--the head of the Eve has only just been modeled--"
The damp linen cloth, that enveloped the figure of the kneeling woman, now slipped off; at the same instant Angelica, who stood behind the group and was carefully removing the last folds from the clay figure, heard a half-suppressed cry from the lips of her friend.
"Now, don't you see that I was right?" she cried. "It is beautiful enough to shriek over. No respectable person can see such a thing without uttering a few inarticulate sounds. But, for Heaven's sake!" she cried, interrupting herself and rushing to Julie, whom she saw turn suddenly pale and step backward, "what is the matter with you, my own love? You are so very--speak--what has so--gracious Heaven! That! I never would have believed it myself! Such a surprise--such an unheard-of piece of treachery and meanness! And, with all that, so extraordinarily well carried out! Oh, this Jansen! So that accounts for the pins--that accounts for his not wishing to show the group to any one for the last fortnight!"
Julie had retreated to the window and stood there, undecided what to do, her head sunk upon her heaving breast. But the painter, in whom enthusiasm had banished all alarm about her agitated friend, stood with folded hands, as if absorbed in worship, before the work that was so well known to her, and upon which, nevertheless, she gazed in utter surprise. For since she saw it last the head of Eve, that was then in the first rough stage of development, had assumed a firm, carefully-executed form, and the face, sweetly bowed forward, with which she gazed at the man just awakening from sleep, resembled, feature for feature, the beautiful girl who now, sinking down into her chair in an indescribable state of confusion, shame, and anger, looked up at her own image.
And then it would have been most edifying for a third person to have overheard how the painter, as soon as she had overcome the first shock, now strove to enter into the spirit of her friend and storm over the robbery of her beauty; now strove to make it clear to her that there was nothing wrong or improper in the whole matter. Then, when she had run on for a while in the most enraptured terms about this magnificent work, the majesty and the charm of these forms, she suddenly became woman enough again to find the undeniable resemblance of the features of this beautiful Eve, in her paradisaical innocence, a very serious thing after all. To be sure, she strove to defend the artist; no one could help his inspirations, and the more than life-size scale removed the work from all realistic consideration. But her burning cheeks told her better than anything else that she was not made to be a good devil's-advocate; and when she had played her trump card, always keeping her back turned to the silent girl, and had declared that no one ought to think herself too good to be so immortalized--that this was entirely different from the case of the sister of Napoleon, whom Canova had portrayed in marble, or that of the so-called "Venus" of Titian, whose lover was playing the lute by her side--she suddenly turned to Julie, threw her arms round her neck and besought her with humble appeals and caresses not to be angry with her, that she was as innocent of this evil deed as Rosebud's white mice; and that if she had a suspicion that this wicked Jansen would have dared to do such a thing, she would certainly never have invited him to her studio at the last sitting. And, as a proof of this, she would at once hunt him up and firmly insist--though what a pity it would be for the wonderful work's sake--that every trace of resemblance, even the most remote, in this airily-clad Eve to her deeply offended descendant should be removed.
"Do so--I shall rely upon it!" said Julie, suddenly, with great earnestness, as she rose in all her dignity and womanly majesty. "That I must never be thrown in contact with him again, that I can never enter this house again, you will easily understand!" And as she said this, turning toward the door, she cast a last angry look at her counterfeit.
She understood it perfectly, replied the painter, meekly. She would not have it otherwise; Jansen had acted altogether too inconsiderately, and toward her, too, who as an old fellow-inmate of the same house was, to a certain extent, responsible for the good behavior of the rest. But of one thing Julie might be sure: Jansen had not been guilty of any bad intention, or of one of those pieces of presumption that artists often indulge in, but merely of thoughtlessness and indiscretion, and he would undoubtedly take it very much to heart; and if she should really remain firm in the intention of never seeing him again, a punishment which, it is true, he had richly deserved--
While these speeches were being poured out, to all of which Julie listened with an expression of face that it was not easy to understand, the two friends--for Julie helped, too, with trembling hands--had carefully wrapped up the group again, and had added to the pins from their own stock. When they went out into the yard after having done this, they earnestly cautioned the janitor not to open the studio again for any one, until Herr Jansen himself had gone in again. Then they left the house, not, as on the day before, walking familiarly arm-in-arm, but silent and dejected, and taking leave of one another at the very first street-corner.
Angelica determined to make an attempt to see if she could not meet the offender in the Pinakothek, in spite of the festival of the preceding day. Julie, who had lowered her veil as if, after this experience, she no longer dared to look any one in the face, hastened by the shortest way toward home, where she could, in complete solitude, collect herself and compose her excited mind.
CHAPTER VI.
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