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Marion, the Story of an Artist's Model

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<h2>XLIV</h2> SUNDAY morning was bleak and cold. It had been raining for the last three days, and as I crossed the corner of Eighth Avenue and Fourteenth Street the puddles were so deep that I splashed the mud all over my raincoat. It was cold and chilly when I reached Paul Bonnat’s studio. There were, besides Fisher and Paul Bonnat, two other men, one named Enfield, who was an illustrator, and a Mr. Christain, who worked as a lithographer on week days and painted in his spare time on Sundays. When I got in Fisher seized me by the arm, and with a mock of proud gesture he showed me Bonnat’s renovated room: “Look, Miss Ascough. Can you beat this for a studio de luxe—and all in your honor! Gee! Look at that beautiful pile of rubbish he has swept under the table there, where he thought you wouldn’t see it. He’s trying to impress you with the beauty of his home.{267}” “Shut up!” shouted Bonnat. “I’m the only one of the bunch who patronizes the bath here at any rate.” “Ugh!” shuddered Fisher. “That bath is filthy, and there’s never a drop of hot water, so one would be dirtier after taking a bath there.” “Nonsense!” answered Bonnat. “All you have to do is to take down a pitcher or a bucket. Then rub soap all over your body, and stand up in the tub and pour the pitchers of cold water over and over yourself. It’s fine!” “Whoor-roo!” shivered Enfield. “No cold water for me!” Enfield was a thin-faced, sensitive-looking fellow, with eyes that lighted up unexpectedly, and who seemed to shrink up in his clothes, as if he were always cold. Menna had told me he was very talented, and could make big money at illustrations, but he drank all the time, not in a noisy way, but in a sad, quiet, secret way. He lived in a room somewhere on the East side in the tenement-house district. It was almost empty, except for an old stove, and Enfield would collect all the newspapers he could lay his hands on, and he slept on a pile of these, with another pile on top of him, and in bitter cold weather when he could not afford other fuel he burned his papers. He would roll them into tight logs and they would smoulder just like wood for hours,{268} and give out a good heat even. His room was simply piled with old newspapers, said Menna. This man had come from extremely refined and wealthy people, but he chose to live in this dreadful way, so as to indulge his vice for liquor, and, it was suspected, drugs. At times he would brace up and do a decent piece of work, and then he would turn up, dressed immaculately, and the boys would be treated to the best of everything; but inside of a week he would spend every cent and pawn his clothes. I liked Enfield, though sometimes his cadaverous face frightened me. His hands always looked so thin and cold that I had a kind of maternal desire to take them in mine and warm them. There was something pathetically helpless about all these artists. They seemed all boys to me—even the older ones. I suppose it was that childish helplessness about them that appealed most to me. They all chatted away, and gibed each other and joked as they worked, and they would tell stories, and then all stop work to laugh uproariously. Fisher told one about Enfield. He said that one evening the boys had a little spread in their rooms, beer and sausage and cheese, and for a joke they had put the remains of the sausage and cheese in the pocket of Enfield’s coat. Enfield caught up the story here and finished it thus: <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_315_sml.jpg" width-obs="413" height-obs="500" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /> <div class="caption">They all chatted away and jibed each other and joked as they worked, and would tell stories. </div> </div> {269} “Some time later, I was starving.” He said that as if it were quite the usual thing to starve a bit. “I hadn’t eaten for two days, and all of a sudden I put my hand in that pocket, and found a sausage and some cheese. It surely saved my life.” All of their stories were a curious mixture of tragedy and exquisite humor, and while I laughed one minute my eyes would fill up the next. I suppose, after all, that’s just how life is really compounded—of tragedy and comedy. It’s good to be able to feel both of these elements in our lives. A writer once referred to some of his characters as: “dead people”—dead in the sense of simply being unable to grasp at any significance in life save the dull living from day to day. It seems to me one does not regret passing through scorching fires. It’s the only way one can get the big vision of life. I used to feel bitter, when I contemplated the easy life of other girls, and compared it with my own hard battle. Now I know that, had I to go through it all again, I would not exchange my hard experiences for the luxury that is the lot of others. I can even understand what it is to pity and not envy the rich. They miss so much. Money cannot buy that knowledge of humanity that comes only to him who has lived among the real people in the world—the poor!{270} All of which is what Bonnat would call “beside the question”—digression, that has “nothing to do with the thing, tra la!” “Do you see that piece of drapery, Miss Ascough?” said Mr. Christain. “Well, Bonnat bought that yesterday at a little Jew shop on Third Avenue where they have several prices for everything. He asked: ‘What’s the price,’ and the Jew gave him the top-notch: ‘ninety-eight cent one yard,’ said he. ‘Ninety-eight cents!’ shouted that big chump there, ‘that’s dirt cheap! I’ll take it!’ He could have got it for fifteen, and when the Jew was wrapping it up, I could see by his face that he was sorry he hadn’t charged ninety-nine. Can you beat him for an easy mark?” “Strikes me,” growled Bonnat, “we’re not particularly easy on Miss Ascough. She’s been posing over her time.” “True enough,” said Fisher. “Well, what’s the verdict?” demanded Bonnat, beaming down upon me. “Shall we have her next week, or get a nice little soft blonde in?” I thought he was talking seriously, and I said: “Oh, I hope you’ll have me. I like posing for you all.” “You do?” said Bonnat, and then he added roughly: “It’s damned hard work, isn’t it?” I said:{271} “Not with fellows like you. I forgot I was posing. I like to hear you all talk.” They all laughed at that, and seemed much pleased. So then I was engaged to come again the following Sunday, to “hear them all talk.{272}” <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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