Complete Works of Emile Zola (913 page)

As it happened, Mazel was in a frightfully bad humour that day. At the outset of the sitting the brigadier had come to him, saying: ‘There was a mistake yesterday, Monsieur Mazel. A
hors-concours
* picture was rejected. You know, No. 2520, a nude woman under a tree.’

* A painting by one of those artists who, from the fact that they had obtained medals at previous Salons, had the right to go on exhibiting at long as they lived, the committee being debarred from rejecting their work however bad it might be. — ED.

In fact, on the day before, this painting had been consigned to the grave amid unanimous contempt, nobody having noticed that it was the work of an old classical painter highly respected by the Institute; and the brigadier’s fright, and the amusing circumstance of a picture having thus been condemned by mistake, enlivened the younger members of the committee and made them sneer in a provoking manner.

Mazel, who detested such mishaps, which he rightly felt were disastrous for the authority of the School of Arts, made an angry gesture, and drily said:

‘Well, fish it out again, and put it among the admitted pictures. It isn’t so surprising, there was an intolerable noise yesterday. How can one judge anything like that at a gallop, when one can’t even obtain silence?’

He rang his bell furiously, and added:

‘Come, gentlemen, everything is ready — a little good will, if you please.’

Unluckily, a fresh misfortune occurred as soon as the first paintings were set on the trestle. One canvas among others attracted Mazel’s attention, so bad did he consider it, so sharp in tone as to make one’s very teeth grate. As his sight was failing him, he leant forward to look at the signature, muttering the while: ‘Who’s the pig—’

But he quickly drew himself up, quite shocked at having read the name of one of his friends, an artist who, like himself, was a rampart of healthy principles. Hoping that he had not been overheard, he thereupon called out:

‘Superb! No. 1, eh, gentlemen?’

No. 1 was granted — the formula of admission which entitled the picture to be hung on the line. Only, some of the committee-men laughed and nudged each other, at which Mazel felt very hurt, and became very fierce.

Moreover, they all made such blunders at times. A great many of them eased their feelings at the first glance, and then recalled their words as soon as they had deciphered the signature. This ended by making them cautious, and so with furtive glances they made sure of the artist’s name before expressing any opinion. Besides, whenever a colleague’s work, some fellow committee-man’s suspicious-looking canvas, was brought forward, they took the precaution to warn each other by making signs behind the painter’s back, as if to say, ‘Take care, no mistake, mind; it’s his picture.’

Fagerolles, despite his colleagues’ fidgety nerves, carried the day on a first occasion. It was a question of admitting a frightful portrait painted by one of his pupils, whose family, a very wealthy one, received him on a footing of intimacy. To achieve this he had taken Mazel on one side in order to try to move him with a sentimental story about an unfortunate father with three daughters, who were starving. But the president let himself be entreated for a long while, saying that a man shouldn’t waste his time painting when he was dying for lack of food, and that he ought to have a little more consideration for his three daughters! However, in the result, Mazel raised his hand, alone, with Fagerolles. Some of the others then angrily protested, and even two members of the Institute seemed disgusted, whereupon Fagerolles whispered to them in a low key:

‘It’s for Mazel! He begged me to vote. The painter’s a relative of his, I think; at all events, he greatly wants the picture to be accepted.’

At this the two academicians promptly raised their hands, and a large majority declared itself in favour of the portrait.

But all at once laughter, witticisms, and indignant cries rang out: ‘The Dead Child’ had just been placed on the trestle. Were they to have the Morgue sent to them now? said some. And while the old men drew back in alarm, the younger ones scoffed at the child’s big head, which was plainly that of a monkey who had died from trying to swallow a gourd.

Fagerolles at once understood that the game was lost. At first he tried to spirit the vote away by a joke, in accordance with his skilful tactics:

‘Come, gentlemen, an old combatant—’

But furious exclamations cut him short. Oh, no! not that one. They knew him, that old combatant! A madman who had been persevering in his obstinacy for fifteen years past — a proud, stuck-up fellow who posed for being a genius, and who had talked about demolishing the Salon, without even sending a picture that it was possible to accept. All their hatred of independent originality, of the competition of the ‘shop over the way,’ which frightened them, of that invincible power which triumphs even when it is seemingly defeated, resounded in their voices. No, no; away with it!

Then Fagerolles himself made the mistake of getting irritated, yielding to the anger he felt at finding what little real influence he possessed.

‘You are unjust; at least, be impartial,’ he said.

Thereupon the tumult reached a climax. He was surrounded and jostled, arms waved about him in threatening fashion, and angry words were shot out at him like bullets.

‘You dishonour the committee, monsieur!’

‘If you defend that thing, it’s simply to get your name in the newspapers!’

‘You aren’t competent to speak on the subject!’

Then Fagerolles, beside himself, losing even the pliancy of his bantering disposition, retorted:

‘I’m as competent as you are.’

‘Shut up!’ resumed a comrade, a very irascible little painter with a fair complexion. ‘You surely don’t want to make us swallow such a turnip as that?’

Yes, yes, a turnip! They all repeated the word in tones of conviction — that word which they usually cast at the very worst smudges, at the pale, cold, glairy painting of daubers.

‘All right,’ at last said Fagerolles, clenching his teeth. ‘I demand the vote.’

Since the discussion had become envenomed, Mazel had been ringing his bell, extremely flushed at finding his authority ignored.

‘Gentlemen — come, gentlemen; it’s extraordinary that one can’t settle matters without shouting — I beg of you, gentlemen—’

At last he obtained a little silence. In reality, he was not a bad-hearted man. Why should not they admit that little picture, although he himself thought it execrable? They admitted so many others!

‘Come, gentlemen, the vote is asked for.’

He himself was, perhaps, about to raise his hand, when Bongrand, who had hitherto remained silent, with the blood rising to his cheeks in the anger he was trying to restrain, abruptly went off like a pop-gun, most unseasonably giving vent to the protestations of his rebellious conscience.

‘But, curse it all! there are not four among us capable of turning out such a piece of work!’

Some grunts sped around; but the sledge-hammer blow had come upon them with such force that nobody answered.

‘Gentlemen, the vote is asked for,’ curtly repeated Mazel, who had turned pale.

His tone sufficed to explain everything: it expressed all his latent hatred of Bongrand, the fierce rivalry that lay hidden under their seemingly good-natured handshakes.

Things rarely came to such a pass as this. They almost always arranged matters. But in the depths of their ravaged pride there were wounds which always bled; they secretly waged duels which tortured them with agony, despite the smile upon their lips.

Bongrand and Fagerolles alone raised their hands, and ‘The Dead Child,’ being rejected, could only perhaps be rescued at the general revision.

This general revision was the terrible part of the task. Although, after twenty days’ continuous toil, the committee allowed itself forty-eight hours’ rest, so as to enable the keepers to prepare the final work, it could not help shuddering on the afternoon when it came upon the assemblage of three thousand rejected paintings, from among which it had to rescue as many canvases as were necessary for the then regulation total of two thousand five hundred admitted works to be complete. Ah! those three thousand pictures, placed one after the other alongside the walls of all the galleries, including the outer one, deposited also even on the floors, and lying there like stagnant pools, between which the attendants devised little paths — they were like an inundation, a deluge, which rose up, streamed over the whole Palais de l’Industrie, and submerged it beneath the murky flow of all the mediocrity and madness to be found in the river of Art. And but a single afternoon sitting was held, from one till seven o’clock — six hours of wild galloping through a maze! At first they held out against fatigue and strove to keep their vision clear; but the forced march soon made their legs give way, their eyesight was irritated by all the dancing colours, and yet it was still necessary to march on, to look and judge, even until they broke down with fatigue. By four o’clock the march was like a rout — the scattering of a defeated army. Some committee-men, out of breath, dragged themselves along very far in the rear; others, isolated, lost amid the frames, followed the narrow paths, renouncing all prospect of emerging from them, turning round and round without any hope of ever getting to the end! How could they be just and impartial, good heavens? What could they select from amid that heap of horrors? Without clearly distinguishing a landscape from a portrait, they made up the number they required in pot-luck fashion. Two hundred, two hundred and forty — another eight, they still wanted eight more. That one? No, that other. As you like! Seven, eight, it was over! At last they had got to the end, and they hobbled away, saved — free!

In one gallery a fresh scene drew them once more round ‘The Dead Child,’ lying on the floor among other waifs. But this time they jested. A joker pretended to stumble and set his foot in the middle of the canvas, while others trotted along the surrounding little paths, as if trying to find out which was the picture’s top and which its bottom, and declaring that it looked much better topsy-turvy.

Fagerolles himself also began to joke.

‘Come, a little courage, gentlemen; go the round, examine it, you’ll be repaid for your trouble. Really now, gentlemen, be kind, rescue it; pray do that good action!’

They all grew merry in listening to him, but with cruel laughter they refused more harshly than ever. ‘No, no, never!’

‘Will you take it for your “charity”?’ cried a comrade.

This was a custom; the committee-men had a right to a ‘charity’; each of them could select a canvas among the lot, no matter how execrable it might be, and it was thereupon admitted without examination. As a rule, the bounty of this admission was bestowed upon poor artists. The forty paintings thus rescued at the eleventh hour, were those of the beggars at the door — those whom one allowed to glide with empty stomachs to the far end of the table.

‘For my “charity,”’ repeated Fagerolles, feeling very much embarrassed; ‘the fact is, I meant to take another painting for my “charity.” Yes, some flowers by a lady—’

He was interrupted by loud jeers. Was she pretty? In front of the women’s paintings the gentlemen were particularly prone to sneer, never displaying the least gallantry. And Fagerolles remained perplexed, for the ‘lady’ in question was a person whom Irma took an interest in. He trembled at the idea of the terrible scene which would ensue should he fail to keep his promise. An expedient occurred to him.

‘Well, and you, Bongrand? You might very well take this funny little dead child for your charity.’

Bongrand, wounded to the heart, indignant at all the bartering, waved his long arms:

‘What!
I
?
I
insult a real painter in that fashion? Let him be prouder, dash it, and never send anything to the Salon!’

Then, as the others still went on sneering, Fagerolles, desirous that victory should remain to him, made up his mind, with a proud air, like a man who is conscious of his strength and does not fear being compromised.

‘All right, I’ll take it for my “charity,”’ he said.

The others shouted bravo, and gave him a bantering ovation, with a series of profound bows and numerous handshakes. All honour to the brave fellow who had the courage of his opinions! And an attendant carried away in his arms the poor derided, jolted, soiled canvas; and thus it was that a picture by the painter of ‘In the Open Air’ was at last accepted by the hanging committee of the Salon.

On the very next morning a note from Fagerolles apprised Claude, in a couple of lines, that he had succeeded in getting ‘The Dead Child’ admitted, but that it had not been managed without trouble. Claude, despite the gladness of the tidings, felt a pang at his heart; the note was so brief, and was written in such a protecting, pitying style, that all the humiliating features of the business were apparent to him. For a moment he felt sorry over this victory, so much so that he would have liked to take his work back and hide it. Then his delicacy of feeling, his artistic pride again gave way, so much did protracted waiting for success make his wretched heart bleed. Ah! to be seen, to make his way despite everything! He had reached the point when conscience capitulates; he once more began to long for the opening of the Salon with all the feverish impatience of a beginner, again living in a state of illusion which showed him a crowd, a press of moving heads acclaiming his canvas.

By degrees Paris had made it the fashion to patronise ‘varnishing day’ — that day formerly set aside for painters only to come and finish the toilets of their pictures. Now, however, it was like a feast of early fruit, one of those solemnities which set the city agog and attract a tremendous crowd. For a week past the newspaper press, the streets, and the public had belonged to the artists. They held Paris in their grasp; the only matters talked of were themselves, their exhibits, their sayings or doings — in fact, everything connected with them. It was one of those infatuations which at last draw bands of country folk, common soldiers, and even nursemaids to the galleries on days of gratuitous admission, in such wise that fifty thousand visitors are recorded on some fine Sundays, an entire army, all the rear battalions of the ignorant lower orders, following society, and marching, with dilated eyes, through that vast picture shop.