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The Pot-Boiler: Part IV · The Hermit and the Wild Woman, and other Stories

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  Section twenty seven of The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories by Edith
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  Wharton. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain The pot Boiler, Part
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  four. Within three months, two events had set the studio building talking.
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  Stanwell had painted a full length portrait of missus Archer Millington, and Caspar Ran
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  had received an order to execute his group in marble. The name of the
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  sculptor's patron had not been divulged. The order came through Shepson, who explained
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  that an American customer living abroad, having seen a photograph of the group in
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  one of the papers, had at once cabled home to secure it. He
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  intended to bestow it on a public building in America, and, not wishing
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  to advertise his munificence, had preferred that even the sculptor should remain ignorant of
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  his name. The group bought by an enlighten and compatriot for the adornment of
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  a civic building in his native land. There could hardly be a more complete
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  vindication of unappreciated genius, and Caspar made the most of the argument. He
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  was not exultant, he was sublimely magnanimous. He had always said that he
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  could afford to await the verdict of posterity, and his unknown patron's act clearly
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  shadowed forth that impressive decision. Happily, it also found expression in a check
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  which it would have taken more philosophy to await. The group was paid for
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  in advance, and Kate's joy in her brother's recognition was deliciously mingled with the
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  thrill of ordering him some new clothes and coaxing him out to dine succulently at
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  a neighboring restaurant. Caspar flourished insufferably on this regime. He began to strike
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  the attitude of the recognized great master who gives advice and encouragement to the struggle
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  neophyte. He held himself up as an example of the reward of disinterestedness,
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  of the triumph of the artist who clings obstinately to his convictions. A man
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  must believe in his star. Look at Napoleon. It's the dogged trust in
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  one's convictions that tells it always ends by forcing the public into line. Only
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  be sure you make no concessions, don't give in to any of their humbug.
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  An artist who listens to the critics is ruined they never have any use
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  for the poor devils who do what they tell them to. Run after fame
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  and shall keep you running. But stay in your own corner and do your
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  own work, and by George, sir, she'll come crawling up to you
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  and ask to have her likeness done. These exhortations were chiefly directed to Stanwell,
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  partly because the inmates of the other studios were apt to elude them,
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  partly also because the rumors concerning Stanwell's portrait of Missus Millington had begun to disquiet
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  the sculptor. At first, he had taken a condescendant interest in the fact
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  of his friends receiving in order, and had admonished him not to lose the
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  chance of showing up his sitter and her environment. It was a splendid opportunity
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  for a fellow with a message to be introduced into the tents of the Philistine,
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  and Stanwell was charged to drive a long, sharp nail into the enemy's
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  skull. But presently Aran began to suspect that the portrait was not as comminatory
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  as he could have wished. Mungold, the most kindly of rivals, let
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  drop a word of injudicious praise. The picture, he said, promised to
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  be delightfully in keeping with the decorations of the ball room, and the lady's
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  gown harmonized exquisitely with the window curtains. Stanwell, called to account by his
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  monitor, reminded the latter that he himself had been selected by Mungold to do
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  the cupids for Missus Millington's ball room, and that the friendly artists raise could
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  therefore not be taken as positive evidence of incapacity. Ah, but I didn't
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  do them. I kicked him out. Gaspar rejoined, and Stanwell could only
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  plead that even in the cause of art, one could hardly kick a lady.
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  Ah, that's the worst of it. If the women get at you,
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  you're lost, you're young, you're impressionable. You won't mind my saying
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  that you're not built for a stoic and hang it. They'll coddle you,
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  they'll enervate you, they'll sentimentalize you, they'll make a Mungold of you.
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  Ah, poor Mungold, Stanwell laughed. If he lived the life of an
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  anchorite, he couldn't help painting pictures that would please Missus Millington, where as
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  you could Kate interjected, raising her head from the ironing board where Sphinx like
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  magnificent, she's swung a splendid arm above her brother's shirts. Oh well,
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  perhaps I shan't please her. Perhaps I shall elevate her taste. Caspar directed
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  a groan to his sister. That's what they all think at first, child
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  Roland to the dark tower came. But inside the dark tower there's the venusberg.
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  Oh. I don't mean that you'll be taken with truffles and plush footmen
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  like Mungold. But praise, my poor ned, Praise is a deadly drug.
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  It's the absence of the artist, and they'll stupefy you with it.
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  You'll wallow in the mire of success. Stanwell raised a protesting hand. Really
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  for one order, you're a little lurid one, haven't you already had a
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  dozen others? Only one other so far? And I'm not sure I shall
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  do that, not sure? Wavering already, that's the way the mischief begins.
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  If the women get a fad for you, they'll work you like a
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  galley slave. You'll have to do your round of copy every morning. What
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  becomes of inspiration? Then? How are you going to loaf? And invite
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  the soul. Don't barter your birthright for a mess of pottage. Oh,
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  I understand the temptation. I know the taste of money and success. But
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  look at me, Stanwell. You know how long I had to wait for
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  recognition. Well, now it's come to me. I don't mean to let
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  it knock me off my feet. I don't mean to let myself be overworked.
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  I have already made it known that I will not be bullied into taking
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  more orders than I can do full justice to. And my sister is with
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  me, God bless her. Kate would rather go on ironing my shirts in
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  a garret than see me prostitute my art. Kate's glance radiantly confirmed this declaration
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  of independence, and Stanwell, with his evasive laugh, asked her if,
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  meanwhile, she should object to his investing a part of his ill gotten gains
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  in theater tickets for the party that evening. It appeared that Stanwell had also
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  been paid in advance and well paid for. He began to permit himself various
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  mild distractions in which he generally contrived to have the rand's share. It seemed
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  perfectly natural to Kate that Caspar's friends should spend their money for his recreation,
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  and by one of the most touching sophistries of her sex, she thus reconciled
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  herself to the anomaly of taking a little pleasure on her own account. Mungold
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  was less often in the way, for she had never been able to forgive
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  him for proposing that Caspar should do Missus Millington's cupids, and for a few
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  radiant weeks Stanwell had the undisputed enjoyment of her pride in her brother's achievement.
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  Stanwell had rushed through Missus Millington's portrait in time for the opening of her new
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  ball room, and it was perhaps in return for this favor that she consented
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  to let the picture be exhibited at a big portrait show, which was held
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  in April for the benefit of a fashionable charity. In Missus Millington's ball room.
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  The picture had been seen and approved only by the distinguished few who had
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  access to that social set sanctuary, but on the walls of the exhibition it
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  became a center of comment and discussion. One of the immediate results of this
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  publicity was a visit from Shepsen with two or three orders in his pocket.
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  As he put it. He surveyed the studio with fresh disgust, asked Stanwell
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  why he did not move, and was impressed rather than downcast, on learning
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  that the painter had not decided whether he would take any more orders that spring.
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  You might have a studio at Newport, he suggested, it would be
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  rather new to do your sitters out of doors, with the sea behind them,
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  showing they had a place on the glyphs. The picture produced a different
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  and less flattering effect on the critics. They gave it, indeed more space
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  than they had ever before accorded to the artist's efforts. But their estimates seemed
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  to confirm Caspar Arran's forebodings, and Stanwell had perhaps never despised them so little
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  as when he read their comments on his work. On the whole, however,
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  neither praise nor blame disquieted him greatly. He was engrossed in the contemplation
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  of Kate Arran's happiness and basking in the refracted warmth it shed about her.
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  The doctor's prognostications had come true. Caspar was putting on a pound a week
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  and had plunged into a fresh creation, more symbolic and encumbering than the monument
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  of which he had been so opportunely relieved. If there was any cloud on
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  Stanwell's enjoyment of life, it was caused by the discovery that success had quadrupled
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  Caspar's artistic energies. Meanwhile, it was delightful to see Kate's joy in her
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  brother's recovered capacity for work, and to listen to the axioms which, for
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  Stanwell's guidance she deduced from the example of Caspar's heroic pursuit of the ideal.
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  There was nothing repellent in Kate's borrowed dedacticism, and if it sometimes bored Stanwell
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  to hear her quote her brother, he was sure it would never bore him
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  to be quoted by her himself, and there were moments when he felt he
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  had nearly achieved that distinction. Caspar was not addicted to the visiting of art
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  exhibitions. He took little interest in any productions save his own, and was
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  moreover disposed to believe that good pictures, like clever criminals, are apt to
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  go unhung. Stanwell therefore thought it unlikely that his portrait of Missus Millington would
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  be seen by Kate, who was not given to independent explorations in the field
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  of art. But one day, on entering the exhibition, which he had
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  hitherto rather nervously shunned, he saw the Errands at the end of the gallery
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  in which the portrait hung. They were not looking at it, they were
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  moving away from it, and to Stanwell's quickened perceptions, their attitude seemed almost
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  that of flight. For a moment he thought of flying too. Then a
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  desperate resolve nerved him to meet them, and stemming the crowd, he made
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  a circuit which brought him face to face with their retreat. The room in
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  which they met was momentarily empty, and there was nothing to intervene. Between
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  the shock and their interchanged glances. Caspar was flushed and bristling. His little
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  body quivered like a machine from which the steam has just been turned off.
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  Kate lifted a stricken glance. Stanwell read in it the reflection of her brother's
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  tirade. But she held out her hand in silence. For a moment.
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  Caspar was silent too, then with a terrible smile, My dear fellow,
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  I congratulate you. Mungold will have to look to his laurels, he said.
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  The shot delivered he stalked away with his seven league stride, and Kate
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  moved tragically through the room in his wake. End of Section twenty seven.