William Monk 11 - Slaves of Obsession

if thinking hard, only the brilliance of his eyes and the slight smile giving him away. “Let me see. Not certain which young man that might be. I paint anyone whose face intrigues me, regardless of who they are.” He was watching Monk’s reaction. “Can’t be bothered to paint pretty pictures to make famous men look better than they do.” He said it with pride. “Art, that is the master … not fame or money, or being liked. Posterity won’t give a damn who the subject was, only how they were on canvas, how they spoke to the soul of the man who looked at them decades later—centuries, maybe.”
    Monk agreed with him. It was an acute and honest perception—but it galled him to say so.
    “Of course. That is what divides the artist from the journeyman.”
    “Can you describe the subject?” FitzAlan asked, basking in the praise.
    “Fair-haired, thin-faced, with a spiritual air, almost haunted,” Monk replied, trying to visualize how Gilmer must have looked in the earliest days of his modeling, before his health deteriorated.
    “Ah!” FitzAlan said quickly. “Think I know who you mean. I’ve got a couple upstairs. Been keeping those against the day when they’d be appreciated for what they are.”
    Monk controlled his anger with difficulty. He coughed, raising his hand to his face to conceal the revulsion he felt for a man who could speak so casually about a youth he had known and used, and whom he must have heard was dead.
    “Excuse me,” he apologized, then continued. “I should like very much to see them.”
    FitzAlan was already going to the door, leading the way back into the hall, past a naked marble Adonis and up the stairs to a larger room obviously used for storage. He went without hesitation to two canvases, concealed by other, later ones, and turned them so Monk could see and admire.
    And much as it cut him, he did admire them. They were brilliant. The face that stared out from the colored oils was passionate, sensitive, already shadowed by some vision beyond the pedestrian needs of life. Perhaps even at this time he had known he was consumptive and would not have long to savor the joys or the grief he then knew. Had they been the sweeter for that, the more poignant? FitzAlan had caught all that was precious and swift to pass in the eyes, the lips, the almost translucent pallor of the skin. It was a disturbing painting. It flashed through Monk’s mind to ask Alberton for the price of it as his reward. It hurt him to think he would never see it again after these few moments. It was a reminder of the sweetness of life, never to waste or disregard a moment of its gift.
    “You like it,” FitzAlan said unnecessarily. Monk could not have denied it. Whatever sins lay in the soul of the painter, the picture was superb. He recalled his purpose. “Who is he?” It was not difficult to ask. It seemed the only natural thing to do.
    “Just a vagrant,” FitzAlan replied. “A young man I saw in the street and took in, for a while. Wonderful face, isn’t it?”
    Monk turned away from FitzAlan in order to hide his own emotion. He could not afford to have his loathing show.
    “Yes. What happened to him?”
    “No idea,” FitzAlan said with slight surprise. “Nobody else will paint him like that, I assure you. He was consumptive. That look won’t be there anymore. That’s what is so valuable, the moment! The knowledge of mortality. It’s universal, the perception of life and death. It’s a hundred and fifty guineas. Tell your friend.”
    That was half the price of a good house! FitzAlan certainly did not underestimate his own worth. Even so, Monk found ideas racing through his mind as to how he might acquire the picture. He would never have that sort of money to spend in such a way. He would probably never have it at all. He might be able to bargain down a good deal, but still not into his financial possibilities. Was there some trade? He would profoundly have liked to force FitzAlan into it, twist him until something hurt enough for him to be glad to give up the picture in exchange for relief.
    “I’ll tell him,” he said between his teeth. “Thank you.”
    Monk spent the rest of that day, and the next two as well, tracing Gilmer’s fairly rapid decline from one artist to another, each of lesser skill than the last, until finally he was destitute and on the street. In each case he had seemingly quarreled and left in some anger. No one had wished him well or given him any assistance.