Lust for Life полностью

Vincent sipped his drink and studied Lautrec’s twenty-seven sketches of the girls of a Montmartre sporting house. He realized that the artist had set them down as he saw them. They were objective portraits, without moral attitude or ethical comment. On the faces of the girls he had caught the misery and suffering, the callous carnality, the bestial debauch and spiritual aloofness.

“Do you like portraits of peasants, Lautrec?” he asked.

“Yes, if they’re not sentimentalized.”

“Well, I paint peasants. And it strikes me that these women are peasants too. Gardeners of the flesh, so to speak. Earth and flesh, they’re just two different forms of the same matter, aren’t they? And these women till the flesh, human flesh that must be tilled to make it produce life. This is good work, Lautrec; you’ve said something worth saying.”

“And you don’t think them ugly?”

“They are authentic and penetrating commentaries on life. That is the very highest kind of beauty, don’t you think? If you had idealized or sentimentalized the women, you would have made them ugly because your portraits would have been cowardly and false. But you stated the full truth as you saw it, and that’s what beauty means, isn’t it?”

“Jesus Christ! Why aren’t there more men in the world like you? Have another drink! And help yourself to those sketches! Take as many as you like!”

Vincent held a canvas up to the light, cast about in his mind for a moment, and then exclaimed, “Daumier! That’s who it reminds me of.”

Lautrec’s face lit up.

“Yes, Daumier. The greatest of them all. And the only person I ever learned anything from. God! how magnificently that man could hate!”

“But why paint things if you hate them? I paint only things I love.”

“All great art springs from hatred, Van Gogh. Oh, I see you’re admiring my Gauguin.”

“Whose painting did you say that was?”

“Paul Gauguin. Did you know Him?”

“No.”

“Then you should. That’s a native Martinique woman. Gauguin was out there for a while. He’s completely fou on the subject of going primitive, but he’s a superb painter. He had a wife, three children, and a position on the stock exchange that brought him thirty thousand francs a year. He bought fifteen thousand francs worth of paintings from Pissarro, Manet, and Sisley. He painted his wife’s portrait on their wedding day. She thought it a delightful beau geste. Gauguin used to paint on Sundays; you know, the Stock Exchange Art Club? Once he showed a picture to Manet, who told him it was very good. ‘Oh,’ replied Gauguin, ‘I am only an amateur!’ ‘Oh, no,’ said Manet, ‘There are no amateurs but those who make bad pictures.’ That remark went to Gauguin’s head like neat spirits and he’s never drawn a sober breath since. Gave up his job on the Exchange, lived with his family in Rouen for a year on his savings, then sent his wife and children to her parents’ home in Stockholm. He’s been living off his wits ever since.”

“He sounds interesting.”

“Be careful when you meet him; he loves to torment his friends. Say, Van Gogh, what about letting me show you the Moulin Rouge and the Elysee-Montmartre? I know all the girls there. Do you like women, Van Gogh? I mean to sleep with? I love them. What do you say, shall we make a night of it sometime?”

“By all means.”

“Splendid. I suppose we must go back to Corman’s. Have another drink before you go? That’s it. Now just one more and you’ll empty the bottle. Look out, you’ll knock that table over. Never mind, the charwoman will pick all that stuff up. Guess I’ll have to move out of here pretty soon. I’m rich, Van Gogh. My father is afraid I’ll curse him for bringing me into the world a cripple, so he gives me everything I want. When I move out of a place I never take anything but my work. I rent an empty studio and buy things one by one. When I’m just about to be suffocated, I move again. By the way, what kind of women do you prefer? Blondes? Redheads?

“Don’t bother to lock it. Notice the way the metal roofs flow down to the Boulevard Clichy in a sort of black ocean. Oh, hell! I don’t have to pretend to you. I lean on this stick and point out beautiful scenes because I’m a God damned cripple and can’t walk more than a few steps at a time! Well, we’re all cripples in one way or another. Let’s get along.”

IT LOOKED SO easy. All he had to do was throw away the old palette, buy some light pigments, and paint as an Impressionist. At the end of the first day’s trial, Vincent was surprised and a bit nettled. At the end of the second day he was bewildered. Bewilderment was succeeded in turn by chagrin, anger, and fear. By the end of the week he was in a towering rage. After all his laborious months of experimentation with colour, he was still a novice. His canvases came out dark, dull, and sticky. Lautrec, sitting by Vincent’s side at Corman’s, watched the paint and curses fly, but refrained from offering any advice.