not to bring the carriage and not to go out, but to wait for me in his studio, because I’ll be there even if it kills me . . . Oh, and tell him to send his model away, if he has one tomorrow, and to receive no one else . . . he must be alone. If that man does kill me, then at least he’ll have good reason to.”
13
AND FROM that day on, they no longer went for walks.
They did, however, stroll about in the brief field of his studio, from the pole of the ideal to that of reality; they traveled the whole globe, from the human to the divine, never quite able to determine the dividing line between the two, because the human seemed to them the very stuff of heaven, and the divine, in their eyes, clothed itself in mortal flesh. When their joyful intoxication allowed Tristana to take in the world in which she spent those sweet hours, a new aspiration revealed itself to her spirit: art, which up until then had been merely a dream to her, but which now she could see and understand at first hand. Her imagination lit up and her eyes were enchanted by the human and inanimate forms that her lover translated from Nature and with which he filled his studio; and although she had seen paintings before, she had never observed how they were made from such close quarters. She would stick her finger into the fresh paint, thinking that she would thus gain a better appreciation of the secrets of the painted picture and catch it in the midst of its mysterious gestation. After watching Horacio work, she was even more captivated by that delicious art, which seemed so simply done, and she herself felt a desire to try her own skills. He placed a palette in her left hand, a brush in her right, and encouraged her to copy something. At first, alas, amid much laughter and frustration, she could only cover the canvas with shapeless blotches; on the second day, amazingly enough, she managed to mix a few colors and apply them to the right spot and even blend them together rather well. How funny! What if she turned out to be a painter too! She clearly had talent, for her hand became less clumsy by the hour, and if her hand couldn’t help her, then her mind would march arrogantly ahead of her, knowing how it was done , even though she couldn’t actually do it. Disheartened by the difficulties encountered, she would grow impatient, and Horacio would laugh, saying, “It’s not a game, you know!”
She complained bitterly because she had never had at her side people who might have been able to recognize her aptitude and encourage her to apply it to the study of one art form or another.
“It seems to me now that if I had been taught drawing when I was a child, I would be able to paint now and live independently, earning my own living from my honest labors. But it never occurred to my poor mama to give me anything more than the kind of insubstantial education intended to help girls bring a good son-in-law home, namely, being able to play the piano a little, having a smattering of French, and a few other such accomplishments. If they had at least taught me a few languages, so that, when I was left alone and poor, I could have become a language teacher! And that wretched man has educated me for nothing but idleness and his own pleasure, Turkish-fashion. And I am utterly useless. As you see, I love painting; I feel a real vocation for it, a facility. Or am I being immodest? No, don’t tell me. Praise me, encourage me. Well, if difficulties are to be overcome with willpower, patience, and application, then I will overcome them, and I will be a painter, and we will study together and my paintings—you’ll be green with envy!—will make yours look puny. No, that’s not true, you are the very king of painters! Don’t get annoyed with me; you are, because I say so. I have an instinct for these things. I may not know how to make the paintings myself, but I have excellent judgment.”
These painterly ambitions, these arrogant outbursts, delighted kindly
13
AND FROM that day on, they no longer went for walks.
They did, however, stroll about in the brief field of his studio, from the pole of the ideal to that of reality; they traveled the whole globe, from the human to the divine, never quite able to determine the dividing line between the two, because the human seemed to them the very stuff of heaven, and the divine, in their eyes, clothed itself in mortal flesh. When their joyful intoxication allowed Tristana to take in the world in which she spent those sweet hours, a new aspiration revealed itself to her spirit: art, which up until then had been merely a dream to her, but which now she could see and understand at first hand. Her imagination lit up and her eyes were enchanted by the human and inanimate forms that her lover translated from Nature and with which he filled his studio; and although she had seen paintings before, she had never observed how they were made from such close quarters. She would stick her finger into the fresh paint, thinking that she would thus gain a better appreciation of the secrets of the painted picture and catch it in the midst of its mysterious gestation. After watching Horacio work, she was even more captivated by that delicious art, which seemed so simply done, and she herself felt a desire to try her own skills. He placed a palette in her left hand, a brush in her right, and encouraged her to copy something. At first, alas, amid much laughter and frustration, she could only cover the canvas with shapeless blotches; on the second day, amazingly enough, she managed to mix a few colors and apply them to the right spot and even blend them together rather well. How funny! What if she turned out to be a painter too! She clearly had talent, for her hand became less clumsy by the hour, and if her hand couldn’t help her, then her mind would march arrogantly ahead of her, knowing how it was done , even though she couldn’t actually do it. Disheartened by the difficulties encountered, she would grow impatient, and Horacio would laugh, saying, “It’s not a game, you know!”
She complained bitterly because she had never had at her side people who might have been able to recognize her aptitude and encourage her to apply it to the study of one art form or another.
“It seems to me now that if I had been taught drawing when I was a child, I would be able to paint now and live independently, earning my own living from my honest labors. But it never occurred to my poor mama to give me anything more than the kind of insubstantial education intended to help girls bring a good son-in-law home, namely, being able to play the piano a little, having a smattering of French, and a few other such accomplishments. If they had at least taught me a few languages, so that, when I was left alone and poor, I could have become a language teacher! And that wretched man has educated me for nothing but idleness and his own pleasure, Turkish-fashion. And I am utterly useless. As you see, I love painting; I feel a real vocation for it, a facility. Or am I being immodest? No, don’t tell me. Praise me, encourage me. Well, if difficulties are to be overcome with willpower, patience, and application, then I will overcome them, and I will be a painter, and we will study together and my paintings—you’ll be green with envy!—will make yours look puny. No, that’s not true, you are the very king of painters! Don’t get annoyed with me; you are, because I say so. I have an instinct for these things. I may not know how to make the paintings myself, but I have excellent judgment.”
These painterly ambitions, these arrogant outbursts, delighted kindly
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