Artists -- Fiction; English fiction -- 20th century; Jews -- England -- London -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction
Golda laughed at him, and said:--
"You are a big little man since you made the catch at the cricket."
"I don't know what it is, but I am happy. It is no longer surprising
to me that there are happy people in the world, and I think the
Christians are not all such fools to wish to be happy. I am only
astonished that they are happy with such little things."
"It is nothing," said Golda. "They are not truly happy; they are only
hiding away from themselves."
"But I am finding myself," cried Mendel. "I shall no more paint fishes
and onions. I shall paint only what I feel, and it will be beautiful.
I am so clever I can paint anything I choose."
"Go to your work now," said Golda. "You can boast as much as you
please when the King has sent for you and told you you are the
greatest artist in England. Go to your work."
He went back to his studio and there found a letter from Logan, giving
his new address in Camden Town, and another from Mitchell, asking him
why he was so unfriendly. This he answered at once:--
"You are no longer my friend. You have despised and injured me.
Superior as I am to you, you have thought it your part as a gentleman
to try to keep me in my place. You have treated me as a kind of
animal. You cannot see that as an artist I am the equal of all men,
the highest and the lowest. My own poor people I do not expect to know
this, but of an educated man I do expect it. You cannot see this, and
I count you lower than the lowest, and as such I am prepared to know
you, and not otherwise. I have changed completely. I no longer believe
in the Detmold or in Calthrop or in any of the things I reverenced as
a student. I prefer the Academy, for it does not pretend to be
advanced, and is honest though asleep. I am no longer a student. I am
an artist. You will always be an art student, and so I say good-bye to
you, as one says good-bye to friends on a station-platform. The train
moves and all their affectionate memories and longings cannot stop it.
The train moves and I am in it, and I say good-bye to you without even
looking out of the window."
This done, he sat down to work at a portrait of his father and mother,
with which he was designing to eclipse his first exhibiting success.
It seemed to him important that it should be finished. Hearing Issy
come in, he shouted to him to come and sit instead of his father, who
had given out that he was unwell and was indulging in a sleeping bout.
Issy came shambling in, pale, tired, and unhappy. He sat as he was
told, and said:--
"I wish Harry would come back; the business is being too much for me."
"Oh! I shall soon be rich and then I'll help you."
"There's not much help for me," said Issy. "I'm like father. There's
always something against me to keep me down. It seems funny to me that
people will give you so much money for something they don't really
want."
"Come and look at it," said Mendel.
Issy obeyed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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