He was born in 1803, in the little town of Offenbach, as was his
brother; I have given the history of his parents and of his early days
in relating that of Alfred. He must, therefore, appear before our
readers as a young man in the same frame as Alfred; it was in this
way, indeed, that the _Artiste_ published them in its two excellent
portraits of those twin-geniuses of art. Tony was delightful in those
days, when about thirty years old: a clear, fresh complexion which a
woman might have envied, short, curly hair, a dark moustache, small,
but bright, intelligent and sparkling eyes, medium height in figure
but wonderfully well-proportioned. Like Alfred, he was silent; but he
was not as taciturn: his melancholy never went so far as depression:
he was a man of few words and never launched out into a long sentence,
but what he said always showed delicacy of perception and flashes of
wit. Finally, his talent reflected his character like a mirror, and
any one not knowing him could have formed a perfectly correct idea of
him from his drawings, vignettes and pictures. The first time I saw
him, if I remember rightly, was at the house of our dear good friend,
Nodier. Nodier was very fond of both of the brothers. Tony brought a
lovely water-colour to Marie Nodier. I can see it now: it represented a
woman being murdered, either a Desdemona or a Vanina d'Ornano. It was
meant for Marie's album. We drew together at once without hesitation,
as if our two hearts had been in search of one another for twenty-five
years; we were the same age, almost, he a little younger than I. I have
related in these Memoirs that we went through the Rambouillet campaign
side by side and that we returned from it together. A score of times
he had tried to make a portrait sketch of me; a score of times he had
erased the paper clean, rubbed off the wood, scratched the paint off
the canvas, dissatisfied with his work. It was in vain I told him it
was a good likeness.
"No," he said, "and no one could do it, any more than I can."
"Why so?"
"Because your face changes in expression every ten seconds. How can one
make a likeness of a man who is not like himself?"
Then, to compensate me he would turn over his portfolios and give me a
charming drawing of _Minna et Brenda,_ or a lovely sketch of the _Last
of the Mohicans._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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