I lifted my eyes to the figure of Pompey mounted on his lofty pedestal,
and as I gazed at the proud face, over which the changing moonbeams
seemed to impart a smile of mockery, the picture assumed a new and
terrible significance. An ordinary spectator might regard it simply as
a splendid work of art, and see in it nothing more than was implied in
its title--"The Fall of Cæsar;" but to me, familiar with the artist's
aspiration, it was full of a latent symbolism expressive of his hopes
at the time of painting it. It was no longer the conqueror of the
East triumphing over the conqueror of the West, but Angelo in his own
person exulting over the rival whom he had slain. The laurel-wreath on
his brows represented the crown of fame which the exhibition of this
very picture was to bring him; and the setting of Daphne's head in
the shield that was braced tight to his arm expressed the confident
conviction that she was destined one day to be linked to him. The
artist's secret was revealed: he had killed my brother! In his morbid
desire of fame, and in a spirit of hideous realism sometimes, though
rarely, exemplified in the history of art, Angelo had murdered a
fellow-mortal for the purpose of having by his side a dead man to serve
as a model for the fallen Cæsar, even proceeding so far as to retain in
his picture the very features of his victim.
The commission of this terrible deed, and the thought that now that his
rival was dead Daphne would be his, had imparted to the mind of the
artist a sort of diabolic inspiration--a tone of fiendish exaltation
that had enabled him for the time being to rise superior to his
ordinary mediocre powers, and to surprise the art-critics by producing
a work far surpassing all his previous efforts.
He could expose this painting to public view with little fear that its
exhibition would be attended with the discovery of his crime, owing to
the fact that his victim (to represent faithfully the person of Cæsar)
must be delineated as both bald and beardless, a fact that had imparted
a very different look to the painted face; and moreover, since George
had spent the years subsequent to his twentieth birthday in India, he
was not known in Europe except to his own small circle of kinsfolk.
The only persons, then, whom the artist had cause to fear were the
relatives of his victim, and returned Anglo-Indians.
I now understood his motive in calling my attention to the pen-and-ink
sketch of George's face. It was to ascertain whether, in the event of
seeing his picture, I should detect any resemblance to my brother in
the bald and beardless head of Cæsar: hence his satisfaction at my want
of perception, for he felt pretty certain that if I failed to recognise
the likeness, other persons would be equally or more obtuse.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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