The afternoon following we found ourselves in Greenwich Village, in
front of a row of old-fashioned cottages covered with honeysuckle.
You may recall the avenue and this particular block that has thus
far resisted the temptation to become either lofty apartment or
business palace. But the painter met us here, and conducted us
westward until we reached a warehouse--gloomy, in need of repair,
yet solid, despite the teeth of time. We entered the wagonway,
traversed a dirty court, mounted a dark staircase, and paused before
a low door. "Do you knock," we were admonished, and at once did so.
Approaching footsteps. A rattling and grating of rusty bolts and
keys. The door was slowly opened. A big hairy head appeared. The
eyes set in this halo of white hair were positively the most
magnificent I had ever seen sparkle and glow in a human countenance.
If a lion were capable of being at once poet and prophet and exalted
animal, his eyes would have possessed something of the glance of
this stranger. We turned anxiously to to our friend. He had
disappeared. What a trick to play at such a moment. "Who do you
wish?" rumbled a mellow voice. "Albertus Magnus?" we timidly
inquired, expecting to be pitched down the stairs the next minute.
"Ah!" was the reply. Silence. Then, "Come in, please; don't stumble
over the canvases." We followed the old man, whose stature was not
as heroic as his head; and we did not fail to stumble, for the way
was obscure, and paved with empty frames, canvases, and a litter of
bottles, paint-tubes, easels, rugs, carpets, wretched furniture, and
all the other flotsam and jetsam of an old-style studio. We were not
sorry when we came into open space and light. We were in the room
that doubtless concealed the lost masterpieces, and there, blithely
smoking a cigarette, sat our guide, the painter. He had entered by
another door, he explained; and, without noticing our discontented
air, he introduced us to the man of the house. In sheer daylight he
looked younger, though his years must have bordered upon the
biblical threescore and ten. But the soul, the brain that came out
of his wonderful eyes, were as young as to-morrow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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