They argued back and forth for some time, then at last came to terms and began to discuss details of treatment.
The baker wanted a pearl necklace and a good brooch with diamonds painted in, as extras.
They did not appear in the photographs.
"Of course," explained Ferdinand, "your wife's jewellery shall certainly be painted.
It would be better if you could bring it to me here for an hour, so that I can make it as lifelike as possible."
The baker flushed.
"I haven't got it now.
It is . . . That is, well, her relatives have it."
"Ach, so!
Well, it doesn't really matter.
Did the brooch look like the one in that picture there, for example?" suggested Ferdinand.
The baker nodded.
"Not quite so large."
"Good. Then we'll make it like that.
And we don't need the necklace at all.
Pearls all look much alike."
The baker breathed again.
"And when will the picture be ready?"
"In six weeks." "Good."
The baker took his leave.
Ferdinand and I were alone in the studio.
"Do you really need six weeks for it?" I asked.
"Ach, what do you think?
Four, five days, perhaps.
But I couldn't tell him that, or he would be calculating what I earn an hour, and figure he was being done.
With six weeks he will be satisfied. The same with the Princess Borghese —it's human nature, my dear Bob; if I had told him it was a seamstress, he wouldn't have valued his picture half so much.
This is the sixth time that deceased wives have had jewellery like that in the picture there.
Extraordinary coincidence, isn't it?
It has been a wonderful draw, that picture of old Luise Wolff."
I looked round: pictures that had not been claimed by their owners, or had not been paid for—from immobile faces, eyes long since mouldering in the grave stared down from the wall—all human beings that had once breathed and hoped . . .
"Doesn't this make you sad, Ferdinand?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Cynical, if you like.
One is sad when one thinks about life—cynical when one -sees what people make of it."
"Yes, but with some, at any rate, it goes deeper."
"True. But then they don't have pictures painted."
He stood up.
"After all, isn't it just as well, Bob, that they should have their bit of fun that is so important to them? It keeps them going, staves off the evil day when they will be alone.
And to be alone, really alone, without illusion, that way lies madness—and suicide."
The big bare room was like a vault in the half-twilight.
Next door one could hear footsteps coming and going—the housekeeper. She did not show herself when any of us was there; she hated us because she imagined we set Grau against her.
I left. And the busy clamour of the street below was like a warm bath.
Chapter XI
I was on the way to Pat's.
It would be the first time I had been to see her. Hitherto she had either been to my place or I had met her outside her house and we had gone somewhere or other.
But it was always as if she were merely on a visit.
I wanted to know more about her. I wanted to know how she lived.
The park behind the roundabouts was in full flower.
I jumped the railing and began plundering a white lilac.
"What are you doing, my man?" suddenly rapped a sharp voipe.