The Oval Portrait (after e.A.Poe)

I was badly wounded and my servant couldn't let me pass a night in the open air. We came across a gloomy and grand castle among the Apennines. To all appearance it had been temporarily and very lately abandoned, so we broke into it.

We established ourselves in one of the smallest and least furnished apartments lying in a remote small tower of the building. Its decorations were rich and antique. Its walls were hung with an unusually great number of paintings in rich golden frames. In these paintings my fever caused me to take a deep interest; so that I bade the servant to light the candles of a tall chandelier which stood by the head of my bed. I wished, all this done, to go to bed and reflect on these pictures and read a small volume which had been found upon the pillow, and which criticized and described them.

Long, long I read and attentively, attentively I gazed. Rapidly the hours flew by and the deep midnight came. The position of the chandelier displeased me, and with difficulty, rather than disturb my dreaming servant, I placed it so as to throw its rays more fully upon the book.

But the action produced an effect altogether unexpected. The rays of the numerous candles now fell within a niche of the room which had been in deep shade. I thus saw in vivid light a picture all unnoticed before. It was the portrait of a young girl just entering womanhood. I glanced at the painting hurriedly, and then closed my eyes to make sure that my vision had not deceived me.

The portrait was a mere head and shoulders. The arms, the bosom, and even the ends of the radiant hair melted into the vague yet deep shadow which formed the background. The frame was oval, richly gilded. As a thing of art nothing could be more admirable than the painting itself. But it wasn't the execution of the work, nor the beauty of the girl, which had so suddenly and so strongly moved me. I remained, for an hour perhaps, half sitting and half lying, with my eyes upon the portrait. At length, I found the cause of my deep agitation in an absolute life-likeliness of

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expression. I replaced the chandelier in its former position. Turning to the number in the volume which dealt with the oval portrait, I read these quaint words:

"She was a maiden of rarest beauty, full of joy, all light and smiles. And evil was the hour when she saw, and loved, and married the painter. He was passionate, grave, stern, and had already a bride in his Art. She, loving and cherishing all things, hated only the Art which was her rival; dreading only the paints and brushes and other instruments which deprived her of her lover. It was thus a terrible thing for this lady to hear the painter speak of his desire to portray her. But she was humble and obedient, and sat meekly for many weeks in the dark, high tower-chamber where the light dripped upon the pale canvas only from overhead. But the painter took glory in his work, which went on from hour to hour, and from day to day. And being a passionate, and wild, and moody man, he did not see that the light which fell so frightening in that lone tower took the health and the spirits of his bride, who grew feeble visibly to all but him. Yet she smiled on, uncomplainingly, because she saw that the painter took a burning pleasure in his task, and worked day and night to depict her who so loved him. And those who saw the portrait spoke of its resemblance in low words, as of a wonder and a proof of the power of the painter and of his deep love for her whom he depicted so astonishingly well. But at length, as the labour drew nearer to its conclusion, no one was admitted into the tower; for the painter had grown so devoted to his work that hardly turned his eyes from the canvas, even to look at the face of his wife. And he did not see that the colours which he spread upon the canvas were drawn from the cheeks of her who sat beside him. Many weeks had passed, and little remained to do, except one brushstroke upon the mouth and one brushstroke upon the eye. And then the brushstrokes were given,; and, for one moment, the painter stood fascinated before the work which he had done; but the next moment he trembled and grew very pale, and crying with a loud voice, "This is indeed Life itself!" turned to look at his beloved. She was dead!

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Rendering 7*

The Poet (After W.S.Maugham)

I am not much interested in the celebrated and I have never had passion to shake hands with the great ones of the earth. When it is proposed to me to meet some distinguished person, I seek for a civil excuse that might let me avoid the honour, and when my friend suggested giving me an introduction to Santa Ana, I declined. But the excuse I made this time was sincere. Santa Ana was not only a great poet but also a romantic figure whose adventures (in Spain at least) were legendary; but I knew that he was old and ill and I could not believe that it would be anything but a nuisance to him to meet a stranger and a foreigner. Calisto de Santa Ana was the last of byronists and had narrated his life in the poems that had brought him a fame unknown to his contemporaries. They had a passion and a heroic arrogance that swept me off my feet. I couldn't read them without a beating heart. His verses used to be on the lips of all young men and my friends would talk endlessly of his wild ways, his wit and his love affairs, for above all he was a lover. We knew all about his passion for this great actress or that singer; we read till we knew them by heart the burning sonnets in which he described his love. The infant of Spain became a nun when he stopped loving her. We applauded to the lady's romantic gesture.

But all this took place many years ago and now Don Calisto lived in isolation in his native town. I was spending there a week or so. Suddenly I received a note from the great man himself. He said it would give him great pleasure if I called on him. That's why I did decide to visit him.

"What does he look like now?" I asked my friend. – "Magnificent." – "Have you a photograph of him?" – "I wish I had. He refused to face the camera since he was thirty-five. He says he does not wish posterity to know him other than young."

I confess that I found this suggestion of vanity not a little touching. I know that in early manhood he was of extraordinary beauty and that moving sonnet of his written when he grew conscious that youth had for ever left him shows with what a bitter

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and sardonic pang he must have watched the passing of those looks that had been so fantastically admired.

The massive gateway to his house suited my impression of the flamboyant poet. Though I heard the bell ring through the house, no one answered it and I rang a second and than a third time. At last an old woman with a heavy moustache came to the gate. "What do you want?" she said.

She had fine black eyes but a sullen look and I supposed that it was she who took care of the old man. I gave her my card. "I have an appointment with your master."

She opened the gateway and bade me enter. Asking me to wait she left me and went upstairs. There was about everything an air of poverty. I knew that Don Calisto was poor. Money had come to him easily at times but he had never attached any importance to it and had spent it profusely. In the middle of the room there was a table with a rocking chair on each side of it, and on the table newspapers a fortnight old. I wondered what dreams occupied his fancy as he sat there on the warm summer nights smoking cigarettes. On the walls there were Spanish pictures dark and bad. By the side of a door hung a pair of pistols and I had a pleasant fancy that they were the weapons he had used, when in the most celebrated of his many duels – for the sake of a most charming dancer (now, I suppose, a toothless hag) – he killed the famous Duke.

I had arrived rather cool and even somewhat bored, but now I got a trifle nervous. I lit a cigarette. The silence was strangely disturbing.

I heard a sound and my heart beat quickly. I was excited now and when at last I saw him coming slowly down the stairs I caught my breath. He held my card in one hand and a broad-trimmed hat in the other and was dressed in black. He was a tall old man and exceedingly thin, with a skin the colour of old ivory; his hair was abundant and white, but his bushy eyebrows were dark still: they made his great eyes flash with a sombre fire. It was wonderful that at his age these black eyes still preserved their brilliance. His nose was aquiline, his mouth close-set. His unsmiling eyes rested on me as he approached. There was in his bearing assurance and dignity. As I watched him, I understood how he had touched men's hearts. He was very inch a poet.

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I was embarrassed. It was fortunate for me that I had prepared beforehand the phrase with which I meant to greet him. "It is a wonderful honour, maestro, for a foreigner such as I to make acquaintance of so great a poet."

A flicker of amusement passed through those eyes and a smile for an instant curved the lines of that stern mouth. "I am not a poet, Senor, but a merchant. You have made a mistake. Don Calisto lives next door."

I had come to the wrong house.