III
THE BLACK HOUR
" DISGUSTING
! " said Ida Pendragon.
She was at the Luxem-
bourg Gallery, regarding a too faithful portrait of an orator
addressing his constituents.
She spoke over her shoulder to
the long negro, Joe Marie.
His eyes rolled, and his hands
twitched, and his thick mouth grinned.
He seemed to sniff
her hair.
A pitiable creature—a tamed leopard.
All smiles
and yes
! yes! to a discourse of whose purport he had noidea.
“ Realism l” she went on.
" We want truth, but we want
beauty too.
We don't want what our silly eyes call truth.
We want the beauty that is seen by artists’ souls.
A photo-
graph is a lie because a camera is not a God.
And we would
rather the truth coloured by the artist’s personality than the
lie that his mere eyes tell him.
The women of Bougereau and
Geréme are more like what the eyes tell one of life than the
women of Degas and Manet.
I want the truth of Being, not
the truth of Form.
Do you hear? ” she cried, “ I want truth,
I want Truth.”
“ I want you,” said Joe Marie.
“ We are both in trouble, then,” she smiled back.
“And
perhaps if we had our wish, we should both be disappointed.
Now I am going home to write letters, and if you are good you
shall lunch with me to-morrow.”
I35