THE ARTIST
(SHORT
STORY)
(Lecturer
in English,
After
six years of enforced banishment in a mofussil town,
I was once again able to be in the city to welcome
In
those days I was a care-free youth, a typical college student more keen on wandering about the streets than on attending
the classes. It was then that I contracted the acquaintance or artists. There
was something enchanting about their Bohemian and devil-may-care attitude to
life. Later when the responsibility of supporting a big family fell on me, I
had many times felt an irresistible desire to escape into their free and
unconventional world where freaks were the rule. My
admiration for their wild freedom, an admiration not quite unmixed with envy,
was that blend of wonder and awe which a child feels at the sight of an acrobat
doing wonderful feats.
That
was how
The
gathering was typically Bohemian. The conversation was quite informal and easy.
“Do
you remember Kavas Babu?” somebody inquired from across
the table.
“Yes,
yes. What about him? Why hasn’t he come?”
“You
may well ask that,” the former began pompously and declared, “Kailas Babu is no longer of our
fraternity. He is now a school-teacher.”
“What !”
“It’s
true,” others nodded and one of them said, “Don’t ask
us how it happened. We cannot explain. Better meet him yourself. You may call
on him at the new school in the Harijan colony.”
I
remember Kailas Babu. In
that nondescript mass of artists of all varieties I was able to remember him,
for he was a bit out of the common. Like his confreres he was also jovial and
unconventional, and sported a happy-go-lucky attitude to life. But what
distinguished him from the crowd was the seriousness of purpose which characterised his devotion to art. Accustomed to sudden
changes of income and compelled to wade through months of poverty, with rare
intervals of short-lived prosperity, artists are generally a spendthrift race.
This kind of life makes them too generous with words which are not followed by
deeds. It is common even for really gifted people to plan for years some grand
work of art without actually attempting it. When pressed by some financial
crisis, which is a normal occurrence in their life, they are apt to satisfy the
needs of the moment with something second-rate, postponing the real ‘It’ for a more
proper time, and very often their masterpieces remain mere dreams to the end of
their lives.
Kailas Babu
also would often talk about his masterpiece. But on such occasions I had
noticed a wild gleam in his and had told myself that, in the midst of all those
bragging artists, there was at least one genuine man who would one day realise his dream. I was sure that Kailas
Babu’s work would one day cause a stir in the
art-world and earn for him a high place among the Heroes of the Brush.
But
that day then seemed far off. Kailas Babu had set before himself a high ideal of perfection and
was constantly striving towards it. Unlike his brethren in the profession he
had a clear view of his own limitations. He was not satisfied with an almost
perfect work which might have satisfied a lesser artist. He wanted absolute
perfection. This cannot be achieved so quickly, and when he found that a
particular work was not up to his standard, he destroyed it unrelentingly and
launched on a new venture. Repeated failures did not damp his ardour, which grew steadily with years. Kailas
Babu’s intended masterpiece which was so long in
coming had become a byword among his friends for something too high for this
earth and hence unattainable.
No
wonder therefore that my curiosity was roused at the information that Kailas Babu had become a
school-teacher. “What a fall!” I was tempted to exclaim. I wanted to go to the
bottom of the matter and learn what caused the change. I accompanied
The
thatched building which housed the school in the Harijan
colony was small but clean. One part of it was set apart as the residence of
the teacher. It took me some time to realise that the
man who received us at the entrance was none other than Kailas
Babu. Had it not been for that bright sparkle in the
eyes, I could never have associated this prematurely aged man, with wrinkles on
his forehead, dark rings round his eyes and an air of exhaustion about him,
with the Kailas Babu I have
known, the jovial artist who would talk for hours on the greatness of art.
We
were ushered into a small room. It was not exactly a room but a small space
partitioned off by mud walls, with a small window letting in only
a little light, so that there was in it the dimness of the darkening twilight
while the sun was blazing hot outside.
Even
before we had adjusted ourselves to the semi-darkness of the room, our
attention was arrested by a full-size painting hung on the wall in a
conspicuous place. We moved near to examine it. Though not an artist myself,
years of acquaintance with artists had made me a connoisseur of art. It was too
dark to see the details of the painting. But even at first view it struck
me that here was work of which any artist could be justly proud. The picture
depicted a sick-bed scene. It showed a woman. She was not even a woman, but a
mere slip of a girl of about twenty, with a delicate, flower-like beauty which
showed in her wasted features, lying on a bed about which were scattered
medicine bottles and other paraphernalia of a sick-bed. I could not but admire
the skill of Kailas Babu
who had produced the suggestion of hopelessness and frustration with a few
strokes of the brush. This was the masterpiece of Kailas
Babu and nobody could excel it!
Kailas Babu
had received us and taken us to this room without a word, and we also had not
dared to put to him abruptly the question which was uppermost in our minds,
“Why did he give up art?” At the sight of this picture we forgot our question
and just stood gaping at it.
Kailas Babu
read the mute admiration in our eyes and murmured, as if in answer to our
unuttered query, “Yes, this is my masterpiece.”
His
words broke the spell of silence that had fallen on us, and I burst out with,
“It’s marvellous, Kailas Babu! Why don’t you arrange for an exhibition of this work?
It’s sure to bring you fame…...”
“Fame! I don’t want fame!” Kailas Babu interrupted me with a
derisive laugh. It was evident that he was very much agitated. “What you call
fame is my shame! I shall never agree to parade my cruelty and heartlessness by
exhibiting it. It shall die with me.
He
checked himself on observing the expression of bewilderment on our faces.
“Pardon me,” he said, as if ashamed of his outburst. “I had forgotten that you
don’t know anything of my story. I shall explain if you have time to spare for
me.”
We
had come just to hear his story and we prepared to listen.
The
girl you see in the picture is Kamala, my wife. You could not have known her,
for she came to the city while both of you were away. She came into my life
quite unexpectedly and caused as much excitement as a new planet swimming into
the view of an astronomer. She was an orphan and came to the city to earn her
living as an artist’s model. You can yourself see she was eminently fit to be a
model. Her delicately sensitive eyes could command the subtle nuances of a
whole gamut of emotions. I was quick to perceive her possibilities and engaged
her. My hopes were more than justified, for she did not remain a mere model but
provided inspiration for me. Love of art was a link between us and identity of interests engendered love which culminated in marriage.
But
my married happiness was fated to be short-lived. Kamala’s
early struggles in poverty had their inevitable sequel, and, a few months after
the marriage, she was attacked with T. B. I was stupefied by this unexpected
stroke of fate, and made arrangements for her treatment according to my ability
and resources. But the disease was in an advanced stage, and she was gradually
wasting away.
It
was at this time that I had a brain wave. I feel that the devil had prompted
me, for no human being would have entertained such an inhuman thought. You know
I have been intending for years to create a masterpiece. I worked
strenuously, but the results were not completely satisfying. Undeterred, I
continued my labour, determined to achieve
perfection.
Now
there’s something in the very nature of an artist’s work which stultifies its
perfection. The system of modelling is responsible, I
feel, for this failure. However perfect a model you have, you cannot get a
perfect picture with it. The person acting as model cannot but be
self-conscious and this self-consciousness defeats the sincerity and
spontaneity that should characterise a living work.
This difficulty can be overcome if you have nature for your model. But I was
not interested in mere nature, except as a background for humanity. I wanted to
exploit the vast possibilities of the human face and figure and the pathos of
human life. I was therefore in search of a human model who
could remain natural without the least tinge of self-consciousness.
The
wretch that I am, I began to look upon Kamala’s
diseased condition as a godsend for me. Her wasting body seemed a fitting model
for my masterpiece in which I could bring out the terrible futility of the
struggling human soul. I set up my easel in the next room and began working.
The
work on my picture progressed steadily in proportion as Kamala’s
condition deteriorated. But my absorption with it grew so great that I came to
look upon her, not as a human being who had come to share her life with me, but
as a mere model for my masterpiece. I engaged a nurse to look after her and
spent most of my time with the picture. I visited her only once or twice a day,
and that too to catch the atmosphere of the room or some detail about Kamala.
The fact that she was sinking fast did not escape me, but that realisation, far
from exciting my sympathy, only made me do my work in frantic haste lest she
should die before my picture was completed.
I
can never live down the memory of my guilt in having betrayed a poor, innocent
girl who had so trustfully confided her life to my keeping. I was foolish
enough to believe that she would not know what I was doing, and what she did
not know would not hurt her. But her eyes were too keen not to observe my long
absences from her bed-side, and rare and short visits to her. I learnt after
her death from the nurse that Kamala guessed the nature of the work I was
engaged in, but she pretended not to know, out of consideration for my
feelings, as if I had any feelings left in me!
That
last, fateful day in her all-too-brief life lives green in my memory. Since
daybreak I had been feeling that she would die in a matter of hours. I watched her
vital spirits ebbing out gradually. Her soul was giving up the futile struggle
to cling to earth and her life seemed to be hanging by a simple, flimsy thread.
The
scene impressed me as never before. I had never seen any person dying, and the
artist in me was stirred to the utmost effort. Without the slightest
consideration for the suffering girl, I rushed to my room and set to work
furiously to transfer to the canvas my vivid impressions of what I saw.
I
don’t know how long I was engaged on that work. It was the long-drawn wail of
the nurse that disturbed my concentration and made me rush to Kamala’s room. She was lying dead and the nurse was weeping
over her body.
I
approached Kamala with a blank mind and looked at her face. I suddenly stood
still and my hair stood on end; for in her usually serene face there was an
expression of ineffable contempt–a contempt so
profound that it thrilled me with a feeling of infinite terror!
On
questioning the nurse I learnt that Kamala had called me in her last moments.
But I was too absorbed in my work to hear her. The nurse had offered to fetch
me but she had signed to her not to do so. Her extremely sensitive nature was
wounded on finding herself neglected even in her last moments by the only
person whom she loved above everything else in the world. She had curled her
lips in contempt at the thought of my heartlessness, and the last words she
uttered were, “Oh, that picture!”……
I
stood petrified beside the dead Kamala, looking at her face brimming over with
contempt. Too late in life, and at a great cost, I learnt a lesson. I realised my crime in valuing a piece of canvas above
a human life. I then learnt to look upon the much glorified art in its true
perspective. Art is all right as a pastime but it has no
right to usurp the place of life. Where it dares to do that, it is no art but a
heartless monster. When an artist is wholly infatuated with art, he forgets
that his fellow-beings are human and tends to treat them as so much material
for his art and nothing more. While pretending to find and bring out what is
hidden in the heart of things, he is blind to what is evident even to a
superficial observer. This is the tragedy of Art.
I
decided never to dabble any more in art. That is the only atonement left to me
for my inhuman neglect of Kamala. But we are weak-willed and
the desire for fame is pretty strong. I was afraid that my aversion for art may
die away in course of time. Determined to prevent such a contingency, I brought
the painting to the room and, rubbing off a part of the picture, depicted on it
that contempt on Kamala’s face which was otherwise
expressionless….
Whenever somebody recalls my past glory as an artist
and tempts me to take to art once again, I have only to come here and look at
this picture to recapture my hatred for art. When I look at this, I re-live
that day of her death and decide to continue as a school-teacher….
It
had become dark. Kailas Babu
rose with a sigh and lighted a lamp. He brought it near the picture. We
examined it with interest. It was with difficulty that we could suppress an
exclamation of horror! Yes, it was contempt all right! Supreme, inexpressible
contempt was oozing out of Kamala’s curled lips! It
froze us to the marrow. It was no doubt Kailas Babu’s masterpiece! But what a disastrous masterpiece!
It’s years since I met Kailas
Babu. But the living contempt in those dying lips
haunts me still!