登陆注册
19967200000027

第27章

To enable me to cope with this astonishing tale I asked Mr.Kauffer for a chair, which he obligingly gave me, and begged that he also would be seated.The files at my office were my business, and this was not, but no matter of Imperial concern seemed at the moment half so urgently to require probing.'Surely,' I said, 'that is an unusual piece of enterprise for a photographic firm to employ an artist to paint on a salary.I don't know even a regular dealer who does it.'

Mr.Kauffer at once and frankly explained.It was unusual and entirely out of the regular line of business.It was, in fact, one of the exceptional forms of enterprise inspired in this country by the native prince.We who had to treat with the native prince solely on lofty political lines were hardly likely to remember how largely he bulked in the humbler relations of trade; but there was more than one Calcutta establishment, Mr.Kauffer declared, that would be obliged to put up its shutters without this inconstant and difficult, but liberal customer.I waited with impatience.I could not for the life of me see Armour's connection with the native prince, who is seldom a patron of the arts for their own sakes.

'Surely,' I said, 'you could not depend on the Indian nobility to buy landscapes.They never do.I know of only one distinguished exception, and he lives a thousand miles from here, in Bengal.'

'No, not landscape,' returned Mr.Kauffer; 'but that Indian nobleman will buy his portrait.We send our own man--photographic artist--to his State, and he photograph the Chief and his arab, the Chief and his Prime Minister, the Chief in his durbar, palace, gardens, stables--everything.Presently the Chief goes on a big shoot.He says he will not have a plain photograph--besides, it is difficult.

He will have a painting, and he will pay.'

'Ah,' I said, 'I begin to see.'

'You see? Then I send this Armour.Look!' Mr.Kauffer continued with rising excitement, baited apparently by the unfortunate canvas to which he pointed, 'when Armour go to make that I say you go paint ze Maharajah of Gridigurh spearing ze wild pig.You see what he make?'

'Well,' I said, 'it is a wonderfully spirited, dashing thing, and the treatment of all that cane-brake and jungle grass is superb.'

'Ze treatment--pardon me, sir, I overboil--do you know which is ze Maharajah?'

'I can't say I do.'

'Neider does he.Ze Maharajah refuse zat picture; he is a good fellow, too.He says it is a portrait of ze pig.'

'But it is so good,' I protested, 'of the pig.'

'But that does not interest the Maharajah, you onderstand, no.You see this one? Nawab of Kandore on his State elephant.'

No doubt about it,' I said.'I know the Nawab well, the young scoundrel.How dignified he looks!'

There was a note of real sorrow in Kauffer's voice.'Dignified?

Oh, yes; dignified, but, you observe, also black.The Nawab will not be painted black.At once it is on my hands.'

'But he is black,' I remonstrated.'He's the darkest native I've ever seen among the nobility.'

'No matter for that.He will not be black.When I photograph that Nawab--any nawab--I do not him black make.But ziss ass of Armour--ach!'

It was a fascinating subject, and I could have pursued it all along the line of poor Armour's rejected canvases, but the need to get away from Kauffer with his equal claim upon my sympathy was too great.To have cracked my solemn mask by a single smile would have been to break down irrepressibly, and never since I set foot in India had I felt a parallel desire to laugh and to weep.There was a pang in it which I recognize as impossible to convey, arising from the point of contact, almost unimaginable yet so clear before me, of the uncompromising ideals of the atelier and the naive demands of the Oriental, with an unhappy photographer caught between and wriggling.The situation was really monstrous, the fatuous rejection of all that fine scheming and exquisite manipulation, and it did not grow less so as Mr.Kauffer continued to unfold it.

Armour had not, apparently, proceeded to the scene of his labours without instructions.In the pig-sticking delineation he had been specially told that the Maharajah and the pig were to be in the middle, with the rest nowhere and nothing between.Other injunctions were as clear, and as clearly disregarded.Armour, like the Maharajahs, had simply 'REfuse' to abandon his premeditated conceptions of how the thing should be done.And here was the result, for the laughter of the gods and anybody else that might see.I asked Kauffer unguardedly if no sort of pressure could be brought to bear upon these chaps to make them pay up.His face beaming with hope and intelligence, he suggested that I should approach the Foreign Office in his behalf; but this I could not quite see my way to.The coercion of native rulers, I explained, was a difficult and a dangerous art, and to insist, for example, that one of them should recognize his own complexion might be to run up a disproportionate little bill of our own.I did, however, compound something with Kauffer; I hope it wasn't a felony.'Look here,' I said to Kauffer, 'this isn't official, you know, in any way, but how would it do to write that scamp Kandore a formal letter regretting that the portrait does not suit him, and asking his permission to dispose of it to me? Of course it is yours to do as you like with already, but that is no reason why you shouldn't ask.

I should like it, but the Porcha tiger beat will do as well.'

Kauffer nearly fell upon my neck.

'That Kandore will buy it to put in one bonfire first,' he assured me, and I sincerely hoped for his sake that it would be the case.

'Of course it's understood,' I bethought me to say, 'that I get it, if I do get it, at Mr.Armour's price.I'm not a Maharajah, you know, and it isn't a portrait of me.'

'Of course!' said Kauffer, 'but I sink I sell you that Porcha; it is ze best of ze two.'

同类推荐
  • 红楼圆梦

    红楼圆梦

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 海琼传道集

    海琼传道集

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 诚求集

    诚求集

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 两湖麈谈录

    两湖麈谈录

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 樗庵类稿

    樗庵类稿

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 元大陆之除妖传说

    元大陆之除妖传说

    元大陆,人类聚居地。人们在此享受欢乐,幸福。直到一万年前妖族通过时空差来到这里,与人类争夺这片净土,七大势力崛起,守卫者这一切。一位少年和他的战队斩妖除魔,惊险,悬疑,迷踪不断上演。。。。。
  • 封绝之界

    封绝之界

    存在于现世尽头的另一个空间——封绝之界,带给世界十一种力量的大雪。一位是失去国家的王子,一位是身世扑朔迷离的优等生。故事从何而起,又将在何时结束。或许这一切都已是命中注定……
  • 最后一案

    最后一案

    选自福尔摩斯探案故事集,包括《最后一案》《海军协定》《跳舞的小人》等多篇脍炙人口的短篇小说。小说结构严谨,情节离奇曲折、引人人胜。以跌宕起伏的情节、缜密的逻辑推理、细致的心理分析,给读者呈现一个冷静、智慧与勇气并存的神探福尔摩斯。
  • 老李探案笔记(第二部)

    老李探案笔记(第二部)

    老李是个老警察,老李一辈子只会破案,案子就偏偏一件接着一件地来找他,老李对付案子的同时还要对付脾气暴躁的前妻、按部就班的上司……
  • 逆世人皇

    逆世人皇

    王希趴在母亲的身上,放声大哭,周围满是火焰,吞没了一大一小两个身影,房子终于在大火里倒塌下来.......我这是在什么地方?(情节虚构,切勿模仿)
  • 像你藏着我一样藏着你

    像你藏着我一样藏着你

    每个人在成长的时光里都会不轻易或者说根本不在意自己错过了什么,当意识强烈的想去挽回的时候,除了空荡荡的自己,就只剩下冷冰冰的回忆。
  • 王朝守护者

    王朝守护者

    进攻赢得胜利,防守赢得总冠军。科比和托尼这两个孩子可以做到一切。——禅师菲尔·杰克逊我们会夺得总冠军,我们会开创王朝,并且守护这个王朝!
  • 无所谓

    无所谓

    以无所谓的心态行走人生,行走社会,肩头轻松,脚下轻快,心里超然。无所谓可以让我们抖落身上的血渍与灰尘,轻装上阵,一身释然;无所谓可以让我们放弃生活的负担与烦恼,无虑无忧,一往无前;无所谓可以让我们超越人生的羁绊与牵累,阔步行进,一路平坦。
  • 愿有回忆可煮酒

    愿有回忆可煮酒

    夏小菲失去欧阳杰,在另一个国家遇见莫御,莫御说,我会守着夏小菲一辈子,一直到她的心里爱情的那一部分装下我。夏小菲说,欧阳杰是我爱情的全部,这个世界上,没有了他,夏小菲就没有了爱情。时光会走远,愿有回忆可煮酒,愿我们终无软肋也不需铠甲。
  • 王牌军医

    王牌军医

    王牌特工许开光因秘密任务从前线回到家乡,离乡十载,他再不是当初那个傻小子。他无意处处留情,奈何美人多情,校花警花,姐妹母女蜂拥而至;他本淡泊名利,奈何富贵滚滚,高官巨贾争相追捧。小医医病,名医救人,无双神医妙手治国。王牌军医,王牌归来。