The house was his castle, and his beard was blue, but fairy tales are written only for children.
I first saw him strolling down the street wearing a black derby, blue-gray spats, and a gray tie. His suit was slightly darker than his beard. He looked coldly prosperous. Suddenly he stopped walking, glanced at a pile of autumn leaves, then bent his thin, short body double and selected a bright orange leaf from the mound. He held it for a moment in his bony left hand, staring at it, then carefully tore it apart till nothing but a frail vein-network remained. I thought, “There is a man I would like to paint.”
My desire to paint this man was not strictly an artistic one, for I have never painted portraits; I deal with minds, dabble in psychology, my work is classified as abstract. I saw, or thought I saw, in this man a conflit between his sombre appearance and his obvious cultural background. The spats, the shredding of the leaf were two incongruous elements which stimulated my curiosity. Actually it was more than curiosity. I am a graying man myself, and while I have been sucessful as an artist, the urgent desire to finish at least one more canvas is constantly with me. This man was all men, composed of conflicts, contradictions, counterparts, balanced on a fraying fulcrum.
Our suburb consists of small homes, neighborly dogs, and uninhabited children. It was easy to learn his name. It should have struck a bell. Mr. Starling. It is not, I believe, a common name, but the sense I had of having heard it before was too indefinite to intrigue me.
I called him and the daily sittings were arranged. When he first came to the studio he was very pleasant, and seemed able to hold the pose for an indefinite time. He stood before a burnt umbre drape which complemented the deep blue of his suit.
The first day I did several charcoal sketches, but it was impossible to get the effect I wanted without the use of color. In black and white I could not draw him as he actually appeared. My usual detachment from the subject hampered me to such a great extent in these preliminary sketches that for one I actually drew a leering, lean cat with heavy jowls. I crumpled the paper, discouraged, and decided to start with the oils on canvas directly. Although I feared that I would never achieve a dramatic likeness, the painting progressed quickly.
An hour a day was all I could manage. I painted long after he left, but to paint in his presence was both stimulating and exhausting. Thsi was the result of his coloring combined with a very unusual facial structure. Although not at first glance apparent, his cheeks were bloated so that they resembled two F clefs, back to back. His beard was heavy, but his eyebrows were thin and arched, and almost disappeared into the folds of his forehead.
I was able to get the composition almost immediately. The central figure entirely spheres and ovals, but although the outlines were curved, I filled in with fat, short strokes, holding the brush close to the bristles, right elbow locked, thumb uppermost. I stood perpendicular to the easel, taut, gauging the proportions, squinting at what I knew was to be my best canvas.
We did not speak while I was painting. Mr. Starling sensed my absorption. But while I mixed paints, striving for the sombre yet intense colors, we talked, casually, but with increasing respect. He was intelligent, but not to the point of brilliancy. I could match him unfamiliar philosopher for unfamiliar philosopher; fossil for fossil. It was to all appearances a mutual exchange.
He often walked about the studio, commenting on my pictures. He was especially interested in one which bore no name. It was a large canvas with a seven inch black frame. The entire picture was red: cadmium, magenta, rose madder, with a single black light bulb in the back foreground. Parts of furniture, arms of chairs, door knobs, lamp shades were discernable in the mass of red.
“What do you call it?” he asked one day.
“There is no title.”
“But you have a name for it.” His perception was uncanny. He turned and look at me, his eyes narrowing as a cat’s in the sunlight.
“I suppose I think of it as ‘Room For Thought,’” I admitted. I assumed that he would probe still further and ask me to explain the whole thing. I added zinc oxide to blue, blending the mixture into a past with the spatula. More blue. I was suddenly and unaccountably confused. I could not concentrate on mixing the colors. I felt something close to fear, as if a sharp scalpel were descending before I was quite unconscious. I feared the probing eyes and mind of the man who stood staring at me.
“Since our minds do perceive matter, whether it is actually existent or not, and sine some minds have
(More blue)
some control over others,”
(More blue.) He stopped. I looked up from the palette. I look dat his arched eyebrows, at his thick cheeks, at his mouth almost hidden in the mass of beard he wore. “Go on,” I said.
“Doesn’t one mind superimpose its conception of matter on another, its conception of form, color — even beauty?”
I grasped at the logical straw which he offered me. “Then the artist necessarily has the advantage.”
“At one level yes. But carry it further. An artist may present his conception, true, bu twould not the man without artistic skill to present his ideas be forced to other means? Would he not absorb weaker intellects, polishing them, till they reflected his own?”
I scraped the color from the palette. The blue was too intense. I needed a shade to blend, not to blot out. “Could such a man exist,” I asked. “Is there any intellect which could so thoroughly overpower another — and if were possible, could such a man be satisfied to continute to live, having conquered another’s soul?”
He turned again to the painting and answered, “Could such a room exist, and yet you have painted it.”
When the portrait was finished I sent it to Will Gustin Sr., feeling that it was my best work, and my last. Although the Gustin Galleries hae several of my paintings, they are all abstractions, and I was anxious to have Will’s judgment of this one before it was put up for sale. As I painted I felt an increasing lack of color in my environment. My attention was focused on blues, blacks; my own rooms became filled with grey overtones. I know that I had lost something precious. And yet in painting Mr. Starling I had gained a curious sort of perspective. People and objects which I saw became grotesque grey masses. I was haunted by a desire to see him again.
A week later Mr. Starling called and invited me to lunch at his home. It was a most unexpected and welcome invitation. The meals which my cook prepares with such confidence leave something to be desired, but this is obviously mere rationalization. I ddi not then realize that Mr. Starling fascinated me to an almost unholy degree. And yet my accepting his invitation was understandable. I had received a note from Will, saying that he wanted to discuss the picture with me before selling it. It had, he said, excited him tremendously. I had decided to ask Mr. Starling to go with me to see the picture in its new setting.
His own home was the most startling thing I have ever been in. It was not only the most pretentious in the neighborhood, it was also the most gaudy. Brilliant reds and greens assailed me from every window-seat and couch. It was inconceivable that Mr. Starling could have selected the appointments. We were dwarfed as black ants in a jungle. It was a disturbing feeling.
Before I had extended Will’s invitation to Mr. Starling, or even become accustomed to the violent room, a small woman came running in and sang out, “Luncheon.” I use the verb advisedly, for when Mr. Starling said in his grey voice, “May I present my wife,” she trilled, “so happy to meet you.” The word “meet” skipped up an exact third from the rest of the sentence. My attention was immediately focused on her. She was a striking woman, though frail. I thought of an old nursery rhyme, “And so bewteen them both they licked the platter clean,” for Mrs. Starling could scarcely have eaten more than a bird. I noted every detail of her appearance: small face with an unexpectedly sharp nose, pale blonde hair, bright orange dress, certainly an unusual taste for color. I knew that woman. I had seen her, met her before. Her voice, the singing — and suddenly I saw it all clearly, as if Rembrandt had been unveiled, and every figure was outlined in black. This woman was none other than “Birdie” Starling, music hall rage of a decade ago. Such a recognition would have been impossible had it not been for an oft-repeated myth that had followed in the train of “Birdie’s” success. Due to a malformation of the throat structure, “Birdie” was unable to speak.
I was at once startled, shocked, and insatiably curious. Few men had ever seen of “Birdie” offstage. Her secret had been jealously guarded by her press agents, servants, and family. Yet I knew without doubt that it was she. The full impact of the relationship between this woman and man had not struck me. There was no obvious common ground between them. Perhaps she, as I, had Perhaps she, as I, had felt unreasoning fascination, and had agreed to love, honor, and him for the rest of her life.
I may have eaten caviar or meat pie. I may have spoken. My clear memory is of staring alternately at “Birdie” Starling, then at Mr. Starling. My terror mounted as I watched these
fantastic partners. What sadistic demon had allowed me to witness this horrible union of cat and canary? What fiendish city hall clerk had written “marriage” in legal symbols on legal paper and what corrupt errand boy had affixed thereto a sacred seal? Samson had toppled the last pillars of our rotting civilization — Samson in the person of Mr. Starling, with the long blue beard. I shall never forget the echo of those falling stones.
“Have you any news of the picture?” Mr. Starling asked. Surely my imaginings had been strange; my thoughts, unfounded exaggerations. I told them of Will’s note; Mr. Starling asked if he could go with me. “Birdie” too expressed an operatic desire to see the painting, and I assured them that it could be arranged.
We went the following day to the gallery. Removed from the studied setting of their own home, Birdie and her husband lost all supernatural attributes. When the instruction shad been made, Will took us to a room in the west wing. Odd, on the far wall was a picture covered by blue velvet cloth. He said, “What I meant to say in that cryptic note was that you cannot be serious in wanting to sell this picture.”
“Nonsense, Will,” I answered. “Of course I want to sell it. Why the devil do you think I sent it to you?” I wanted to rid myself of the entire experience.
“No collector in his right mind would buy it. We have to keep it covered be cause it dwarfs every other painting in the room.”
“So much the better,” my voice was too loud.
“Under the circumstances,” he answered evenly, “it will be tagged for immediate sale. But frankly, I can’t understand the coloring you use, or for that matter, the message which you seem to have in mind. You certainly must have had your imagination stimulated by something powerful to have produced it.”
“Surely you recognize the model, Will,” I said, glancing at Mr. Starling. And I thought I saw in Will’s eyes, that same unwarranted fascination, as he, without answering placed his hand on the blue velvet cloth and pulled it down from the canvas. We were left alone in the room. I walked toward Mr. Starling to see the picture.
The entire canvas was covered with subdued grays, drained blues, and dust browns. THere was the face of a man. For his cheeks and eyes I had painted, breast to breast and beak to beak, two orange canaries.
“Birdie” and Mr. Starling were directly in front of the picture. I was standing too far to the left to see anything but the glare as the light of the room hit the oils. Mr. Starling stared at the picture, his face motionless. Birdie’s shoulders drew forward slowly as if she were pulling about her great concealing wings. Her head dropped, her right hand glided to her throat. Her small face turned toward me with piteous eyes, as if I had done some cruel thing, and she could not understand. I was ashamed before the open defeat of this woman. Then suddenly, unreasonably, she smiled, pulling the corners of her small mouth out; and down; she covered her face, she trembled. Will took her arm and guided her out into the hall.
This piece appeared in the Fall 1947 issue of the student magazine Dimensions.