Confessions of a Young Man | Page 7

inherent in
Cabanel's work; but at the time I am writing of, my nature was too
young and mobile to resist the conventional attractiveness of nude
figures, indolent attitudes, long hair, slender hips and hands, and I
accepted Jules Lefevre wholly and unconditionally. He hesitated,
however, when I asked to be taken as a private pupil, but he wrote out
the address of a studio where he gave instruction every Tuesday
morning. This was even more to my taste, for I had an instinctive liking
for Frenchmen, and was anxious to see as much of them as possible.
The studio was perched high up in the Passage des Panoramas. There I
found M. Julien, a typical meridional--the large stomach, the dark eyes,
crafty and watchful; the seductively mendacious manner, the sensual
mind. We made friends at once--he consciously making use of me, I

unconsciously making use of him. To him my forty francs, a month's
subscription, were a godsend, nor were my invitations to dinner and to
the theatre to be disdained. I was curious, odd, quaint. To be sure, it
was a little tiresome to have to put up with a talkative person, whose
knowledge of the French language had been acquired in three months,
but the dinners were good. No doubt Julien reasoned so; I did not
reason at all. I felt this crafty, clever man of the world was necessary to
me. I had never met such a man before, and all my curiosity was awake.
He spoke of art and literature, of the world and the flesh; he told me of
the books he had read, he narrated thrilling incidents in his own life;
and the moral reflections with which he sprinkled his conversation I
thought very striking. Like every young man of twenty, I was on the
look-out for something to set up that would do duty for an ideal. The
world was to me, at this time, what a toy shop had been fifteen years
before: everything was spick and span, and every illusion was set out
straight and smart in new paint and gilding. But Julien kept me at a
distance, and the rare occasions when he favoured me with his society
only served to prepare my mind for the friendship which awaited me,
and which was destined to absorb some years of my life.
In the studio there were some eighteen or twenty young men, and
among these there were some four or five from whom I could learn;
and there were also there some eight or nine young English girls. We
sat round in a circle, and drew from the model. And this reversal of all
the world's opinions and prejudices was to me singularly delightful; I
loved the sense of unreality that the exceptionalness of our life in this
studio conveyed. Besides, the women themselves were young and
interesting, and were, therefore, one of the charms of the place, giving,
as they did, that sense of sex which is so subtle a mental pleasure, and
which is, in its outward aspect, so interesting to the eye--the gowns, the
hair lifted, showing the neck; the earrings, the sleeves open at the
elbow. Though all this was very dear to me I did not fall in love: but he
who escapes a woman's dominion generally comes under the sway of
some friend who ever uses a strange attractiveness, and fosters a sort of
dependency that is not healthful or valid: and although I look back with
undiminished delight on the friendship I contracted about this time--a
friendship which permeated and added to my life--I am nevertheless

forced to recognise that, however suitable it may have been in my
special case, in the majority of instances it would have proved but a
shipwrecking reef, on which a young man's life would have gone to
pieces. What saved me was the intensity of my passion for Art, and a
moral revolt against any action that I thought could or would definitely
compromise me in that direction. I was willing to stray a little from my
path, but never further than a single step, which I could retrace when I
pleased.
One day I raised my eyes, and saw there was a new-comer in the studio;
and, to my surprise, for he was fashionably dressed, and my experience
had not led me to believe in the marriage of genius and well-cut cloth,
he was painting very well indeed. His shoulders were beautiful and
broad; a long neck, a tiny head, a narrow, thin face, and large eyes, full
of intelligence and fascination. And although he could not have been
working more than an hour, he had already sketched in his figure, and
with all the surroundings--screens, lamps, stoves, etc. I was deeply
interested. I asked the young