In Bohemia with Du Maurier | Page 2

THIS CONFOUNDED ROPE? HANG MYSELF, I WONDER." 76
COFFEE AND BRASSIN IN BOBTAIL'S ROOMS 80
CLARA MOSCHELES 83
"HERR RAG SCHICKT ZU FR?ULEIN MOSCHELES SEIN EMPFEHLUNG UND IHREN BRUDER." 87
CHER LIX 88
"AN INDISCREET FELLOW LOOKING OVER MY ----" 89
DU MAURIER AT WORK AGAIN 90
"CLAUDIUS FELIX ET PUBLIUS BUSSO, CUM CENTURIONE GUIDORUM, AUDIENTES JUVENES CONSERVATORIONI" 91
DOUBLE-BEDDED ROOM IN BRUSSELS 93
THE HEIGHT OF ENJOYMENT 95
YE CELEBRATED RAG TREATETH HIMSELF TO A PRIVATE PERFORMANCE OF YE PADRE FURIOSO E FIGLIA INFELICE 97
AT THE HOFRATH'S DOOR 99
"I SAY, GOVERNOR, MIND YOU DON'T GASH HIS THROAT AS YOU DID THAT POOR OLD SPANIARD'S" 100
MR KENNEDY, WHO IS QUITE BLIND, DISCREETLY INFORMS THE PROFESSOR THAT CAPTAIN MARIUS BLUEBLAST "IS NA BUT A SINFU' BLACKGUARD" 101
MEETING IN D��SSELDORF 103
SCENE FROM MACPHERSON'S OSSIAN 106
PORTRAIT OF PICCIOLA 115
"ON THEIR HONEYMOON" 116
Also Illustration on pages 37, 88, 98, 102, 108, 109, 110, 112, 114, 119, 123, 135, 144, 145.
* * * * *

I.
"TUMBLINGS"
_WITH DU MAURIER AND FRIENDS._
"I well remember" my first meeting with du Maurier in the class-rooms of the famous Antwerp Academy.
I was painting and blagueing, as one paints and blagues in the storm and stress period of one's artistic development.
It had been my good fortune to commence my studies in Paris; it was there, in the atelier Gleyre, I had cultivated, I think I may say, very successfully, the essentially French art of chaffing, known by the name of "La blague parisienne," and I now was able to give my less lively Flemish friends and fellow-students the full benefit of my experience. Many pleasant recollections bound me to Paris; so, when I heard one day that a "Nouveau" had arrived, straight from my old atelier Gleyre, I was not a little impatient to make his acquaintance.
[Illustration: THE ATELIER GLEYRE.]
The new-comer was du Maurier. I sought him out, and, taking it for granted that he was a Frenchman, I addressed him in French; we were soon engaged in lively conversation, asking and answering questions about the comrades in Paris, and sorting the threads that associated us both with the same place. "Did you know 'un nomm�� Pointer'?" he asked, exquisitely Frenchy-fying the name for my benefit. I mentally translated this into equally exquisite English, my version naturally being: "A man called Poynter."
Later on an American came up, with whom I exchanged a few words in his and my native tongue. "What the D. are you--English?" broke in du Maurier. "And what the D. are you?" I rejoined. I forget whether D. stood for Dickens or for the other one; probably it was the latter. At any rate, whether more or less emphatic in our utterances, we then and there made friends on a sound international basis.
It seemed to me that at this our first meeting du Maurier took me in at a glance--the eager, hungry glance of the caricaturist. He seemed struck with my appearance, as well he might be. I wore a workman's blouse that had gradually taken its colour from its surroundings. To protect myself from the indiscretions of my comrades I had painted various warnings on my back, as, for instance, "Bill stickers beware," "It is forbidden to shoot rubbish here," and the like. My very black hair, ever inclined to run riot, was encircled by a craftily conceived band of crochet-work, such as only a fond mother's hand could devise, and I was doubtless colouring some meerschaum of eccentric design. My fellow-student, the now famous Matthew Maris, immortalised that blouse and that piece of crochet-work in the admirable oil-sketch here reproduced.
[Illustration: MY BLOUSE.
(_From an oil-sketch by Matthew Maris._)]
It has always been a source of legitimate pride to me to think that I should have been the tool selected by Providence to sharpen du Maurier's pencil; there must have been something in my "Verfluchte Physiognomie," as a very handsome young German, whom I used to chaff unmercifully, called it, to reveal to du Maurier hidden possibilities and to awaken in him those dormant capacities which had betrayed themselves in the eager glance above named.
This was, I believe, in 1857; not feeling over sure as regards that date, I refer to a bundle of du Maurier's letters before me, but they offer me no assistance; there is but one dated, and that one merely headed: "Dusseldorf, 19th Cent." Well, in 1857, then, let us take it, the Antwerp Academy was under the direction of De Keyser, that most urbane of men and painters. Van Lerius, well known to many American and English lovers of art, her Majesty included, was professor of the Painting Class, and amongst the students there were many who rapidly made themselves a name, as Tadema, M. Maris, Neuhuys, Heyermans, and the armless artist, whose foot-painted copies after the Masters at the Antwerp Gallery are well known to every tourist. The teaching was of a sound, practical