Sarrasine | Page 8

talent. He would not study except as his
inclination led him, often rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole
hours at a time buried in tangled meditations, engaged now in watching
his comrades at play, now in forming mental pictures of Homer's

heroes. And, when he did choose to amuse himself, he displayed
extraordinary ardor in his games. Whenever there was a contest of any
sort between a comrade and himself, it rarely ended without bloodshed.
If he were the weaker, he would use his teeth. Active and passive by
turns, either lacking in aptitude, or too intelligent, his abnormal
temperament caused him to distrust his masters as much as his
schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the Greek language, he
drew a picture of the reverend father who was interpreting a passage of
Thucydides, sketched the teacher of mathematics, the prefect, the
assistants, the man who administered punishment, and smeared all the
walls with shapeless figures. Instead of singing the praises of the Lord
in the chapel, he amused himself, during the services, by notching a
bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of wood, he would carve the
figure of some saint. If he had no wood or stone or pencil, he worked
out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied the figures in the pictures
which adorned the choir, or improvised, he always left at this seat
rough sketches, whose obscene character drove the young fathers to
despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that the Jesuits smiled at them. At
last, if we are to believe college traditions, he was expelled because,
while awaiting his turn to go to the confessional one Good Friday, he
carved a figure of the Christ from a stick of wood. The impiety
evidenced by that figure was too flagrant not to draw down
chastisement on the artist. He had actually had the hardihood to place
that decidedly cynical image on the top of the tabernacle!
"Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a father's
malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no obstacles,
he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered Bouchardon's studio.
He worked all day and went about at night begging for subsistence.
Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's intelligence and rapid
progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute condition; he assisted him,
became attached to him, and treated him like his own child. Then,
when Sarrasine's genius stood revealed in one of those works wherein
future talent contends with the effervescence of youth, the generous
Bouchardon tried to restore him to the old attorney's good graces. The
paternal wrath subsided in face of the famous sculptor's authority. All
Besancon congratulated itself on having brought forth a future great

man. In the first outburst of delight due to his flattered vanity, the
miserly attorney supplied his son with the means to appear to
advantage in society. The long and laborious study demanded by the
sculptor's profession subdued for a long time Sarrasine's impetuous
temperament and unruly genius. Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently
the passions would some day rage in that youthful heart, as highly
tempered perhaps as Michelangelo's, smothered its vehemence with
constant toil. He succeeded in restraining within reasonable bounds
Sarrasine's extraordinary impetuosity, by forbidding him to work, by
proposing diversions when he saw that he was on the point of plunging
into dissipation. But with that passionate nature, gentleness was always
the most powerful of all weapons, and the master did not acquire great
influence over his pupil until he had aroused his gratitude by fatherly
kindness.
"At the age of twenty-two Sarrasine was forcibly removed from the
salutary influence which Bouchardon exercised over his morals and his
habits. He paid the penalty of his genius by winning the prize for
sculpture founded by the Marquis de Marigny, Madame de
Pompadour's brother, who did so much for art. Diderot praised
Bouchardon's pupil's statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound
sorrow did the king's sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young
man whose profound ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter
of principle, refrained from enlightening. Sarrasine was Bouchardon's
guest for six years. Fanatically devoted to his art, as Canova was at a
later day, he rose at dawn and went to the studio, there to remain until
night, and lived with his muse alone. If he went to the
Comedie-Francaise, he was dragged thither by his master. He was so
bored at Madame Geoffrin's, and in the fashionable society to which
Bouchardon tried to introduce him, that he preferred to remain alone,
and held aloof from the pleasures of that licentious age. He had no
other mistresses than sculpture and Clotilde, one of the celebrities of
the Opera. Even that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was