The Blue Moon | Page 7

brushes and
mahl-sticks at him. Also he strained rice-paper over the linen-stretchers,
ready for the painters to work on; and for a treat, now and then, a lazy

one would allow him to mix a colour for him. Then it was that Tiki-pu's
soul came down into his finger-tips, and his heart beat so that he gasped
for joy. Oh, the yellows and the greens, and the lakes and the cobalts,
and the purples which sprang from the blending of them! Sometimes it
was all he could do to keep himself from crying out.
Tiki-pu, while he squatted and ground at the colour-powders, would
listen to his master lecturing to the students. He knew by heart the
names of all the painters and their schools, and the name of the great
leader of them all who had lived and passed from their midst more than
three hundred years ago; he knew that too, a name like the sound of the
wind, Wio-wani: the big picture at the end of the studio was by him.
That picture! To Tiki-pu it seemed worth all the rest of the world put
together. He knew, too, the story which was told of it, making it as holy
to his eyes as the tombs of his own ancestors. The apprentices joked
over it, calling it "Wio-wani's back-door," "Wio-wani's night-cap," and
many other nicknames; but Tiki-pu was quite sure, since the picture
was so beautiful, that the story must be true.
Wio-wani, at the end of a long life, had painted it; a garden full of trees
and sunlight, with high-standing flowers and green paths, and in their
midst a palace. "The place where I would like to rest," said Wio-wani,
when it was finished.
So beautiful was it then, that the Emperor himself had come to see it;
and gazing enviously at those peaceful walks, and the palace nestling
among the trees, had sighed and owned that he too would be glad of
such a resting-place. Then Wio-wani stepped into the picture, and
walked away along a path till he came, looking quite small and far-off,
to a low door in the palace-wall. Opening it, he turned and beckoned to
the Emperor; but the Emperor did not follow; so Wio-wani went in by
himself, and shut the door between himself and the world for ever.
That happened three hundred years ago; but for Tiki-pu the story was
as fresh and true as if it had happened yesterday. When he was left to
himself in the studio, all alone and locked up for the night, Tiki-pu used
to go and stare at the picture till it was too dark to see, and at the little
palace with the door in its wall by which Wio-wani had disappeared out
of life. Then his soul would go down into his finger-tips, and he would
knock softly and fearfully at the beautifully painted door, saying,
"Wio-wani, are you there?"

Little by little in the long-thinking nights, and the slow early mornings
when light began to creep back through the papered windows of the
studio, Tiki-pu's soul became too much for him. He who could strain
paper, and grind colours, and wash brushes, had everything within
reach for becoming an artist, if it was the will of fate that he should be
one.
He began timidly at first, but in a little while he grew bold. With the
first wash of light he was up from his couch on the hard floor, and was
daubing his soul out on scraps, and odds-and-ends, and stolen pieces of
rice-paper.
Before long the short spell of daylight which lay between dawn and the
arrival of the apprentices to their work did not suffice him. It took him
so long to hide all traces of his doings, to wash out the brushes, and
rinse clean the paint-pots he had used, and on the top of that to get the
studio swept and dusted, that there was hardly time left him in which to
indulge the itching appetite in his fingers.
Driven by necessity, he became a pilferer of candleÄends, picking
them from their sockets in the lanterns which the students carried on
dark nights. Now and then one of these would remember that, when last
used, his lantern had had a candle in it, and would accuse Tiki-pu of
having stolen it. "It is true," he would confess ; "I was hungry--I have
eaten it." The lie was so probable, he was believed easily, and was well
beaten accordingly. Down in the ragged linings of his coat Tiki-pu
could hear the candle-ends rattling as the buffeting and chastisement
fell upon him, and often he trembled lest his hoard should be
discovered. But the truth of the matter never leaked out and at night, as
soon as