The Collectors | Page 9

duties, and
while his studies in esthetics remained fragmentary, he was persistently
consulted on all manner of trivialities. From Piedmont to the confine of
Dalmatia he knew every little master that ever made or marred panel or
plaster, and he paid the penalty of such knowledge. Surmising the
tragedy of his career and its essential nobility I had discounted the ugly
rumours connecting him with the sale of the Del Puente Giorgione.
When every fool learned that the Giorgione at "The Curlews" was false,
many inferred that Anitchkoff, having praised it, must have a hand in
Brooks's bad bargain--a conclusion sedulously put about and finally
hinted in cold type by certain rival critics. Personally I knew that
Brooks had bagged his find under quite other advice, but while I would
always have sworn to Anitchkoff's complete integrity in the whole Del
Puente matter, my wonder also grew at so hideous a lapse of judgment.
I hopelessly fell back upon such banalities as the errability of mankind,
being conscious all the time that some special and most curious
infatuation must underlie this particular error. Anitchkoff's card
interrupted some such train of thought. He came in quietly as sunshine
after fog. His face between the curtains reminded me strangely of the
awful moment in the Prestonville Museum--paradoxically, for he was

as genuine and reassuring as the Del Puente Giorgione had been
baffling and false.
We began dinner with the stiffness of men between whom much is
unsaid. As the oystershells departed, however, we had found common
memories. He recalled delightfully those little northern towns in the
debatable region which from a critic's point of view may be considered
Lombard or Venetian, with a tendency to be neither but rather a
Transalpine Bavaria. To me also the glow of the Burgundy on the
tablecloth brought back strange provincial altarpieces in this
territory--marvels in crimson and gold, and a riddle for the connoisseur.
Then the talk reached higher latitudes. He mused aloud about that very
simple reaction which we call the sense of beauty and have resolutely
sophisticated ever since criticism existed--I intent meanwhile and
eating most of a mallard as sanguine as a decollation of the Baptist. By
the cheese Anitchkoff seemed confident of my sympathy, and I, having
found nothing amiss in him except an imperfect enjoyment of the
pleasures of the table, was planning how least imprudently might be
raised the topic of the Del Puente Giorgione. But it was he who spoke
first. At the coffee he asked me with admirable simplicity what people
said about the affair, and I answered with equal candour.
"You too have wondered," he continued.
"Of course, but nothing worse," I replied.
Then with the hesitancy of a man approaching a dire chagrin, and yet
with a rueful appreciation of the humour of the predicament that I
despair of reproducing, he began:
"It happened about this way. When I first came to Italy and began to
meet the friends of Mantovani, they told me of an early Giorgione he
owned but rarely showed. He used to speak of it affectionately as 'il
mio Zorzi,' to distinguish it perhaps from the more important example
he had sold to one of our dilettante iron-masters. The little unfinished
portrait I heard of, from those whose opinion is sought, as a
superlatively lovely thing. It was mentioned with a certain awe; to have
seen it was a distinction. For years I hoped my time would come, but

the opportunity was provokingly delayed. How should you feel if Mrs.
Warrener should show you all her things but the great Botticelli?" I
nodded understandingly. Mrs. Warrener, for a two minutes' delay in an
appointment, had debarred me her Whistlers for a year.
"That's the way Mantovani treated me," Anitchkoff continued.
"Whenever I dared I asked for the 'Zorzi,' and he always put me off
with a smile. That mystified me, for I knew he took a paternal pride in
my studies, but I never got any more satisfactory answer from him than
that the 'Zorzi' was strong meat for the young; one must grow up to it,
like S---- and P---- and C---- (naming some of his closest disciples).
These allusions he made repeatedly and with a queer sardonic zest.
Occasionally he would volunteer the encouragement--for I had long
ago dropped the subject--'Cheer up, my boy; your turn will come.'
When he so Quixotically gave the picture to the Marquesa del Puente,
it seemed, though, as if my turn could never come, but I noted that he
had been true to his doctrine that the 'Zorzi' was only for the mature;
the Del Puente was said to be some years his senior. One knew
exasperatingly little about her. It was said vaguely that Mantovani
entertained a tender friendship for her, having been her