Villa Rubein and Other Stories | Page 6

The Forsyte Series; "The Country House"; "Fraternity"; "The
Dark Flower"; and "Five Tales"; believing these to be the works which
most fully achieve fusion of seer with thing seen, most subtly disclose
the individuality of their author, and best reveal such of truth as has
been vouchsafed to him.
JOHN GALSWORTHY.

TO
MY SISTER
BLANCHE LILIAN SAUTER

VILLA RUBEIN

I
Walking along the river wall at Botzen, Edmund Dawney said to Alois
Harz: "Would you care to know the family at that pink house, Villa
Rubein?"
Harz answered with a smile:
"Perhaps."

"Come with me then this afternoon."
They had stopped before an old house with a blind, deserted look, that
stood by itself on the wall; Harz pushed the door open.
"Come in, you don't want breakfast yet. I'm going to paint the river
to-day."
He ran up the bare broad stairs, and Dawney followed leisurely, his
thumbs hooked in the armholes of his waistcoat, and his head thrown
back.
In the attic which filled the whole top story, Harz had pulled a canvas
to the window. He was a young man of middle height, square
shouldered, active, with an angular face, high cheek-bones, and a
strong, sharp chin. His eyes were piercing and steel-blue, his eyebrows
very flexible, nose long and thin with a high bridge; and his dark,
unparted hair fitted him like a cap. His clothes looked as if he never
gave them a second thought.
This room, which served for studio, bedroom, and sitting-room, was
bare and dusty. Below the window the river in spring flood rushed
down the valley, a stream, of molten bronze. Harz dodged before the
canvas like a fencer finding his distance; Dawney took his seat on a
packingcase.
"The snows have gone with a rush this year," he drawled. "The Talfer
comes down brown, the Eisack comes down blue; they flow into the
Etsch and make it green; a parable of the Spring for you, my painter."
Harz mixed his colours.
"I've no time for parables," he said, "no time for anything. If I could be
guaranteed to live to ninety-nine, like Titian--he had a chance. Look at
that poor fellow who was killed the other day! All that struggle, and
then--just at the turn!"
He spoke English with a foreign accent; his voice was rather harsh, but
his smile very kindly.
Dawney lit a cigarette.
"You painters," he said, "are better off than most of us. You can strike
out your own line. Now if I choose to treat a case out of the ordinary
way and the patient dies, I'm ruined."
"My dear Doctor--if I don't paint what the public likes, I starve; all the
same I'm going to paint in my own way; in the end I shall come out on
top."

"It pays to work in the groove, my friend, until you've made your name;
after that--do what you like, they'll lick your boots all the same."
"Ah, you don't love your work."
Dawney answered slowly: "Never so happy as when my hands are full.
But I want to make money, to get known, to have a good time, good
cigars, good wine. I hate discomfort. No, my boy, I must work it on the
usual lines; I don't like it, but I must lump it. One starts in life with
some notion of the ideal--it's gone by the board with me. I've got to
shove along until I've made my name, and then, my little man--then--"
"Then you'll be soft! "You pay dearly for that first period!"
"Take my chance of that; there's no other way."
"Make one!"
"Humph!"
Harz poised his brush, as though it were a spear:
"A man must do the best in him. If he has to suffer--let him!"
Dawney stretched his large soft body; a calculating look had come into
his eyes.
"You're a tough little man!" he said.
"I've had to be tough."
Dawney rose; tobacco smoke was wreathed round his unruffled hair.
"Touching Villa Rubein," he said, "shall I call for you? It's a mixed
household, English mostly--very decent people."
"No, thank you. I shall be painting all day. Haven't time to know the
sort of people who expect one to change one's clothes."
"As you like; ta-to!" And, puffing out his chest, Dawney vanished
through a blanket looped across the doorway.
Harz set a pot of coffee on a spirit-lamp, and cut himself some bread.
Through the window the freshness of the morning came; the scent of
sap and blossom and young leaves; the scent of earth, and the
mountains freed from winter; the new flights and songs of birds; all the
odorous, enchanted, restless Spring.
There suddenly appeared through the doorway a white rough-haired
terrier dog, black-marked about the face, with shaggy tan eyebrows. He