boucher book oct28.pdf - Index of

226 Anthony Boucher
Then idly he picked up the lovestonite mirror and operated it as Valentinez had
instructed him. Nice little gadget. Clever technician lost in that painter. Futile sort of
gag. Nothing commercial, but—
Stag Hartle opened his mouth wide and shut it again firmly. He carried the mirror
out into the bright sunlight of late afternoon.
When he came back into the house, there was a grin of satisfaction on his face. It was
hard to keep his eyes off the charred hole in the wooden porch outside.
He worked quickly. From his vest pocket he took that convenient clip-on cylinder
which looked like a stylus, but unscrewed to reveal a stick of paraderm. He thrust it under
his armpit and held it there until body heat had softened it. Then he carefully coated the
inside of his fingers and the palms of his hands. He allowed it to dry and then flexed his
fingers experimentally. The cords stood out in his powerfully wiry wrists.
He thought of historical sollies and the great convenience of knives and pistols. But
no matter how Devarupian the world, a man could still kill if he had strong hands and
no fear of a one-way trip.
Emigdio Valentinez added one more flick of his deft brush and then realized that the
perfect moment had passed. Only one sixth of an hour out of the twenty-four when the
light in this spot was exactly as it had been that day when he had halted transfixed and
felt that strange gripping of his bowels which meant “This is it!”
He could fill the rest of his time satisfactorily enough. There had been the weeks of
delightfully restful research on the lovestonite mirror, and now there lay ahead of him many
more weeks, by no means restful, to be devoted to the object for which he had contrived
the gadget—a perfect self-portrait.
He smiled, and smiled at himself for smiling. How fortunate, in all due modesty,
is the artist who is a worthy subject of his own brush! He knew that in a way he was
beautiful. He knew, and found a bitter sort of pleasure in the knowledge, that a girl’s
bedroom was far more apt to be adorned by a color photo of himself than by a reprolith
of one of his paintings.
Well, this would combine the two apeals—his magnum opus. Though if ever he could
finish this composition of rock and algae and water and sun—
Where he stood he could see nothing that was not part of nature save himself, his
palette and his easel. It might have been a scene out of the long-dead past. Cézanne, say,
or some other old master might have stood thus in the sun back in those dim days when
the advance of science was beginning with its little creeps. Painting is something apart
from progress. He knew that he could never catch the sun as Cézanne had. He knew that
not he, nor any other man living, could approach the clarity of Vermeer or the chiaroscuro
of Rembrandt. He could make an overnight jaunt to the Moon if he wished, but he could
not capture in paint the soul of Devarupa as El Greco had captured that of St. Francis.
Art did not necessarily progress with progress.
And yet the lovestonite mirror might be the first true contribution of science to painting.
He smiled, that smile that was not intentionally either melancholy or wistful, and
started across the sand to his death.