My Memoirs. Marguerite Steinheil

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СКАЧАТЬ and so you are the famous M. H.... who made your fortune years ago by selling shirts. I suppose if I made a sketch of you, you'd pay me with a dozen collars. I am told you own a fine art gallery here. I daresay you got all those modern pictures in exchange for shirts and hosiery, eh?" And he burst out laughing.

      The tactless surmise happened to be correct. As a matter of fact, M. H. had once called on my husband and abruptly proposed to supply him for life with shirts and collars in exchange for a certain painting which he fancied. I tried not to be angry. "My husband," I said, "wears only the very best shirts...."

      "I quite understand that."

      "And he gives them away when he has worn them once...."

      M. H. saw his mistake and withdrew the offer.

      I never knew Henner to be embarrassed. We treated him like a member of the family, and, one day, wishing to make him understand that his nails were really too grimy, I asked him whether he wished to wash his hands before dinner.

      He looked at his nails, understood, and quietly said: "I am in mourning for Alsace and Lorraine."

      But if he were never embarrassed, he had embarrassing habits, the worst of which was that of examining the shoulders and arms of ladies in décolleté with unperturbed insistence. And not infrequently he would say: "Allow me, just one second; I want to feel the grain, the quality of your skin." And before the victim had time to move he would press down his hairy and grimy forefinger on her bare arm, or even on her neck.

      Withdrawing his fingers, he would pass some such remark as this: "It's really wonderful. I never grow tired of feeling flesh.... It is all made of little dots—blue, white, green, pink, purple, yellow... that is what flesh is."

      Countess S., a handsome lady of the Hungarian aristocracy, who had come to Paris on her honeymoon, raved about Henner's art. Meeting him one day in my house, she offered to sit for the painter. Her French was not fluent, and she meant, of course, that Henner should paint her portrait. He readily accepted, for her complexion was milky and transparent, and her hair had that glowing copper tint which he loved so much.

      A few days later I met the fair Hungarian Countess.

      "How is the portrait?"

      "Don't speak about it," she replied. "Your Henner is a wretch. I went to his studio with my husband. Henner said to me quickly: 'Please undress.' Then, as if he were talking to himself, he added: 'Her body stretched on the black velvet of this couch, her hair loose... and a dark background.... It's going to be a masterpiece!' My husband was mad with rage.... At last M. Henner saw his mistake. He had only seen my hair and my complexion, and had not stopped to think whether I were a lady or a model. He apologised profusely, and offered to paint my portrait in any dress I chose, but my husband would not listen to him...."

      He made a joke once of which he was very proud. Having been asked who were his favourite composers, he replied: "There are two, and they have the same name. When I want serious music I ask for some Sebastian Bach, and when I want gay music I ask for some Offen-bach!"

      Henner adored music. He said so, at least. But music is usually played after dinner, and after dinner, Henner retired to the smoking room in the company of a glass of brandy, and soon went to sleep. The noise of the instruments being tuned woke him up, and he came rushing into the drawing-room shouting: "Bravo, bravo; Ach.... What a nice piece that was." And he added: "And now that I have heard this masterpiece, I must retire. I have had a good dinner, I have heard excellent music, I have met charming people, and I am going away very pleased...." And the dear old man disappeared.

      I often compare him to my friend Julius Oppert, the world famous Assyriologist, a bent, thin, old man, with an endless nose, who wore a threadbare coat with numberless pockets, each of which contained one or several manuscripts or books. What a good, dear man he was, and what a character! He was full of sweet little attentions to my daughter, although she never missed an opportunity of playing tricks on the old savant. He had a curious habit of filling the tail-pockets of his coat with sandwiches, and my mischievous Marthe one day put some cream puffs among some sandwiches on a plate. Oppert did not look when, according to his custom, he filled his pocket, and in went the puffs with the sandwiches, with the result that presently the cream was oozing out from his coat-tails, much to Marthe's glee.

      Did he guess who was responsible for this little joke! I could not tell.... All I know is that at Christmas that year he sent Marthe, instead of a doll or a toy, a Sanskrit grammar, and on New Year's day, to me, whom he perhaps thought my daughter's accomplice, instead of flowers or marrons-glacés, his huge work on "The People and the Language of the Medes."

      Assyriology leads me to mention M. and Mme. Dieulafoy, well known for their excavations at Suse, and their books. Every one knows that Mme. Dieulafoy is one of the three or four women in France who are authorised to wear men's clothes. This brings back an amusing incident to me.

      Mme. Dieulafoy was kindly helping me to dress, one evening, for a theatrical performance in her salons. My maid, a country girl quite new to Paris, was nowhere to be found. When I returned home, I asked her why she had left the Dieulafoys' house when she knew I wanted her. She blushed, spluttered, and finally said: "Forgive me, Madame, but I was late, and when I opened the door of your dressing-room, I saw a gentleman at your feet fastening your costume.... So I ran away, feeling that I was not needed at all!"

      I laughed at the incident, just as I had laughed a few years before, when, in the Forest of Fontainebleau, I saw a short, white-haired man, wearing a smock, and painting, whom I congratulated. The "man" was Rosa Bonheur, the celebrated animal painter.

      Being the wife of a well-known artist, I made the acquaintance not only of sculptors and painters, but of art lovers and collectors, amongst them Chauchard and Groult.

      Of Chauchard, the millionaire founder of the Louvre stores, the philanthropist and grand-cross of the Legion of Honour, there is little to say. Camille Groult, on the other hand, was interesting because he had no false pride and really loved his pictures. He had an estate near Paris close to my summer villa, and I often met him. He had made a fortune as a manufacturer of pâtes alimentaires (farinaceous foods) and was proud of it. He was the only man I ever met who could talk romantically of tapioca, rice, spices or sago. I remember how once he told the story of his sago business. It was an epic. He made us—we were a few friends listening to him—travel to Borneo, to Ceram and other isles of the Pacific, described the sago palm and its mature trunks gorged with precious food-starch, the marshy and unhealthy river-banks where the palm grows, the life of the native packers, the price of the gunnybags in which sago travels, the competition between European, Chinese and Eurasian traders and what not.... After that I really did keenly relish Groult's sago-flour and see the romantic side of what I had always considered a prosaic business.

      Groult once took my husband and me to his old "hotel" in the Avenue Malakoff, to show us his famous collection, which was quite a favour, for he guarded his pictures jealously and rarely let them be seen.

      He showed us not only his pictures, but also his collection of Gobelins, and the way in which he spoke, for instance, of the Birth of Bacchus—a wonderful tapestry copied from a cartoon by Boucher—was a sheer delight. He possessed exquisite "Aubussons" with the most delicate pastel hues, old Chinese porcelains, a collection of snuff-boxes, unique pieces of antique furniture (which he caressed as one caresses a lover), a series of fans, the folds of which were as light as the wings of the rare butterflies in the cabinet hard by. And the paintings....

      There was a room the walls of which were covered with works by Watteau; another, the gem of which was the portrait of La Guimard by Fragonard, Boucher's pupil and friend. And there were pastels by La Tour, the СКАЧАТЬ