The Rock Pool by Cyril Connolly

Author:Cyril Connolly
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-60872-775-9
Publisher: Olympia Press
Published: 2019-10-27T16:00:00+00:00

VI

RASCASSE was already painting. 'Well, well, the last sitting. Let's get down to it. This is going to be a great picture. Just let me put in those lines round the mouth. My! You can see what Trou has done to you, I've never seen anyone so altered. The ravages! It reminds me of the Picture of Dorian Gray, only it's the other way round; my portrait can't keep pace with all the changes. That's a profound book—a work of profound truth and quasi-similitude. “To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul.” Can you beat it! The formula of the artist's life in a nutshell. Yes. Oscar Wilde—a fairy but a wonderful guy. So you're really going to leave us this evening? Had enough after last night! Gee, you were a fool to go and make an enemy of Jimmy. He's a dangerous chap, and it couldn't have hurt you to have had tea with him. Well, that was the last party of the season. There won't be any more now. Some party! Those two women from Antibes passed out and had to be put in Duff's bedroom. And then Tahiti! She said she'd broken her knee doing the grand écart, and Duff and Varna had to carry her down to the village. Imagine carrying her half a kilometre! They had to get a doctor and she screamed so when he touched her he couldn't find out if anything was the matter. Then Sonia had a row with the colonial. She told me about it when she came to say good-morning to me. By the way, John Foster has it in for yon. He says that you public school and varsity men ought to stand by each other and that instead you spend all your time with Americans like Jimmy and Norwegians like Eddie-from-the-top. Toni's not going to marry him or even to go to Borneo. She feels it her duty to stay and help Géraldine. Well, I guess that's finished now. '

They both stood back to look at the picture. Against an oyster background the haggard face was only too effective. Handsome but ravaged with weakness and gloom, it might have been of some cashiered aviator, the features, young, pale, and almost noble, were forgotten, when you looked at the eyes, two wells of hopelessness, and the fallen jaw.

'Pretty swell, eh! I think I've earned my thousand francs.'

'I admire it immensely. I'll call round for it this evening before my train goes, and give you the rest of the money.'

'Splendid, the varnish will be dry then and you can pack it easier. I'll be down at the hotel cafe with it at six o'clock.'

'God, I feel bad.'

'Take a swim—that'll improve you.”

He caught a crowded bus back to Juan, in which he had to stand all the way, and his cuts and two days' growth caused him to be unpleasantly stared at. He was one of those inverted Samsons who lose all their strength till they have been shorn of their beard, and could only hang his head.

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