A Writer's Notebook (32 page)

The placid lake reflecting the white clouds, and the trees russet already with approaching autumn; the green woodland distance, the sober opulence of elm and oak. It was a stately scene that told of care and long tending; and by the borders of that lake might well have sat the decadent ladies of Watteau, discussing preciously with swains gallant in multi-coloured silks the verses of Racine and the letters of Madame de-Sévigné.

A breezy, flaunting affectation, a defiant pose which contemned the philistine, yet needed his indignant surprise for full entertainment, like that delightful creature, all arts and graces, tripping immortally on the canvas of Antoine Watteau,
L'Indifférent
, in doublet of blue satin, and hose and shoes of rose, ruffles at his wrists, and a light cloak flung negligently over one arm.

In the early morning, the sun scarce risen, the trees, the water, had a tender, delicate grey that reminded one charmingly
of a picture by Corot: there was a subtle and luminous grace in the scene that cleansed the heart of every base emotion.

His features were rather large, his face rather square, but notwithstanding his beauty was striking. But there was in his countenance more than beauty; for the sombreness of his expression, almost surly in moments of repose, his large dark eyes, almond and shaped like those of an Oriental, his red lips exquisitely modelled and sensual, his dark chestnut hair, cut short and curling becomingly over his head, gave him an appearance of cruel haughtiness, of a supreme and disdainful indifference to the passion he might arouse. It was a vicious face, except that beauty can never be vicious, it was a cruel face, except that indifference can never be quite cruel. It was a face that remained in your mind, and your feeling was partly admiring, partly terrified. His skin was very clear, like ivory suffused with a delicate carmine; and he had long fashioning fingers, the nervous, adroit, active hands of that portrait of a sculptor by Bronzino. You felt that at their touch the clay must almost mould itself into lovely forms.

It was a curious face, heartless and indifferent, indolent and passionate, cold yet sensual.

Radiant with health, like the persons of Venetian pictures in which the glory of living seems so comfortable a fact.

He had the malicious laugh of the faun of Vienne, the roguish lips and the glittering inhuman eyes: he had the same small nose, the same oddly shaped head, which notwithstanding its human form recalls the fabled creature's animality.

Coldly beautiful, she has an exquisite, virginal grace, a perfectly unconscious composure, so that she makes you think (and you smile as you think) of that statue in the Louvre in which Diana, in the likeness of a young girl, with collected gesture fastens her cloak. Her ear is as delicate and as finely wrought, and her features have an exquisite precision.

The thin straight nose, the tight-closed, austere lips of the fanatic. In his close-set eyes and compressed jaw, in the tension with which he restlessly held himself there was a cold determination and a sullen obstinacy.

With his black curling beard, square cut and luxuriant, his low forehead, straight nose and high colour he looked like those statues of Bacchus in which the god is represented as no stripling, but as a man in the full prime of life.