General Bramble (WWI Centenary Series). Andre Maurois
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The French Mission in its profound wisdom had sent as liaison officer to the Scottish Division a captain of Dragoons whose name was Beltara.
“Are you any relation to the painter, sir?” Aurelle, the interpreter, asked him.
“What did you say?” said the dragoon. “Say that again, will you? You are in the army, aren’t you? You are a soldier, for a little time at any rate? and you claim to know that such people as painters exist? You actually admit the existence of that God-forsaken species?”
And he related how he had visited the French War Office after he had been wounded, and how an old colonel had made friends with him and had tried to find him a congenial job.
“What’s your profession in civilian life, capitaine?” the old man had asked as he filled in a form.
“I am a painter, sir.”
“A painter?” the colonel exclaimed, dumbfounded. “A painter? Why, damn it all!”
And after thinking it over for a minute he added, with the kindly wink of an accomplice in crime, “Well, let’s put down nil, eh? It won’t look quite so silly.”
Captain Beltara and Aurelle soon became inseparable companions. They had the same tastes and different professions, which is the ideal recipe for friendship. Aurelle admired the sketches in which the painter recorded the flexible lines of the Flemish landscape; Beltara was a kindly critic of the young man’s rather feeble verses.
“You would perhaps be a poet,” he said to him, “if you were not burdened with a certain degree of culture. An artist must be an idiot. The only perfect ones are the sculptors; then come the landscape painters; then painters in general; after them the writers. The critics are not at all stupid; and the really intelligent men never do anything.”
“Why shouldn’t intelligence have an art of its own, as sensibility has?”
“No, my friend, no. Art is a game; intelligence is a profession. Look at me, for instance; now that I no longer touch my brushes, I sometimes actually catch myself thinking; it’s quite alarming.”
“You ought to paint some portraits here, mon capitaine. Aren’t you tempted? These sunburnt British complexions——”
“Of course, my boy, it is tempting; but I haven’t got my things with me. Besides, would they consent to sit?”
“Of course they would, for as long as you like. To-morrow I’ll bring round young Dundas, the aide-de-camp. He’s got nothing to do; he’ll be delighted.”
Next day Beltara made a three-crayon sketch of Lieutenant Dundas. The young aide-de-camp turned out quite a good sitter; all he asked was to be allowed to do something, which meant shouting his hunting cries, cracking his favourite whip and talking to his dog.
“Ah,” said Aurelle, at the end of the sitting, “I like that immensely—really. It’s so lightly touched—it’s a mere nothing, and yet the whole of England is there.”
And, waving his hands with the ritual gestures of the infatuated picture-lover, he praised the artlessness of the clear, wide eyes, the delightful freshness of the complexion, and the charming candour of the smile.
But the Cherub planted himself in front of his portrait, struck the classical pose of the golfer, and, poising his arms and hitting at an imaginary ball, pronounced judgment on the work of art with perfect frankness.
“My God,” he said, “what an awful thing! How the deuce did you see, old man, that my breeches were laced at the side?”
“What on earth can that matter?” asked Aurelle, annoyed.
“Matter! Would you like to be painted with your nose behind your ear? My God! It’s about as much like me as it is like Lloyd George.”
“Likeness is quite a secondary quality,” said Aurelle condescendingly. “The interesting thing is not the individual; it is the type, the synthesis of a whole race or class.”
“In the days when I was starving in my native South,” said the painter, “I used to paint portraits of tradesmen’s wives for a fiver. When I had done, the family assembled for a private view. ‘Well,’ said the husband, ‘it’s not so bad; but what about the likeness, eh? You put it in afterwards, I suppose?’ ‘The likeness?’ I indignantly replied. ‘The likeness? My dear sir, I am a painter of ideals; I don’t paint your wife as she is, I paint her as she ought to be. Your wife? Why, you see her every day—she cannot interest you. But my painting—ah, you never saw anything like my painting!’ And the tradesman was convinced, and went about repeating in every café on the Cannebière, ‘Beltara, mon bon, is the painter of ideals; he does not paint my wife as she is, he paints her as she ought to be.’”
“Well,” interrupted young Lieutenant Dundas, “if you can make my breeches lace in front, I should be most grateful. I look like a damned fool as it is now!”
The following week Beltara, who had managed to get hold of some paints, made excellent studies in oil of Colonel Parker and Major Knight. The major, who was stout, found his corporation somewhat exaggerated.
“Yes,” said the painter, “but with the varnish, you know——”
And with an expressive movement of his hands he made as if to restore the figure to more normal dimensions.
The colonel, who was lean, wanted to be padded out.
“Yes,” said Beltara, “but with the varnish, you know——”
And his hands, moving back again, gave promise of astonishing expansions.
Having regained a taste for his profession, he tried his hand at some of the finest types in the Division. His portraits met with various verdicts; each model thought his own rotten and the others excellent.
The Divisional Squadron Commander found his boots badly polished. The C.R.E. commented severely on the important mistakes in the order of his ribbons; the Legion of Honour being a foreign order should not have preceded the Bath, and the Japanese Rising Sun ought to have followed the Italian Order for Valour.
The only unqualified praise came from the sergeant-major who acted as chief clerk to General Bramble. He was a much-beribboned old warrior with a head like a faun and three red hairs on top of it. He had the respectful familiarity of the underling who knows he is indispensable, and he used to come in at all times of the day and criticize the captain’s work.
“That’s fine, sir,” he would say, “that’s fine.”
After some time he asked Aurelle whether the captain would consent “to take his photo.” The request was accepted, for the old N.C.O.’s beacon-like countenance tempted the painter, and he made a kindly caricature.
“Well, sir,” the old soldier said to him, “I’ve seen lots of photographer chaps the likes of you—I’ve seen lots at fairs in Scotland—but I’ve never seen one as gives you a portrait so quick.”
He soon told General Bramble of the painter’s prowess; and as he exercised a respectful but all-powerful authority over the general, he persuaded him to come and give the French liaison officer a sitting.
The general proved an admirable model of discipline. Beltara, who was very anxious to be successful in this attempt, demanded several sittings. The general arrived punctually, took up his pose with charming deliberation, and when the painter had done, said “Thank you,” with a smile, and went away without saying another word.
“Look here,” Beltara said to Aurelle, “does this bore him or not? He hasn’t come one single time to look at