The Old Artist

High in the Alps is the town where the old artist lives, nestled among snow-white mountains, green meadows strewn with flowers, and lakes the colour of cut gems. Flowering trees line the cobblestoned streets, ivy and rose climb the walls, a stream like a gang of giggling children wends a path beneath a dozen bridges.

Each morning the artist rises to the sound of bellsong and chattering birds, throws open his shutters, puts on his jacket and shoes, eats a breakfast of bread and cheese, takes up his easel, paints, canvases, and brushes, and walks out to paint the day. In the chilly morning he clings to patches of sun around the square. When the day grows warm, he retires to the shade. At lunchtime he eats in a bistro behind the church, sits out the noontime heat, drinks coffee and talks about politics, love, and religion. In the afternoon he sallies out to paint again. He paints through sunset into the night, then retires to sell his work in the market. There is a stall there designated for him to use, but that stall is the place you are least likely to find him, for he is prone to wandering among the stalls of his neighbours, chatting with them and admiring the handicrafts they sell. Almost always he buys something; often he spends more than he makes; when someone comes to look at the paintings in the artist’s stall, inevitably a neighbour must whistle to call him back.

Whenever the artist makes a sale, he sets aside some cash for rent and groceries, pays off his tab at the bistro, and saves some money for emergencies and tax. He buys himself a glass of wine, shouts a round for his friends, buys the children cups of chocolate, then counts out what remains of his money, and gives it away. This has always been his way. When someone asks him why it is so, he tells them that he has no need for more money than he needs, but it makes him happy to give, and he does not suspect he will ever accumulate too much happiness. And when they ask him how he plans to live in his retirement, he informs them that he has never worked a day in his life, so semantically it makes no sense for him to retire. He doesn’t paint to become rich, but because the presence of beauty has made him rich already, and he wants to spread his riches around. He lives each day in splendour, as poor as winter, but as happy as spring. He owns nothing, like a bird, and, like a bird, he soars.

One day an art dealer came from the city to visit. By chance he went to the market, spotted the artist’s work, and was entranced immediately. He was struck by the beauty of the paintings, and thought to himself that he had never before beheld such delight. It was as though Joy itself reached out through the colours, and caressed the cockles of the dealer’s heart. His belly did a somersault, he felt a swarm of butterflies take flight in his chest. He thought he would surely faint, and blindly groped about for a chair. In a weak voice he asked for the man who had painted these marvellous things.

Someone whistled; the artist meandered across. Anxiously, the dealer asked him his price.
“For what?” said the artist.
“For everything!” cried the dealer.
The artist fanned the dealer’s face with a piece of paper. “You mean my paintings?” he said.
“Yes!” said the dealer. “Every one of them!”
“I don’t know,” said the artist. “A hundred francs?”
The dealer laughed. He wobbled in his chair, and slapped his thighs. For a moment he seemed doomed to fall. Then he hiccoughed. “Do not tease me!” he cried. “I am a man of business!” He hiccoughed once more.
The artist looked at him with concern. “Fifty francs?” he said.
The dealer stopped laughing, his face changed. He looked at the artist earnestly. “You’re being serious, aren’t you?”
“As best I can,” said the artist.
The dealer snorted. He took out his wallet, counted a thousand francs, and gave them to the artist.
The artist stared at the colourful wad of notes. “I think you’ve made a mistake.”
“I could not possibly pay you less, and call myself an honest man.”
The dealer stood up. Suddenly his composure returned to him. He took the artist’s hand, shook it sincerely, looked into his eyes, and said, “I feel like the child who, searching for silver foil in his garden, stumbles, and finds himself in El Dorado.”
The artist smiled back. “I have always felt like that.”
The dealer bowed, arranged for the paintings to be transported to his hotel, and departed. The artist was left with an empty stall, and a handful of cash.

That night they ate soup, salad, quiche and cheese, roast meat, quail eggs, poached pears in chocolate sauce, and fondue, and drank a dozen bottles of wine. They stayed up almost until dawn, the children buzzing about like flies supercharged on chocolate; there was talk and laughter and music and dance. At dawn the artist wobbled to his room, counted out his cash, put some towards his rent and his bill at the bistro, set some aside for emergencies and tax, and gave the rest away.

In the capital his work was a tremendous success. The Academy called his paintings fresh and vibrant, zesty, spirited, and other words that smell of citrus. They declared the artist a forgotten genius, an unearthed gem; his work was a bellow from the mountaintops, a call from the gods across space and time. It was so good it demanded immediately to be locked inside galleries, cordoned behind ropes and stanchions, and copied by serious young men with centre parts. The city went mad; the dealer sold all the artist’s work in a couple of days. The next week he returned to the mountains.

He found the artist in the market again, telling a fairy story to a group of kids. The dealer stood to one side and listened, remarking how similarly his grandfather had once told the same story. When the story was done and the children dispersed, the dealer took the artist aside, and told him what had happened in the capital. He told him of reviews and articles, crowds and auctions, hysteria, bidding, photographs, and press. The artist listened attentively, nodding and smiling, looking pleased from time to time, and laughing once when the dealer described how one professor’s monocle had fogged in front of the painting of dancing women. When the dealer finished his story, the artist shook his head, and said, “Those people could do with some fresh air.”

The artist had finished a few paintings during the week. The dealer bought them, took them to the capital, and sold them in a day. Once again the artist set aside some money for rent and groceries, the bistro, emergencies and tax. He bought himself a fancy dinner, and took the children out for ice-cream. In the morning he counted out the remainder of his money, and gave it away.

The next week was the same, and the week after that, too. The dealer bought the artist’s paintings, and sold them straight away. Soon he started going from door to door in the little town, offering exorbitant prices to anyone who happened to own any of the artist’s originals. He paid a family a hundred francs for a painting of their dog, and another family two hundred for a painting of a magnolia tree. He paid one father five hundred francs for a portrait of his daughter, and the daughter herself he paid in chocolate, promising a year’s supply from the finest chocolaterie in the capital, to be delivered every two weeks.

Still the city demanded more. The old artist grew more and more popular; the prices his work fetched rose and rose. Soon the dealer was paying the artist a thousand francs per painting, and still selling them at profit. The artist had never had so much money in his life; he couldn’t even imagine how he might spend it. He knew the dealer was a wealthy man, accustomed to the management of capital, so he asked him what he should do.

“You must buy a house,” said the dealer, “to save money on rent and board, and secure a peaceful place to pursue your painting.”
The artist agreed, and bought a house on the outskirts of town.
“Now you must hire servants,” said the dealer, “to clean your house, keep the gardens, cook for you, and tend to your needs. You will have to own furniture for them to clean, and clothes for them to launder. Then you will buy an automobile, so that you might come and go from town as you please. The automobile will require a chauffeur. With the rest of your money, you had best buy shares at the bank, from which you will receive monthly dividends to pay your bills and secure yourself the leisure you need to paint. And since you will be so busy with drivers, bank meetings, servants and portfolios, you had best buy a farm in the hills, to visit whenever you find yourself longing for rest.”
The dealer’s advice was undeniably sensible; the artist did as he was told.

From that day on, the artist woke each morning in a fine bed in a grand house which he owned and lived in by himself. He rose late, since the lace curtains kept out the light, and he lived so far from town that he did not hear the church bells. He rang a little buzzer, and a manservant came to dress him. They chose from a dozen suits: summer suits, spring suits, autumn suits, winter suits; suits of linen, suits of cotton, suits of wool, suits of silk. Then there was the question of ties, hats, and accessories – simply to dress took half an hour all up. After that, the artist was served breakfast at a private table, prepared by a personal chef. He flicked through a newspaper, did his correspondence, read quarterly reports from companies in which he owned stock, and perhaps went for a walk on the treadmill if he felt fidgety. At noon he ate once more. In the afternoon he napped, then rose and gave directions to the gardeners and cleaners. He took an active interest in the planting of a rosarium, and harboured hopes that, in time, his garden would win awards. In the evening he went to town to dine with bankers in grey suits. He came home in the grey of night, took a light supper, and went to bed, feeling tired but restless, anxious and uneasy, energetic but unproductive, as though there were a battery of power inside him that was slowly stagnating, rusting at the terminals, turning acid, and poisoning his blood.

On weekends he retreated to his farm. There he sat in the shade beneath an oak tree and tried to paint. He searched and searched for beauty – he felt himself surrounded by it, but his vision was foggy, and he could never quite make beauty out. Sometimes he caught a glimpse of something, but then, invariably, his arm fell limp, and he could never replicate what he saw on the page. He grew impatient; he no longer knew how to wait. He was certain that he had never been required to wait before! All he could remember was delight! All he recalled was ecstasy! He made many starts but finished nothing. Every idea seemed to fold back on itself. He cursed the sleeping muses, cursed the dull and insipid world. Sometimes a flight of inspiration carried him through the first strokes of a work, but soon he lost the thread, and in disgust cast the canvas aside. He couldn’t bear to sit still. There was nowhere he wanted to be; above all, he did not want to be where he was! His groin itched, his spine crept, his legs hopped about. Tickles crawled like bugs beneath his skin. He wanted to bust out of his body and run away from himself. He could sense his chauffeur waiting in the car behind him, watching him fail to paint. He hated the chauffeur, he hated the car! He felt embarrassed and humiliated: he leapt up, snatched his canvas, stormed off, jumped into the car, slammed the door, and in a foul temper told the chauffeur to drive off.

The dealer came several times, but each time the artist had no paintings to sell. It was clear that this would be a permanent state of affairs. The dealer was philosophical: the old artist was not the first to retire from the service of the muses; inspiration shines briefly, then, for most of us, goes out. We must count it a blessing that it ever shined on us at all! It is neither healthy nor necessary to yearn up eternally on genius’ wings; it is also permissible to live a human life, eat well, and rest. The dealer congratulated the artist heartily on a sparkling career, and wished him the happiest of all retirements. He assured him that his name would live long in posterity, and he would always be admired in the capital. He would be welcomed by large crowds if he ever decided to give a series of lectures. And if he wanted to teach at the Academy, the dealer was sure that he could find the artist a place.

He stepped back, and looked the old artist up and down. He saw him standing in front of his grand house, dressed in a fine suit, with a butler and valet, surrounded by roses, possessed of a sparkling reputation, and the means to secure all that he could ever desire. The dealer nodded, satisfied that he had done both the artist and the world a service, shook the man’s hand, and drove off to the capital, never to return to the town again.

The old artist continued his luxurious life. He had neither the need nor the will to paint. More than that: his failures frustrated him so much that the very idea of painting disgusted him. He purged all traces of his old vocation from his life. He kept no art in the house, did not go for long walks or linger to watch the light change at sunset. He lived a mechanical, robotic life, in which every day was more or less the same. He ate and slept and ate again. Food entered at one end and exited the other, money entered one end and exited the other, sleep entered one end and the days dribbled out. The artist read market updates and paid taxes. He drank coffee in the morning and wine at night. His life oscillated between excitement and exhaustion; he no longer felt the warm, gentle flushes of joy. He slept long and poorly. He spent most of his time trying to evade his own malaise.

In the city there was a banking crisis, and the market plummeted. In the scheme of things it was no catastrophe, but the old artist was afraid. He sold everything, at tremendous loss, for the tax write-off. The market recovered – the artist bought again – the market overcorrected, and the artist lost. To cover his losses he sold his farm. He made a rash investment in an oil exploration which failed. He took a mortgage. Men in grey suits licked their lips and rubbed their hands together. The old man sold his car and laid off his chauffeur. He did without most of his servants. Money oozed like sweat from his pores. His hands trembled; there were blood-blue rings beneath his eyes. He slept little and only in fits. He could not concentrate on anything; he was constantly preoccupied – but by what? By nothing. He could never remember! He began painting to cover the payments on his mortgage. He painted vases of flowers and scenes from mythology in the classical style: technically perfect pieces, in exquisite proportion, which followed all the proper formations, and obeyed every rule of fashion and style. He sent his work to be sold in the capital, but no one bought it. The Academy turned up their noses, and the public shrank away. Words like “derivative” and “contrived” were bandied about. Some critics even suggested that the work was a fraud, and not painted by the old man at all. The paintings were returned to him at his own expense. Even his art yielded a loss.

The artist defaulted on his mortgage. Men in grey suits came to take possession of his home. Pitilessly, with no memories of their former friendship, they turned him onto the street. He went back to his old rooms near the church, where he lived a miserly life, skimping and scraping to get by. He avoided costs wherever he could, delayed payment of bills, and frequently refused to pay them at all. He took advantage of his friends, and quickly fouled his reputation. He would gladly have stolen if he had spotted a chance. He thought back constantly over his life, bitterly regretting every franc he had ever given away, when it could well have been saved.

Soon he chiselled his way down to his final fifty francs. He stood one morning with the banknote in his hands, holding it up to the sunlight at his window, examining it. It was clean, crisp, and magnetic. It seemed beautiful to him. He planned to take it to the bank and invest it in a postage scheme. He felt greedy and frenetic, and desperately poor. He put on his old shoes and unwashed jacket, ate a meagre breakfast of bread and cheese, went outside, turned his collar up, and slunk towards the bank.

Sitting in the bank doorway was a beggar, holding a bowl. He was bone-thin and dressed in rags. The old artist, turning up his nose, had to step around him to get inside. He was irritated that the beggar did not move, and was about to curse him, when he realised the beggar was blind.

The artist stopped. He looked down at the beggar, sitting blind and oblivious in the sun, as around him children played, couples held hands, people laughed, sparrows hopped along the streets, the grass was green, purple flowers weighed the arms of magnolias, poppies budded in the fields, snow capped the faraway mountains, and the sky was blue. Blue! Not grey, but blue! Of all possible colours, the deepest and richest blue!

It seemed months since the old artist had seen the sky. It was years since he had felt the breeze, and heard the chirping birds. Life cut suddenly through the fog he had sown around him, and dazzled his eyes. He breathed in deeply, sighed, then smiled. His eyes softened, his belly unclenched. He almost laughed. He turned, and looked inside the bank: men in grey suits scrambled about, scrawling figures on chalkboards. Mahogany and leather, cigar smoke, carpet, and artificial light. The old man turned back to look at the sky. He squinted his eyes, shook his head, bent down, and dropped the banknote into the beggar’s bowl.

“It is I,” he said, “not you, who has been blind.”
“No,” said the beggar, “you will find that I’m actually quite blind.”
“I meant it metaphorically.”
“That must be a nice luxury for you.”
“I have been blind like Peter.”
“I’m as blind as a bat.”
The old man reached out, took hold of the beggar’s arm, and pulled him to his feet.
“What are you doing?” cried the beggar. “Are you molesting me?”
“Come,” said the old man, “let’s spend your money.”
“Is this a robbery?” cried the beggar. “Help! Rape!”
“I have just given you fifty francs,” said the old man.
“Get fucked!” said the beggar. “Pull the other one.”
“I’m serious,” said the old man.
“You’re not?!” said the beggar.
“I am,” said the old man. He took the beggar’s arm and led him into the bank. At first the tellers were upset to see the beggar inside; their faces lit up when they saw him holding a fifty-franc note, and they were downcast again when the artist asked them to break it into coins. The artist started to smile. He led the beggar outside, took him to a tailor, bought him a suit of clothes, then took him to a shoemaker to buy shoes. He treated the man to lunch at a bistro, bought him cakes and fruit, and finally took him to a boarding home, where he paid six month’s rent in advance. He left the rest of the money with the landlord, for the blind man’s costs.

The beggar was crying now, and as the old artist left he reached out, clutched hold of the artist’s arm, and said: “You have fallen like a gift from Heaven. I only wish I could repay you.”
The old artist looked at him, and smiled. There were tears in his eyes, also. “I think you already have.”

That evening he went to his rooms behind the church, and painted. He painted a whirl of swirling colours, and in the middle a man – a face – a pair of blind eyes looking up at the sun, weeping, and giving thanks. He finished the painting at dawn, and was pleased with it. He knocked on his landlady’s door, and borrowed a few sous to send the painting to the art dealer in the capital. A week later a letter returned, containing a hundred francs and a note calling the work a masterpiece.

The artist took his hundred francs, spent some on groceries and rent, paid his tab at the bistro, and set some money aside for emergencies and tax. He went to a bar and ordered a glass of wine, which he drank slowly, looking at the street. The next morning he went to the finest patisserie in town, ordered as many butter cakes as his money could buy, and asked that they be delivered to the local school at 3o’clock.

His next painting, of a mob of sparkling children with cakes, sold in the capital for two hundred francs. The artist paid his rent, groceries, and his tab at the bistro, set some money aside for emergencies and tax, and bought himself a caramel slice. He spent the rest of the money restoring an old park near the post office.

His next painting, of thousands of flowers in bloom, sold for three hundred francs. The painting after that, of a grand wedding given as a gift to two peasants in love, sold for five hundred. The next painting, of all the birds at the zoo released on a summer afternoon, sold for a thousand.

Thus continued the artist’s life. Each day at dawn he rose, dressed, ate, painted, went to the bistro, stayed to chat, painted again in the afternoon, and went to the market at night. He told stories to children and played with cats in the sun. He spent time lying on the lawn behind the post office, listening to the birds and looking at the sky. Every day he tried to capture the beauty he saw, and every day he failed. Every evening he forgave himself, though, and came back in the morning to try again. All along he knew it was pretence – he just wanted to be close to the beauty around him. Cheeky, like a boy, offering all his false excuses, he crept again and again into the jam cupboard at night.

One night the old artist passed away. His face was serene and contented, a little smile lingered like a kiss upon his lips. Apart from some money he had set aside for rent, groceries, the bistro, emergencies, and taxes, and some clothes, bedsheets, a table, a vase, and three red roses, the artist owned nothing at all. There was no money in his name at the bank, no companies in which owned shares, no mortgages or high-interest bonds. He left this world just as poor as he was when he came into it, but the world itself he left a little richer.