After three full days in the
Tuileries, there was hardly any landscape to speak of; the pond,
the chestnut
trees—the painter had buried all beneath streaks and daubs of paint that formed the two figures who had so hijacked his imagination. The palette he had used to render them was more primary than usual—consisting of heavy reds, blacks, and browns—but, as in all his paintings, the hard lines of the figures were blurred to suggest the constant movement of things. One of the figures wasn’t human but a broad-chested creature with overmuscled arms and legs and, where its hands should have been, thick paws with claws as glittering and long as polished carving knives. What’s more, it had the face of a cat, complete with whiskers and a menacing set of fangs. The other figure was probably a woman, though nothing about the thick bramble of red hair or the sneerful face with its wrinkles of disgust and eyes steeled with condescension suggested femininity. No, it was the couture that made the painter think the figure was a woman—a dress made entirely of thorny roses and their long, twisting vines. The blooms on several of the roses faced him, their innermost petals baring teeth like eager mouths hungry for a bite of…he didn’t like to guess.
In his studio, hiding from his wife, he threw the painting on the fire. The haunting figures were gone, cinders and ash; burning them had been for the best. But by noon the following day, among the background tones that had been all he’d managed to set on canvas, were two black splotches of paint he didn’t remember making. He painted over them immediately. Paint a landscape, any landscape. But they were already back by the time he was packing up to go home: the humanoid feline and the cruel woman in her dress of roses, taking up his entire canvas. His next attempt turned out exactly like the others. As did the one after that. He could paint nothing but the cat-beast and the snarling woman. Bitter and depressed, he welcomed his wife’s scoldings. He deserved them; he was a failure. He carried his failings to a nameless alley. He entered a nameless establishment where neither beauty nor virtue were to be found—just cheap wine, which he slung down his throat until he could see nothing clearly, until everything inside and outside his head was a tilting carousel, spinning around in a blear of colors and textures. He had to dull his senses, had to keep himself from envisioning the cat-beast and its female companion. Somehow, in the early dawn, and despite lampposts frequently darting into his path, he made it back to his apartment. In the unlit studio, he couldn’t see his latest attempt at a landscape, but he sensed it—a large canvas as tall as himself covered with a bedsheet and leaning against a wall in the corner. “What’s that?” he said aloud because he thought he’d heard…was that the sheet rustling? Did he hear breathing? Purring?
“Ngah!”
He gasped awake, still in his suit. He lit the lamp and gazed around, trying to focus his thoughts, to understand what had—
“My God!”
The studio door was in splinters. The sheet that had been covering his painting lay on the floor. He started to lift his glance. He didn’t want to look; he was afraid. But he had to: Slowly, he raised his eyes to what was left of the canvas, too horrified to cry out at what he saw. Where the cat-beast and woman had been there was nothing, just a hole exactly the shape of their outlines, as if someone had cut them out of the picture or—
“Impossible,” the painter breathed.
Because things like that didn’t happen. A pair of painted figures escaping their canvas? It was a joke. Inanimate figures did not come to life as in some fairy tale. It was one thing for his paintings to suggest
trees—the painter had buried all beneath streaks and daubs of paint that formed the two figures who had so hijacked his imagination. The palette he had used to render them was more primary than usual—consisting of heavy reds, blacks, and browns—but, as in all his paintings, the hard lines of the figures were blurred to suggest the constant movement of things. One of the figures wasn’t human but a broad-chested creature with overmuscled arms and legs and, where its hands should have been, thick paws with claws as glittering and long as polished carving knives. What’s more, it had the face of a cat, complete with whiskers and a menacing set of fangs. The other figure was probably a woman, though nothing about the thick bramble of red hair or the sneerful face with its wrinkles of disgust and eyes steeled with condescension suggested femininity. No, it was the couture that made the painter think the figure was a woman—a dress made entirely of thorny roses and their long, twisting vines. The blooms on several of the roses faced him, their innermost petals baring teeth like eager mouths hungry for a bite of…he didn’t like to guess.
In his studio, hiding from his wife, he threw the painting on the fire. The haunting figures were gone, cinders and ash; burning them had been for the best. But by noon the following day, among the background tones that had been all he’d managed to set on canvas, were two black splotches of paint he didn’t remember making. He painted over them immediately. Paint a landscape, any landscape. But they were already back by the time he was packing up to go home: the humanoid feline and the cruel woman in her dress of roses, taking up his entire canvas. His next attempt turned out exactly like the others. As did the one after that. He could paint nothing but the cat-beast and the snarling woman. Bitter and depressed, he welcomed his wife’s scoldings. He deserved them; he was a failure. He carried his failings to a nameless alley. He entered a nameless establishment where neither beauty nor virtue were to be found—just cheap wine, which he slung down his throat until he could see nothing clearly, until everything inside and outside his head was a tilting carousel, spinning around in a blear of colors and textures. He had to dull his senses, had to keep himself from envisioning the cat-beast and its female companion. Somehow, in the early dawn, and despite lampposts frequently darting into his path, he made it back to his apartment. In the unlit studio, he couldn’t see his latest attempt at a landscape, but he sensed it—a large canvas as tall as himself covered with a bedsheet and leaning against a wall in the corner. “What’s that?” he said aloud because he thought he’d heard…was that the sheet rustling? Did he hear breathing? Purring?
“Ngah!”
He gasped awake, still in his suit. He lit the lamp and gazed around, trying to focus his thoughts, to understand what had—
“My God!”
The studio door was in splinters. The sheet that had been covering his painting lay on the floor. He started to lift his glance. He didn’t want to look; he was afraid. But he had to: Slowly, he raised his eyes to what was left of the canvas, too horrified to cry out at what he saw. Where the cat-beast and woman had been there was nothing, just a hole exactly the shape of their outlines, as if someone had cut them out of the picture or—
“Impossible,” the painter breathed.
Because things like that didn’t happen. A pair of painted figures escaping their canvas? It was a joke. Inanimate figures did not come to life as in some fairy tale. It was one thing for his paintings to suggest