The man was made for me--I felt that the first time I
clapped eyes on him. I could hardly keep from asking him to sit to me on
the spot; but somehow one couldn't ask favors of the fellow. I sat still
and prayed he'd come to me, though; for I was looking for something big
for the next Salon. It was twelve years ago--the last time I was out
ere--and I was ravenous for an opportunity. I had the feeling--do you
writer-fellows have it too?--that there was something tremendous in me if
it could only be got out; and I felt Vard was the Moses to strike the
rock. There were vulgar reasons, too, that made me hunger for a victim.
I'd been grinding on obscurely for a good many years, without gold or
glory, and the first thing of mine that had made a noise was my picture of
Pepita, exhibited the year before. There'd been a lot of talk about that,
orders were beginning to come in, and I wanted to follow it up with a
rousing big thing at the next Salon. Then the critics had been insinuating
that I could do only Spanish things--I suppose I _had_ overdone the
castanet business; it's a nursery-disease we all go through--and I wanted
to show that I had plenty more shot in my locker. Don't you get up every
morning meaning to prove you're equal to Balzac or Thackeray? That's the
way I felt then; _only give me a chance_, I wanted to shout out to them;
and I saw at once that Vard was my chance.
I had come over from Paris in the autumn to paint Mrs.
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