Read The Portrait of Mrs Charbuque for Free Online Page A
Authors: Jeffrey Ford
skull, a vase of wilted flowers, and a lit candle. I was to draw the scene by indicating only those places where the lines of the three objects and the lines of the background images intersected with each other.
"I forbid you to draw any entire object," he had told me. When M. Sabott forbade something, it was unwise to go against his wishes.
All I created that day was a sizable hill of crumpled paper. Many times, just when I thought things were going well, my mentor would walk by and say, "Begin again. You have botched it."
Page 15
To say I
loathed the exercise was putting it mildly. Three days later, the flowers having lost all their petals, the candle now a guttering nub, I finally grasped the technique. Sabott leaned over my shoulder and said, "You see, it is possible to define a figure by its relation to those things that surround it."
Now I crossed my right leg over my left, positioning the sketchbook upon my thigh, and then brought the charcoal pencil down to hover over the blank page. If the details offered by Mrs.
Charbuque were keen enough, I hoped to expose her by those elements of the story that were not her. Luckily I had a strong memory of M. Sabott. He lurked in the back of my mind, eager to tell me even now if I botched it.
The wind, muted by the marble architecture, whipped around outside the house, and I noticed through the win-dow that the last yellow rose petals had flown. That is when I became aware of the light respirations of Mrs. Charbuque. Her slow, steady breathing was like a whis-pered chant that inculcated itself into my consciousness and regulated my own respiration in accordance with hers.
"You," she said, and the word startled me, "must be familiar with the name Malcolm Ossiak."
"Certainly," I said. "The man who had it all and lost it all."
"At one point he was as wealthy as Vanderbilt. His influence was felt in nearly any industry one could imag-ine. His mills turned out everything from textiles to hydraulic pens. He had interests in railroads, shipping, real estate, and armaments. Some believe that for a time he was the wisest businessman this country had ever seen, as there are those who will tell you he was a complete fool. Be that as it may, he was a very singular man in that he sought advice not only from his stockholders, man-agers, accountants, and salesmen but also from a legion of diviners. He had on his payroll astrologers, card readers, interpreters of dreams, and even a band of old hunters who read the entrails of beasts killed upon the grounds of his western estate."
"I had no idea," I said.
"His belief," she said, "was that to remain the preemi-nent man of the present, he had to have an edge on the future. He hoped that through these metaphysical disci-plines he could circumvent the drudgery of waiting for the natural passage of time. When he was questioned about it by reporters, his only response was, 'For every raised eye-brow and mocking laugh of the doubters, I have made a thousand dollars on my investments. My wealth runs into the tens of millions, while the cynics scrabble for crumbs.' "
"You are related to Ossiak?" I asked, hoping for a tan-gible clue to Mrs. Charbuque's lineage.
"No, but my father was one of his diviners, who coaxed hidden meaning from Nature's processes.
Unlike the others, though, my father's expertise was in a field so unique, he was its only practitioner. I
don't believe my father thought of himself as part of the group of metaphysical investigators, because his pursuit employed mathematics as much as it did intuition and an understanding of arcane lore. He thought astrologers to be charlatans, and dream interpreters he referred to as
'ringmasters of nightly befud-dlement.'
On the other hand, he would proudly tell anyone who asked that he was a crystalogogist."
"A what?" I asked, hearing the word but not register-ing its meaning.
"It has a tendency to tie the tongue in a knot," she said. "A crystalogogist—
crystal referring to
"I forbid you to draw any entire object," he had told me. When M. Sabott forbade something, it was unwise to go against his wishes.
All I created that day was a sizable hill of crumpled paper. Many times, just when I thought things were going well, my mentor would walk by and say, "Begin again. You have botched it."
Page 15
To say I
loathed the exercise was putting it mildly. Three days later, the flowers having lost all their petals, the candle now a guttering nub, I finally grasped the technique. Sabott leaned over my shoulder and said, "You see, it is possible to define a figure by its relation to those things that surround it."
Now I crossed my right leg over my left, positioning the sketchbook upon my thigh, and then brought the charcoal pencil down to hover over the blank page. If the details offered by Mrs.
Charbuque were keen enough, I hoped to expose her by those elements of the story that were not her. Luckily I had a strong memory of M. Sabott. He lurked in the back of my mind, eager to tell me even now if I botched it.
The wind, muted by the marble architecture, whipped around outside the house, and I noticed through the win-dow that the last yellow rose petals had flown. That is when I became aware of the light respirations of Mrs. Charbuque. Her slow, steady breathing was like a whis-pered chant that inculcated itself into my consciousness and regulated my own respiration in accordance with hers.
"You," she said, and the word startled me, "must be familiar with the name Malcolm Ossiak."
"Certainly," I said. "The man who had it all and lost it all."
"At one point he was as wealthy as Vanderbilt. His influence was felt in nearly any industry one could imag-ine. His mills turned out everything from textiles to hydraulic pens. He had interests in railroads, shipping, real estate, and armaments. Some believe that for a time he was the wisest businessman this country had ever seen, as there are those who will tell you he was a complete fool. Be that as it may, he was a very singular man in that he sought advice not only from his stockholders, man-agers, accountants, and salesmen but also from a legion of diviners. He had on his payroll astrologers, card readers, interpreters of dreams, and even a band of old hunters who read the entrails of beasts killed upon the grounds of his western estate."
"I had no idea," I said.
"His belief," she said, "was that to remain the preemi-nent man of the present, he had to have an edge on the future. He hoped that through these metaphysical disci-plines he could circumvent the drudgery of waiting for the natural passage of time. When he was questioned about it by reporters, his only response was, 'For every raised eye-brow and mocking laugh of the doubters, I have made a thousand dollars on my investments. My wealth runs into the tens of millions, while the cynics scrabble for crumbs.' "
"You are related to Ossiak?" I asked, hoping for a tan-gible clue to Mrs. Charbuque's lineage.
"No, but my father was one of his diviners, who coaxed hidden meaning from Nature's processes.
Unlike the others, though, my father's expertise was in a field so unique, he was its only practitioner. I
don't believe my father thought of himself as part of the group of metaphysical investigators, because his pursuit employed mathematics as much as it did intuition and an understanding of arcane lore. He thought astrologers to be charlatans, and dream interpreters he referred to as
'ringmasters of nightly befud-dlement.'
On the other hand, he would proudly tell anyone who asked that he was a crystalogogist."
"A what?" I asked, hearing the word but not register-ing its meaning.
"It has a tendency to tie the tongue in a knot," she said. "A crystalogogist—
crystal referring to
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